If You Give a Girl a Cookie

where i've been.

2011-10-05T15:49:00.000-04:00

I've missed this place. I've missed the smirking little girl up at the top of the page there, the one with the mixing bowl and freckled cheeks. I've missed cooking, and I've missed hearing from you, dear readers.

Since it's been just shy of two whole months since my last post, I'll just get right to it. I'm a little pregnant. We're due in April, and no one was more surprised than me. And while some bloggers seem to chug happily along, posting the standard cinnamon-bun-in-the-oven recipes to announce their pregnancies, I have been down for the count. I wish I had more to share, but I've been on a steady diet of cereal and toast for the past twelve weeks and frankly, the very thought of stirring a pot sends me running for the facilities to hug my new BFF, Mr. Toilet.

I'm praying things are on the upswing, but between graduate school, a new job, married life, and worrying if my lunch will come up any second, there hasn't been much time for brownies. I think that's the worst.

Be back soon. Promise.

almond torte with sugared apricots.

2011-08-11T10:55:00.000-04:00

Fruit and I have come a long way. I used to stuff myself silly with every kind of peach, plum, and apple I could get my hands on, nothing was off limits. So it was a terrible surprise when one day, in between fifth and sixth grade, a red apple turned against me.

We had just moved to a new town and my parents took me and my siblings on a picnic at a local park to blow off some steam before the school year started. There were a few rusted out swingsets and an oversized Coca-Cola can you could crawl through, although that's only entertaining for so long. I think we had sandwiches or some other picnic fare, but I can't remember exactly. It's all been blocked out by that terrible episode of The Apple.

My Dad packed a tub of caramel dipping sauce for our apple slices, and when it was time to eat, I didn't waste a minute. I ate half an apple worth of slices before taking off for the slide again, but by the time I reached the top of the ladder, my lips were tingling. I chewed on them a bit, thinking it was nothing, but it got worse. Within a few minutes, my tongue, cheeks and gums were all itchy and swollen, and we didn't know why.

Through a few rounds of trial an error (a horrible reaction to some peaches at my friend Natalie's house was the clincher), my allergist diagnosed me with a fruit allergy, and the only thing I could have for years was watermelon. Anything else and I swelled up like a balloon. It was really ridiculous, I had to carry an Epi-Pen around school and the nurse called me down to her office to see if I needed specially made lunches. I mumbled something like, "I'll just pack, thanks..." and walked sheepishly back to class.

Over the years, it has gotten better. I still can't eat apples, and I still react to some fruits, but apricots are back from the Dark Side. Just touching them to my lips 5 years ago would've made me look like a puffer fish, but they've since apologized and begged to come back. I'm starting small with this apricot torte, and I think apricots and I are back on track to being fine friends again.

First, you blitz a handful of almonds into a powder, perhaps leaving a few crunchy bits in there because you are lazy or just enjoy your cake batter studded with almonds. Then you whip up a quick and dirty batter with your standard butter, eggs, sugar and flour and top the whole thing off with a ring of halved apricots, bright orange and juicy. Now, because apricots tend to be on the mouth-puckering side of the fruit spectrum, it would serve you well to sprinkle a bit of sugar over the tops before sliding it into the oven to bake. Once it gets going, it perfumes your whole house with the scent of toasted almonds and blistering fruit, the sort of fragrance that forces you to walk in and out of the house just to have it register in your senses again. Once it's ready, the top crackles and shatters in spots and some apricots nestle down beneath the surface of the cake (a welcome surprise upon slicing). The few wedges of fruit that stuck around will fill with a little puddle of apricot juice and you might be sorely tempted to scoop them out with a spoon and forgo the cake altogether.

But don't. Let it cool ever so slightly, pour yourself a cuppa, and call it breakfast.

Almond Torte with Sugared Apricots
Adapted from Orangette & Marion Burros

1/3 cup finely ground almonds
2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs

For topping:
6 ripe apricots, halved and pitted
1-2 Tbsp. granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the almonds until they are finely ground. Don't worry about overdoing it, I let mine whirl for a good while with no sign of almond butter in sight.

In a small bowl, whisk together the ground almonds, flour, baking powder and salt.

In the food processor, pulse together the butter, sugar and eggs until just combined. Add in the dry ingredients and mix in short bursts until the flour just barely disappears. Scoop the batter into a 9-inch spring-form pan and spread it evenly with an offset spatula.

Arrange the apricot halves evenly across the top of the batter and sprinkle with sugar (1 tablespoon if they are plenty sweet, or 2 tablespoons if they need a little boost. I find most apricots are fairly sour, so I used two).

Bake for 40-50 minutes or until the top is a bit crackly and golden brown. Cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

summer succotash.

2011-08-04T11:32:00.000-04:00

I haven't spent nearly as much time in the kitchen this summer as I'd hoped. That sounds awfully backwards given that this summer was one of the hottest to date and no person in their right mind would want to spend it next to the hot stove, but I can't help but feel I missed something along the way.

Perhaps it was the adjustment of married life that swallowed up the time, or that our house insisted on being an absolute nuisance more often than not, or that I found myself slurping up bowls of cereal for dinner (save for the tomato + fried bread which was positively divine) while my darling husband was out policing the streets, but I have that sort of hollow feeling in my belly. Do you ever get that? That strange sensation that you've forgotten something? I think, for me, it was the kitchen.

Now I know I must sound awfully melancholy and you might be thinking, "C'mon, Britt! You've still got a good chunk of summer left! Think of the tomatoes! The pie! Think of Arnold Palmer!" And oh, I suppose you might be right. But now that I am scheduled for a return to graduate school (I do hope I am not completely rusty after a semester's vacation), there's that sinking feeling floating just below my ribcage. I miss my free time already. I ought to buck up, really, I should. It's just that I spent the first half of my summer battling with that same graduate school after I ended up with a professor whose vacation was interrupted by his obligation to teach the class. Honestly.

It's possible you're wondering what on earth any of that has to do with succotash. You might even be sitting there, jaw squared and lip nearly curled, thinking of how much you hate succotash. The first time I ever had succotash, it was at an old boyfriend's grandmother's house for dinner. She made Swiss steak, mashed potatoes and succotash - better known as a humble mixture of corn and lima beans. I didn't see the hype at first, but with a little salt and a nub of sweet butter, it wasn't so bad.

But this is hardly succotash at all. It starts with a bit of bacon (or country ham in our case), then you toss in a few handful of juicy tomatoes, garlic, and onion right into the bacon fat. It will sizzle and pop and hiss for a moment or two and while you listen, you can spend a few moments cleaning up the rogue corn kernels that have bounced all over your floor like pearls from a broken necklace.

Once all the vegetables are cooked but still a bit toothsome, you mix in a good bunch of arugula and fresh basil, perhaps a cup of brown rice or chewy farro to round it out (one! bowl! meal!). We ate on the back porch with a tall glass of sweet tea and a fluffy cloud of Parmesan cheese while the sun sank down. And that's what I'll miss about the summer: No lingering thoughts of homework to be done, the clinking of silverware against a bowl on the porch, a bottomless pitcher of iced tea, and perhaps even a bowl of this succotash.

Adapted from Gourmet.

everyday chocolate cake.

2011-07-25T16:52:00.000-04:00

My Dad is a difficult man. You know my Dad, right? The one who is obsessed with lemon cookies, who gives a tiny fist pump at the table when dinner is especially nice, the guy who accuses me of adding "nuts and bolts" to a dish whenever he thinks there is too much going on - that's him.

He is especially fussy about dessert. Those lemon cookies I was telling you about? I'm sorry I ever made them. Seriously. At least once a week I get a text message from him (it usually reads something like: Britt I need lmn cks sugr shards pls when can u have them?) asking where the next batch is, and each time I tell him that I am sick to death of those cookies and I can't help him. Then I make a batch for him anyway.

He's especially tricky post-dinner, about the time the dishes are piled in the sink and we're all sitting on my back porch watching the dog chase an invisible ball (if you play fetch in the dark, he has no idea you're not throwing anything - brilliant!), he'll ask. I can almost predict it to the minute. We're all happily digesting and he'll shoot me a sideways glance and ask, "You got anything for dessert?"

And being me, of course, I have a kitchen full of sugary confections, but it's in his nature to be especially choosy. I'll offer a scoop of ice cream, perhaps a brownie, a slice of zucchini bread leftover from the Sunday before - but no. He'll continue nagging until I finally wave the white flag of surrender and he'll say, "You got like a chocolate cake or somethin'?" After one too many awkward situations involving back porch sittin' and a lack of chocolate cake, I started preparing ahead of time.

If you have ever found yourself in a similar circumstance, or perhaps your father is equally charming, or maybe you just need a good recipe for a no-fuss chocolate cake to whip out at any given moment, then this is for you. It's a humble looking loaf that packs an anything-but-modest chocolate flavor, a texture that I daresay borders on fudginess, and with a quick dusting of powdered sugar, you can put it on a fancy plate and call it dessert.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen & Magnolia Bakery.

homemade peach ice cream.

2011-07-21T15:43:00.000-04:00

When it's smoldering hot outside, the kind of hot that makes sweat beads pop up on your forehead just walking to get the mail, the kind that makes you lay on top the air vents and suck ice cubes, the kind that seems so relentless even at ten in the evening and the air is still thick as mud, that awful sort of heat that you trudged through on your nightly jog only to have your puppy decide he's had enough during the last quarter mile and refuse to lift his paws another step so you carry him home instead, then it's time to make peach ice cream.

I don't use my ice cream machine nearly enough, and I blame it on the mechanics of it. It's one of those fancy numbers that require no rock salt or manual labor, but instead a canister that takes a full twenty-four hours to freeze before you can use it. If you've been reading this blog for even a little while, you know that most of my baking happens on impulse - a sudden craving, a late night baking spell - so when the idea for ice cream tickles my tummy, it's quickly diminished by the realization I still haven't put the canister in the freezer and by the time it's ready to churn the desire for ice cream has completely escaped me. I'm a little flaky that way.

But this? This I planned for. I was waiting on a few doughnut peaches to ripen on the counter, patiently preparing for their day to take a swim through frozen cream. They took forever. For-ev-er. And sadly, they weren't even that good. Really. They are fun to look at and it's super fun to say "doughnut peach," but really, they have no flavor. Thankfully, I was redeemed by a lone Eastern peach that was going soft with ripeness, so I tossed that in with the doughnuts and got on my way. (So if you have the choice, go with traditional, sweet-smelling peaches that are starting to squish in spots - they truly make the best ice cream).

This recipe has the addition of sour cream, something I thought was a bit strange and my mother balked at when I told her what was in it. But really, it was quite lovely. It cuts the sweetness of the peaches just a bit and offsets the richness of the heavy cream just enough to allow for a second scoop. The original recipe doesn't call for the addition of chopped peach to be added, but when I saw the instruction to puree the whole batch, my heart sank a little. Half the joy of eating peach ice cream is the icy slivers of real peach woven throughout, am I right or am I right?

Of course I'm right. Now get on it.

Adapted from The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz.

cinnamon iced oatmeal cookies.

2011-07-18T17:01:00.001-04:00

There are plenty of important things you should remember when heading to the beach, not the least of which is cookies. You should always remember to pack cookies. And even though you're headed to the sunny surf and you packed several bikinis, you should ignore the weather and your waistline and bake cookies that taste like autumn.

I have long been a fan of the oatmeal cookie, the proper sort that have chewy and thick and flecked with bits of chewy raisin throughout each bite, but oh, I don't know, sometimes I just need a little spice in my life.

First of all, these cookies toss the raisins and swap in ground up oats to the batter, a technique that made them pleasantly chewy and delightfully oatsy. Each bite fills your tongue with a warm, toasty feeling, not to mention the cinnamon-spiked glaze that crackles under your teeth.

So get on it while it's still summer and you can grin to yourself about how naughty you are for baking cookies out of season.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen & Good to the Grain, by Kim Boyce.

chocolate babka.

2011-07-06T10:41:00.000-04:00

Beyond an episode of Seinfeld from years ago, I didn't know anything about babka. I tried figuring out what it was based on Elaine's insistence they have a chocolate babka as opposed to the "lesser babka" flavored with cinnamon, but then they started bickering about black and white cookies and I never did figure it out.

As it happens, babka can be one of three things: a yeast loaf stuffed with chocolate, cinnamon, and streusel, a more delicate cake dotted with raisins and a splash of rum, or a grandmother. Now, I have a distaste for the latter two, but a half bread/half cake swirled with chocolate and spiked with cinnamon? Sign me up.

It seems I have a knack for baking completely out of season, and this babka is no exception. Why, just this past weekend (on the 4th of July, no less) I made cupcakes with autumn-colored sprinkles baked in snowflake-flecked paper liners. I'm all over the place. It's difficult to focus when you have that eerie feeling you're being watched. I've been thinking of this recipe for so long, I thought it would be best just to get it on the table and out of my head so I could move on to other things like peach ice cream and dominating the CornHole Tourney.

As it turns out, babka is incredibly rich, devilishly chocolatey, loaded with butter, and with the help of crisp bits of streusel twisted through, it goes down incredibly smooth with a glass of ice cold milk.

I see what all the fuss is about, Mr. Seinfeld. But with this babka, you can have cinnamon and chocolate. The best of both worlds.

Now before I send you on your way, a few tips. First - the chocolate filling. The instructions say to use a pastry cutter or two knives to chop it up. This is a terrible idea. In case you've never chopped dark chocolate before, you can break a sweat doing so, and using two knives is pretty futile. I gave the chocolate a coarse chop with a knife, then added it to the food processor with the sugar and cinnamon and pulsed it until it was moist and crumbly. Worked like a charm.

Second - the streusel. The mixture looked awfully dry as I was mashing it together and I was skeptical it would ever turn into fat crumbs, but take heart! It does! If you don't break a sweat, you're not finished. It is awfully tricky making it stick into the center of the twisted roll, but you can do it!

And because SK's directions are clear and concise, I'll nudge you that direction for the recipe. Chocolate Babka from Smitten Kitchen - here.

black raspberry buttermilk cake.

2011-07-01T16:08:00.000-04:00

There's a lot of good things that come from living in the country. We can shoot guns off our back porch and no one says a thing. We have a creek that hugs the back edge of our yard - a creek that our pooches are most grateful to have discovered after a particularly hot day earlier this week. The view from our loft varies by season - in the winter, you can easily see the ski slopes just across the way, and in the summer, the sun seems to swell to triple its high-noon size as it drops below the horizon, sizzling bright pink and warming our porch with evening rays.

But when we moved in mid-February, it didn't look so promising. The previous owners hadn't taken care of the yard, so it was barren in the spots where there should've been pretty flowers (or at least the bulbs frozen below the surface), and nearly half of our three acres was overgrown with weeds, unruly bushes, and poison ivy. The basement flood didn't help me warm up to our little log cabin very much, but so far, summer has made up for it, full throttle.

There were rumors about the raspberry bushes when we first moved in. One of our neighbors told us that, come early July, we'd see them popping up against the field. I was skeptical. When my Pop first moved to West Virginia, he had a driveway over a mile long, completely lined with raspberry bushes. My cousin, Danielle, and I would tuck a plastic container under our arms and use our free hands to pluck the fat berries off the prickly bushes only to douse them in spoonfuls of sugar upon return to the house. But after a few years, and much to my disappointment, they stopped coming. My Mom thought it was because the bushes had just run their course, but in hindsight, they were growing rather troublesome and threatening to swallow the driveway right up, so my uncles hacked them back with a few rips of the chainsaw.

But lo and behold, the rumors are true. My backyard is filled with raspberry bushes in near equal amounts of black and red. It's really a fantastic sight to see at sunset, that golden hour when everything looks, well, golden, and the fireflies are twinkling like Christmas lights in the trees. But if you pause for a moment, you can see the endless dots of purply berries scattered (it will be a bit longer before the red raspberries are ready for pie) in the bushes where even the birds can't find them. Every few nights, Justin and I make a loop around the yard for our bounty, destined for oatmeal and muffins and cake. Yes, a cake.

The latest issue of Bon Appetit had a full section on berries toward the end of the magazine and since we were having our neighbors over for dinner that night, it seemed like divine timing to make good use of our raspberry loot. I was leaning toward a cherry-berry hand pie, but about halfway through reading the recipe it struck me as entirely too fussy for a Sunday night and I told Justin we were out of options. Leave it to Mr. Clever to simply turn the page, thump his finger down on a photo of a Blackberry Buttermilk Cake, and simply say, "This, then." He is as smart as he is handsome.

Now, a few things about this cake. It isn't quite like some of the other upside down cakes we've talked about in the past. It's made with cake flour, for starters, which gives an impossibly light crumb to hold up the juicy berry-stained topping. The original recipe called for a mere ten ounces of berries, and that's where I started, but the photo looked awfully sparse in the berry department and ten ounces hardly covered the bottom of the pan. You see, what I needed was a black raspberry topping with cake, not a cake with blackberry topping. So I tumbled in another six ounces to make it an equal pound (for good measure!) and could not be more pleased with the result. The cake is softly scented with orange and vanilla (orange and black raspberry are made for each other) and is perfect for a Sunday dinner dessert, or perhaps with your coffee and milk the next morning, or even sliced straight from the plate and eaten over the sink to catch the crumbs.

You could go with the original instructions and use blackberries for this cake, or red raspberries or even pitted cherries, if you have them. A word of warning to the wise (that's you) - put a cookie sheet on the rack below this cake when you bake it. While the extra berries are well worth it in the end, they do tend to push their juices between the cracks of the springform pan and onto the bottom of the oven. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone.

Adapted from Bon Appetit.

milton milkshakes.

2011-06-23T13:36:00.000-04:00

I don't have too many fond memories of my time at Liberty University. After a weekend visit (the kind where they break out the good food and overload you with concerts and activities and convince you that it's like that all the time), I signed on to attend the Fall semester after high school graduation. Less than two weeks in, I realized it wouldn't be quite what I expected. Sure, I knew there would be rules, but the entire hall gasped during a meeting one night when our RA's (a.k.a. disinterested grad students looking for free housing) put on a "fashion show" of all the clothes we weren't allowed to wear.

After ditching half my already modest wardrobe (apparently a knee-length skirt with a 2 inch slit in the back is considered incredibly sleazy), I figured that would be the worst of it and I'd find my way eventually. I picked up a part time job scooping ice cream at a restaurant called Sundae Grill and ended up quitting a month later after the owner scolded me for "not smiling enough" and asked me to scrub the cabinets with a toothbrush for five bucks an hour. Smiles cost extra.

After two years of legalistic shenanigans, I snapped. Well, I snapped after some random chick I had never met told me that during church one evening, the guy sitting next to her said he could see my tank-top straps through my shirt and it looked like a bra and he was offended by it. Offended by it. I know, blows my ever-lovin' mind. I love Jesus, okay? Like, heart and soul, through and through. What I don't love is some 18 year old sassafrass telling me what to wear, how to act, and what time to be in bed to make sure I love Jesus the way the school dictates is best. Not happenin'. I'm a free bird.

At any rate, all was not lost! Just a mile away from my dorm (and off campus! the madness!), there was a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop called The Drowsy Poet. Around campus, everyone simply referred to it as "Drowsy," and it was situated just a few doors down from the dollar-theater, making it a most affordable college date-night. Really, it was the first time I remember drinking coffee to be a big deal, I'd never seen people pack into a place like that before. I haven't thought of it in years but for some reason, three days ago, I remembered the Milton Milkshake. It was their signature drink, and I have no idea who Milton is, but he makes a fine shake. I didn't know what was in it (besides magic) for a long time, and I desperately tried peeking over the counter to watch what the barista was putting into the blender, but my efforts were futile. I couldn't see anything over the bakery case of cappuccino muffins.

When I transferred after my second year, I forgot all about Drowsy and the Milton Milkshake, so no one was more surprised than me when a memory of it popped into my head a few nights ago, just as I was dozing off to sleep. Of course, I immediately became obsessed with recreating it, and milkshake obsession is the worst thing you can do when trying to count your Z's. So I did a little research and found two things, one good and one bad.

The Bad: The Drowsy Poet was purchased by a new owner who added a line-up of Caribbean food to the menu and renamed it Smiley & The Drowsy Poet. That just seems silly.

The Good: Someone equally desperate for a Milton Milkshake outside of Lynchburg, VA tried their hand at guessing the recipe...and succeeded. Now at this point, you are probably ready to punch your fist through the screen and demand to know what exactly IS a Milton Milkshake, and you'll probably be disappointed when you hear it because really, it's no big deal. You take a bit of hot espresso and whip it together with ground cinnamon and a splash of hazelnut syrup. Then you top it off with a drizzle of milk and a mini-mountain of ice cream and whir it all together until it's creamy and luscious. This milkshake, and you must believe me, is greater than the sum of its parts.

Kona begged for a taste, but I reassured him he wouldn't like it.

A quick word on presentation - don't sprinkle extra cinnamon on the top. I did, thinking it would look nice in the photo (it made no difference, obviously), only to have my sister and her manfriend choke on the first sip like the Cinnamon Challenge. Don't let this be you.

Inspired by The Drowsy Poet.

about my dad.

2011-06-19T13:50:00.002-04:00

He was dating another woman, Dee, when he met my Mom. She was friends with Dee and seeing someone else, and the four of them went on a double date. Mom's date and Dee excused themselves to the restroom at the same time and my Dad swapped seats to sit next to my Mom. Naturally, the two dates were ticked and hit the street. Mom suggested they go look for Dee since she didn't have a car, but they somehow ended up making out on some back road in their search. Poor Dee. Tough breaks.

He smoked and drank and raced cars in his early 20's. He used to work at a gas station and a feed store, and Mom says he was just a dream hauling those feed bags around. His friends used to call him A.J. after some race car driver. In his old love letters to my Mom, he signed them A.J. What a dork.

Two weeks after he and my mother started dating, he had their names painted on the side doors of his truck. Dave & Justine. My grandmother flipped out. What a badass.

He's a firefighter. Has been for almost 25 years. And no, he's not a volunteer. He's a paid Lieutenant who worked his butt off to get where he is and don't let anyone ever tell you there's no difference between volunteers and career firefighters. There's a huge difference. You get what you pay for.

He met the President. When Hurricane Katrina hit, he drove for nearly three days (fire engines do not do well in hot weather and high speeds for extended periods of time) to get to New Orleans to help. He cleaned out fire stations to help put the local firefighters back to work and he met President George Dubya in line waiting for food. We have a signed picture. It's the coolest.

His wardrobe mostly consists of navy blue t-shirts regulated by the County, he probably has at least thirty. But if my mother throws one out, he knows about it. He used to wear Bike shorts in the early 90s. Those aren't a good look for anybody.

He wore Jovan Musk cologne for decades. It's cheap and strong, and his pillowcase always smells like a mix of the cologne and the firehouse garage. My mom buys him more expensive stuff every Christmas, and he puts it on at bedtime. I don't ask questions.

His hands look like baseball mitts. Like, each finger is equivalent to a cooked bratwurst. When my parents renewed their wedding vows on their 25th anniversary two years ago, they bought new bands for each other. Turns out, the one he'd been wearing was two and a half sizes too small.

He is a determined camper. We've upgraded to an RV these days, but we spent the majority of my childhood using a hand-me-down tent that had more holes in it than Swiss cheese. It would rain every single time and he'd buy us all chocolate eclair popsicles from the camp store to make up for it.

He doesn't take crap from anyone. You should hear him on the phone when Sprint messes up his bill (every month!). He takes no prisoners. I would not want to be on the other end of some of those phone calls. People say that mothers have Mama Bear Syndrome when someone messes with her cubs, but in our family, it's Papa Bear you'll want to watch out for. He's a friggin' beast.

He looks identical to Sam Elliot. Or Hulk Hogan. Or a mix of both. It's the overgrown mustache. I think it's mandatory for firefighters or something.

He has a wicked sweet tooth. He blames it on his mother - growing up, they were never allowed sweets, treats, real milk, chocolate, lunchbox snacks...nothing. So now that's he grown, he indulges his sweet tooth at every opportunity. Like at eleven p.m. when he calls to ask if I have any cake.

He's got five kids, four on earth and one in Heaven. The four of us are ridiculously good looking, so I assume the fifth one is as well. He's got good genes.

A few summers ago, I went on a lemonade kick and made several batches in one day. My Dad drank most of it then told me he felt sloshy inside. Sloshy! I love that.

Speaking of lemons, lemon desserts are sort of his thing, and I've got a lemon cake in the oven right now, so off I go.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. ;)

zucchini spaghetti.

2011-06-16T11:29:00.000-04:00

I wasn't ready to jump back in the saddle when it came to the mandolin, especially not after what happened with that pie, but the show must go on. My right thumb has what I assume will be a permanent scar, a battle wound I'll wear with shame for the rest of my life. It does give me a solid excuse in skipping my pie-making duties, I just thrust my thumb and bottom lip out and insist I can't bear to go back to such a traumatizing place.

It hasn't worked so far.

I bought a mandolin a few years ago, just for this recipe, which is a silly reason to buy any piece of kitchen equipment, but I'm grateful to report that despite multiple injuries, it's found a permanent home in the cupboard, right next to the food processor. The first one I bought was just ridiculous, it was heavy, came with entirely too many parts (none of which fit properly or easily) and I was sweating after just trying to assemble it one afternoon in August. No appliance should make you break a sweat, my friends. Quite the opposite.

I retired it to the shelf in my parents basement after my first failed attempt at this recipe, but I've since bucked up, bought a cheaper, sharper, much more streamlined version and tried this recipe again. Friends, this might just be my go-to summer night dinner.

You start with a tangle of spaghetti noodles - nothing out of the ordinary here. But while your pasta is cooking, you make a quick sauce of sorts, a pinch of red pepper flakes sizzled in some hot olive oil alongside garlic and basil. You let it go for a few minutes until it's fragrant and makes sort of a spicy haze above the pot before tossing in a few handfuls of zucchini shaped like spaghetti noodles, to boot. We ate it warm with a fluffy cloud of Parmesan cheese (reapplied after each layer, of course), but it was equally delicious cold the next afternoon.

Oh, and before I forget - that little link over to the left, the one that says "b.e. photography"? It's a little adventure I'm starting, and I'd love for you to come with. You see, sometimes I like to take pictures of things besides food. People, mostly. And the more I use my camera, the more I find myself wandering away from the bowl or the pot or the plate and onto objects that are non-edible. I don't know where it will go or what it will become, but it will be a place for photographs and thoughts and art and trying new things. That's a good start.

Adapted from Michael Chiarello, Food Network.

lemon cornmeal cake & crushed blueberry sauce.

2011-06-13T10:19:00.000-04:00

I made another caramel apple pie last week at my husband's request. Well, I don't know if coming to a dead halt into middle of the cereal aisle and shouting, "APPLE PIE" counts as a request, but it seems his brain zeroes in on one thing and it completely immobilizes him until he gets it. So I made the pie and the apples were so juicy that it overflowed onto the bottom of the oven because yours truly forgot to put a cookie sheet underneath of it.

Then it started to smell like something was burning. Then the smoke detector went off. Then I pulled the pie out while Justin used a metal spatula to scrape the burning apple juice off the bottom of the oven. Then I vowed to never make apple pie again because I didn't even like it all that much anyway and it was definitely not worth the fuss.

But I told you that story to tell you this story: apparently we missed some of the juice on the bottom of the oven, because when I baked this cake a few days later, it came out with the faintest whisper of smokey flavor to it, the kind of taste that can only happen when your oven fills with the vapor of burning caramel sauce, unseen to the eye, but absorbed by every single crumb of your cake.

At first, it was only my sister and me who tasted it, and that's saying a lot for her since her diet mostly consists of pizza rolls and Sour Patch kids, but everyone else at the table denied any sort of odd flavor. But the next day, the smokiness had completely saturated the cake, every last morsel, and my Dad called from work to report his leftover slice now tasted like "smokey joe." I don't even know what that means, but it was enough to chuck the last bit of cake into the garbage.

Now, I don't want my silly mistake to deter you from baking this cake. Really, it is worth your time. You start with a humble looking round cake, tart with lemon but with a bit of grit from the cornmeal. Then you slather it, still hot, with a thick and gooey lemon glaze. While that cools and crisps into a shattery lemon crust, you make a quick and dirty crushed blueberry sauce with a few spoonfuls of brown sugar to help the ~~smokiness~~ cake go down that much easier. Then, the next day, you can pour that extra sauce all over a stack of buttermilk pancakes. And then again with a scoop of vanilla ice cream after dinner.

Really, the sauce alone is enough to forget all about that pie and the woe it caused. But I'd like to encourage you to try the cake, too, as it had unlimited amounts of potential were it not for my husbands insistence we have pie. So I guess what I'm saying is...this is all his fault.

Adapted from Bon Appetit.

the best day.

2011-06-08T12:19:00.001-04:00

I spent the majority of my day yesterday thinking about dinner. This is not an exception to the norm by any means, but I usually don't have a clear picture of what dinner looks like until I'm standing in front of the pantry. But yesterday, it was different. I knew what I'd be having, I even pre-planned it the night before when I set out a pot of Great Northern beans to soak for the white beans and cabbage I was going to eat. (Don't worry, it will still happen and it will still be delicious, although I suspect you don't feel you have missed anything with a name like "white beans and cabbage," but you'll see what I mean.)

So I hurried home to what would've been a My Husband Isn't Home So I'm Not Making Meat night, only to find said husband manning the grill, complete with button-down shirt and tie, grilling steaks, shrimp kabobs, romaine lettuce (yes!), sweet potatoes and for the love of everything good - he even made homemade Ranch dressing. The trickery of it all! The way he called off work! The way we hmm'd and haw'd over that meal! The way I still sit here, smiling smugly to myself, as to how I could ever be so lucky. And he took me to see the new X-Men. Yes, that was my choice.

That, of course, got me thinking about our wedding. The wedding that started this ball rolling. The wedding that had to happen if that grilled dinner was to ever exist. God knew what he was doing. And then I thought how I never really shared the day with you, and really, that just wasn't cool. Sure, there was a slight teaser photo, but that was nothing. I feel I skipped over it, breezed on by, moved right past pre-wedding weight to post-wedding weight, the ol' I'm Married So I'm Letting Myself Go. I've seen it 100 times.

The boys looked incredibly sharp.

I have no idea who this is. It could be the headless horseman for all I know. Or maybe the headless groomsman. Sorry, that was lame.

I was taped, stitched, sewn, and packed into that dress. More or less. It was all good until our server put a plate overflowing with prime rib, crab cake, bacon-wrapped asparagus and macaroni and cheese in front of me. Then I thought I might explode.

They are bad. Very, very bad. And this right before they came to the church!

And if I may digress for just a moment here on the matter of finding a church for your wedding - it was a miserable task. You see, the church I attend meets in a school, so all we really needed was someone willing to rent us their building for a few hours. Sweet Maria, never in my wildest dreams did I think we would've been put through the ringer that way. In my mind, I thought, "Shoot! We're Christians! Surely a brother or sister would understand our situation and sympathize." But no. They did not. We were given a flat-out "no" from more than half of the churches we called, others wanted an obscene amount of money (I'm sorry, but it does not cost $800 to run a building for 2 hours), and others questioned us on our religion, date of baptism, testimony, last Bible verse we memorized, insisted we use their preacher, their pre-marital counseling, attend their services for X amount of time prior to the wedding, etc.

It was nuts, I tell you, nuts. And not nice. And frustrating. Someone finally took pity on us. Gold star in Heaven for them.

But oh, swoooon. He looked so very handsome. And not nervous.

But not my Dad. He was...well, you know.

So there we are, gettin' ready to say some vows to each other. It felt sort of surreal and strange and like we were in a movie. I tried to remind myself that it was real, even though I so badly wanted to do this.

And then we thanked God for everything He had done (so far!).

And I was so glad to be outside in the breeze. I was so afraid it would be freezing, that our guests would be chattering and our day would be icy-miserable. But no, it was in the 60s and breezy and sunny and glorious. And if memory serves me right, I'm fairly certain it was the only weekend in March that wasn't terrible.

And we had some friends.

Lots of people we love.

And we had each other. Forever, now.

And look! Already! Our first effort in teamwork!

And oh, how nice that breeze felt. That dress was awfully warm, possibly due to the fact that I didn't bother shaving the top half of my legs, not even for my wedding. I could've spun there all day long, just me and that dreamy police officer.

And then we went and partied for hours and hours. And Justin was inappropriate and made me blush.

And we had hoards of cookies. It's a Pittsburgh thing. I married a Pittsburgh boy. But I will forever loathe their sports teams. Just so you know.

My younger brother brought those hipster glasses to the reception, and I think by midnight, every single guest had worn them. It was actually sort of gross.

I just love her.

And him, too.

shaved asparagus pizza.

2011-06-07T10:23:00.000-04:00

When I was a young-gun, getting the mail was one of my favorite things. My mother would give me her key ring, point to the tiny brass one and send me out to the community mailbox to bring back all our letters and coupons. I don't know why it was such an exciting chore for me, or why I never lost that cheery feeling that there might be something in the mailbox for me (even when my birthday was months away).

Silly as it sounds, and silly as I feel, I still get a twinge excited when I arrive home before Justin and I know there is a modest pile of mail waiting for me at the back of the box. And I literally mean at the very back, the absolute depths of our mailbox where the cobwebs are. I think our mail-lady must use a slingshot to get it all the way back there, and I always end up stretched out the car window, awkwardly reaching for the stack while the door digs into my ribs. Why don't I just get out and walk to the box, you say? Well, because we have a gravel driveway and I always arrive home in high-heels. That's why.

So while I pretend not to see the bills and junk mail addressed to the previous owners that we are still getting, I often contemplate hiding bits of mail from my husband - namely, Handyman magazine. If you're not familiar, this particular publication is chock-full of Do-It-Yourself ideas for the average Joe - cabinet installation, deck staining, etc. I usually pass it off to him without a second thought while I move on to the latest issue of Bon Appetit, but since Bon Appetit is now run by a globe-trotting playboy who sucked out all quality writing and replaced it with GQ-esque photos of 1960's Italy, I'm left to flip through Handyman.

The longer I am married, the more I learn about my husband. Not only is he an excellent marksman, he's incredibly savvy about home repair. Busted valves! Leaky basements! Faulty smoke detectors! The DVR deleted all my re-runs of The Office! He's got it under control.

Now, most women might count this as a blessing, and really, I do. But you see, he is also the type of person who gets an idea and then it takes over his mind and it's all he thinks and dreams about until its done. I blame Handyman magazine for this. When he sits at our breakfast bar flipping through the glossy pages, I can see his pupils enlarging, his fingers tapping the counter top, the ol' wheels churning. The latest issue included an article and how-to for constructing your own brick pizza oven. In the backyard. Like, a huge one.

Long story and much battle later, I sweet-talked my way from "We need this, trust me!" to "How about I show you how good a pizza can be in the regular oven and you build a fire ring for s'mores instead?" Marriage is all about compromise, kids.

So about this pizza - it will most likely put all other pizzas to shame. I must warn you though, you will need a bit of time as far as the dough goes, so this pizza shouldn't be grouped into the It's Friday Night I'm Starving Let's Get Pizza category. But with a bit of planning, you, too, can have a crisped crust (with unsurpassed flavor thanks to the addition of wine and honey), bubbly cheese pizza with a pile of freshly shaved asparagus tangled across the top. With a slip of red pepper for a bit of heat and the spritz of fresh lemon juice and raw scallion, making dinner has officially replaced getting the mail as the best part of my day.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen.

baked oatmeal with strawberries.

2011-06-02T10:56:00.001-04:00

A few winters ago, my parents, younger brother, and I packed a bag for a weekend camping trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We were going to see a show, but when you're in Lancaster, you really ought to plan to stay for a few days. Once you get there, you'll quickly realize you need much more than an afternoon to soak up the handmade quilts, chicken corn soup, and horse-drawn carts of whoopie pies.

I can't remember if we left early in the morning and arrived just in time for breakfast, or if we left the night before and ventured out into the icy chill to fill our bellies, but I do remember the baked oatmeal. Every Friday morning, there is an enormous farmer's market called The Green Dragon that calls itself a "unique carnival experience you have to see to believe!" While you won't find a Ferris wheel (but you might have luck finding a funnel cake stand), the market is a bustling hub in the center of endless fields. Naturally, we planned our trip around the odd hours of the market - it shouldn't be missed.

When we arrived in the early hours, the wind was so cold, so sharp, the kind of wind that cuts through your jeans and makes it impossible to bend your knees. I wore a purple thermal shirt under a checkered vest [complete with fuzzy faux-fur hood] and my mother didn't take her winter coat off all day. We tucked our chins into our collars and moved as quickly as our stiff jeans would allow, our boots crunching against the graveled parking lot with our eyes set on the prize: breakfast.

As soon as you walk through the muddy door, the one on the far side near the furniture and craft shops, you're met with the noise. It's difficult to explain the way it is, loud, yet muted, as if you hear chatter and cash registers and silverware clanking against plates but you can't seem to find where exactly each sound is coming from. As difficult as it was to bypass the pearly rhubarb on the produce stand and to ignore the art galleries, we shuffled toward the back of the market, the hodge-podge diner popped up on the right side across from the bakery, the one with the smoky warm haze of cooked sausage floating over top the booths.

Still frozen to the bone, we ended up sitting at the bar, if you want to call it that. It was so tiny, with stools so short that our knees banged off of the counter wall. It reminded me of something from a fairytale and I half expected a few of the Seven Dwarfs to come sidle up beside me. The paper menus were stained with coffee and grease but the counter was shining bright white under the fluorescent glow overhead. A waitress, who must've been about seventy or so - bless her heart, poured us hot cups of coffee and put her hand on her aproned hip when my father asked for ever more creamer each time she stopped by.

I think he ordered a sausage sandwich of some kind, but I had the baked oatmeal, and it was perfect. It came in a small plastic green bowl, a ragged square of it topped with golden raisins and a splash of milk, with a crisp top and a creamy interior, and it reminded me of creme brulee, only I was thwacking my spoon through a layer of oats instead of sugar. After a few spoonfuls of it, and I didn't even realize I was still shivering, my shoulders relaxed and I was filled with that sleepy-full feeling, not unlike the milk-coma that babies slip into after a warm bottle.

A few months after we returned home, I thought about that oatmeal again, and I tried to recreate it. Now, I didn't go flying blind into the kitchen all willy-nilly, I did use a recipe, but it was an unimpressive one. The oatmeal wasn't creamy in the least, and I'm not looking for porridge here, but there ought to be a noticeable difference between the crispy lid and custardy interior. I was left to a huge pan of it as no one else was remotely interested in something as bland sounding as oatmeal, and I didn't enjoy it all that much, so I tossed it and forgot about it for a good while, opting for homemade granola and yogurt instead.

Enter: Super Natural Every Day. The book that lives on my nightstand with an occasional trip to the kitchen. The book all the buzz is about. The book that finally put baked oatmeal back in my belly and forever in my heart. It's everything baked oatmeal should be - crackly topped with a milky interior, studded with juicy berries and crunchy almonds [or walnuts, I had almonds on hand, but you can use whatever you like], and piled on top of a layer of ripe bananas, it's a hearty, not-too-sweet breakfast to get you going on a weekend morning.

Now, I liked it fine and well, but I did sprinkle a fair amount of extra sugar on the top as it isn't very sweet, so I've increased the sugar from 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup in the recipe below. You can certainly scale it back down without adverse affect if you don't like your oatmeal quite as sweet. Also, my love for bananas is nothing if not loud and proud, but when I went for leftovers the next morning, they were too soft and mushy for my taste. Next time, I'll try a layer of thinly sliced apples (like this). If you try this, too, please report back.

Adapted from Super Natural Every Day, by Heidi Swanson.

fried bread & heirloom tomato salad.

2011-05-31T12:52:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, I like to eat alone. It's nothing against all-out dinner parties or quiet pasta nights with my husband, but I find real pleasure in cooking for one, especially when that one is me.

When I was single and living in the Big City, eating alone was my habit. I didn't mind it, and it wasn't all the time. A night or two each week my then-boyfriend would come by and we'd go out or stay in, sometimes just for pizza and other times for a crabcake at Clyde's. Back then, eating alone was something I didn't think much of, and therein lies the problem.

I suppose much of it had to do with money, or lack thereof. Solitary dining in my tiny apartment usually consisted of a bowl of cereal, perhaps some toast, leftover pasta or a few boiled eggs. It wasn't that I wasn't hungry [I am always hungry], but cooking for one seemed like a waste of time. Why bother pulling out the pots and pans for just me? Why fill the sink with dishes when there aren't any guests to hmmm and haw over their plates?

But to eat alone is one of the best things we can do for ourselves. Now, I don't do it out in public quite often, mostly because I don't feel truly alone with a small crowd of people glancing my way, wondering if I feel very pathetic sitting there by my lonesome. What I mean is to cook at home, to take the time to prepare a meal for yourself, one that will likely have no leftovers and no complaints. Now, I don't mean you should prepare a full course meal each night you find yourself staring into the cupboard without a friend, but do put some thought into it. It's not unlike treating yourself to a new pair of jeans, or an iced coffee after a long meeting mid-day - it's a little bit of you time.

Now that I'm married, the opportunity for dining alone doesn't come quite as often as it used to. This past week, I was feeling particularly greedy and especially grateful that my husband wasn't home because I had a wicked craving for, and this is a little embarrassing, the bruschetta from Julie & Julia. I'd never had it before, and I think I am in the minority when it comes to being grossed out by Chris Messina shoving great gulps of it into his mouth [how can anyone find that sort of gluttony endearing?], but I've been thinking about it a lot. Mostly about the close-up angle of fat slices of bread crisping in a hot frying pan, the rainbow of juicy tomatoes tumbling off each piece and onto the plate. That's what I've been thinking about.

So on Wednesday evening, sans husband [and sans complaints about the missing meat], I made my version of that bruschetta. Let me stop there - I don't want to lead you down the wrong path by letting you believe this is a small wedge of toasted bread with a delicate tomato topping. It is anything but. This is a much more rustic, hearty version of traditional bruschetta, so I've changed the title accordingly: fried bread with a tomato salad. Really, that's all it is.

You drizzle a good glug of olive oil into a hot pan, slice up a few farmhouse-thick pieces of seeded bread and fry them until they turn a handsome shade of golden brown. While the bread is frying, you cut up a few juicy heirloom tomatoes, toss them a bit of oil and sea salt, and maybe some basil if you're feeling fancy on a lonely night. When the bread is good and crisp, you rub a bit of garlic all over the top, taking care not to punch your finger right through the toasty of it all, then heap piles of tomato salad on top the bread, juices and all.

Now, I'm not a savage, and I don't wish to eat like one, so I used a knife and fork. You could go without it, and if you do, I certainly hope you are eating alone as there will undoubtedly be streams of tomato juice dribbling down your chin. The next time I'm alone, staring into the pantry, I think I'll make this. And perhaps I'll do the same for every other lonely night this summer.

vanilla roasted pears.

2011-05-24T10:21:00.000-04:00

Yesterday morning, Justin and I woke up before the sun, stumbled to our car in the hazy morning fog, and made the long haul across my home state to meet our new little nephew, Carson. We stopped to pick up a box of diapers, but not just any diapers - the kind that look like little blue jeans and made me squeal with delight at the thought of a chubby baby butt being stuffed inside a pair.

I love brand spankin' new babies. I love Carson, especially. I love how he goes a little cross-eyed when he wakes up. I love how soft his armpits are. I love how he does the Jersey Shore fist pump in his sleep [for the record, I have never seen an episode of that show - but I'm aware of the fist pump]. I love how he heats up like a tiny human stove when you hold him and you're sweating after five minutes but you endure it because you don't want to put him down.

So the night before we were going to visit, Justin and I thought it might be nice to bring a little sustenance along, mostly in the form of chocolate chip cookies, cranberry bread, and honey crunch granola. We decided this was a good idea at midnight, just four hours before we set our alarm clocks. Clearly, this idea was not our best.

In other completely unrelated news, I made these pears a few weeks ago. We ate them with vanilla ice cream over the vintage edition of Life. It was my favorite game as a kid, one of the few board games we had at our lakehouse, and my mother always said we couldn't take it home with us because it was a "lakehouse game." We got the old school version as a wedding gift, and it didn't have the same charm it did when I was little. I think my grown-up understanding of life and what it really means to pay bills put a damper on things. Plus, when we first started, I told Justin that however many kids we ended up with by the end of the game would be how many we'd have in real life.

There were seven. Seven. I'm never playing Life again.

But these pears helped soften the blow. They're fragrant and soft, scented with lemon and vanilla bean and just enough sugar to give you an excuse to add a scoop of ice cream. And they are, I think, perfect for summer. You can eat them cold, straight out of the fridge, or for breakfast alongside a bowl of oatmeal. But be mindful not to overbake them - the tip of a knife should slip right through the fruit when they're ready without causing it to fall apart. Mine were a bit too soft and with each bite I'd wished they'd give my teeth a bit more resistance. But this doesn't have to be you.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from The Atlantic.

honey oat bread.

2011-05-20T09:54:00.001-04:00

I originally wrote this post for Honest Cooking, but then I was struck with panic that some of you who do not frequent that particular neighborhood might've missed it, and that would be a shame. Nobody should miss out on chewy, oatsy, jam-smeared bread. Especially not when it just came out of the oven. So get on it.

I have a long, torrid relationship with yeast. I don’t mean that in a sexy way, as if we were star-crossed lovers, destined to forever pass each other by the most improbable of circumstances. I mean that yeast has been the culprit behind most of my major kitchen failures – that challah bread that never rose more than a centimeter despite my coddling and pleading; the brioche au chocolat that seemed to be going well until I realized I made a calculation error and ended up with mostly brioche and minimal chocolat; or the Portuguese sweet bread that looked deceptively delicious but wasn’t worth the effort in the end – the common perpetrator is forever yeast.

Now, I’m no quitter, so I’ve continuously tried my hand at bread baking time and time again, yet the yeast conquers me every time. I’ve tried different brands, new recipes, and varying techniques. I checked out every self-help book in the I Hate Yeast But It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way section of my local library. My efforts have consistently been in vain.

One of the driving factors behind the madness is the insistence of most recipes that you “feel” your way about the dough. Now, I am all for feeling our feelings, but it’s quite impossible to know how something ought to look or feel when you’ve never had success with it, especially when it comes to quantities that are often less than helpful, like an ingredient list that reads “4-6 cups of flour.” There is just entirely too much room for error with a margin like that.

Lately, I’ve become more and more discouraged when it comes to yeast baking. I used to be all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about it, making notes as I went and trying to figure out what went wrong so I could tweak it for next time. But after multiple flops, I was waving my little white flag of surrender from behind the kitchen island, covered in flour and despair. But this past weekend, I’m not sure what came over me, but I marched into the kitchen with a crazy look in my eye and pulled out my King Arthur Flour Cookbook. I don’t use it very much, and after flipping through it, I’m not sure why because it’s loaded with smart tips and quality recipes, and I turned to the recipe for Honey Oat Bread. My palms were already sweating at the prospect of it; just thinking about twisting the top off the jar of yeast makes my nervous system kick in.

Holding my breath the entire time, I kneaded and mixed and floured and rolled until I had two perfect little almond colored loaves resting on my back porch for their second rise. Feeling incredibly proud already, I re-read the directions for baking and was instantly stumped. It said to put the loaves in a cold oven and heat it to 400 degrees F for 15 minutes. Did that mean 15 minutes after it hits 400 degrees or 15 minutes from the time I put it in the cold oven? Fortunately, the lovely people at King Arthur Flour have a baking hotline for dilemmas like this and they set me on the straight and narrow.

Now I am careful to never proclaim victory over yeast until after I’ve tasted it, after all, I’ve had countless yeasted treats look and feel just perfect, only to pop them in my mouth and immediately want to spit it back out. So I smeared a bit of soft butter and a nudge of raspberry jam onto a slice of the bread after it had cooled a bit, closed my eyes and took a bite. It was dense at first, and I mean that in a very good way, a bit chewy with a tightly woven crumb and little nubbly bits of oats freckled throughout the loaf. The crust isn’t terribly thick, but it’s just craggy enough to require an extra chew. I took another bite, and then cut myself another slice, then another until I realized I’d eaten nearly half the loaf and declared victory.

Adapted from The King Arthur Flour Cookbook.

apron winner!

2011-05-19T09:59:00.000-04:00

Congrats to Trish K. for winning the Jessie Steele apron giveaway! Since the contest was hosted through the If You Give a Girl a Cookie Facebook page, I'll contact you via private message to get the details.

The apron winner was chosen at random using random.org.

Hope you love it - happy baking!

salted caramel apple pie.

2011-05-18T16:07:00.000-04:00

There were other things I wanted to tell you about today, but I have to get this pie out of my brain so I can move on with my life.

At the risk of sounding incredibly un-American, I'm not a huge fan of apple pie. Sure, it's got it's high points: everyone likes it, it imparts feelings of patriotism when we see it nestled next to a bowl of potato salad on a fourth of July picnic spread, and apples + cinnamon will always equal true love, but I find it to be a bit overplayed. And I feel like I can't get away from it - and not just the pie. You've got apple crumbles, apple crisp, apple turnovers, apple tarts, apple dumplings - all of which are still apple pie as far as I'm concerned, just with a different shape. Call me cynical, but I just don't believe the hype.

This past weekend, I had a rough spell in the kitchen. I blame it all on Justin - he started the ugly ball rolling when he asked me to make this particular pie, this salted caramel apple pie that we saw on the Cooking Channel a few months ago and he hasn't stopped talking about since. I was already in the middle of making pot roast for dinner, plus a second stew that contained last year's bounty (rabbits) that my carnivorous huntsman asked me to make and freeze. All was going well until I took the bunny brew out of the oven and saw bits of enamel flecked throughout and I dug down deep to the bottom to find the coating on my beloved cast iron pot had splintered and chipped. It was a sad day.

But there wasn't much time to mourn - there was a pie to be made. I didn't make it past the first apple before my peeler slipped off the apple and took half my thumbnail with it. But oh, that was nothing, really. Nothing compared to the slice my other thumb endured as I insisted on using my bare hand to wedge that last tiny piece of apple across the blade. Dear friends, do not do as I do.

About that time, my darling husband walked through the door, covered in dirt after demanding obedience from our disrespectful flower beds, and gave me a concerned speech about my kitchen safety habits while he bandaged up my bum thumb. But my apple pie troubles were still to come - oh yes. This recipe is a little different than my former apple pie experience - you layer thinly sliced apples between generous smears of warm, salted caramel sauce and package it all up in a flaky, all-butter crust topped with crunchy sugar and flakes of sea salt. And that sounds fine, but I refuse to believe the recipe was without error. In its instructions, it adds the butter to the melting sugar & water mixture before the sugar has a chance to caramelize (adding the butter only after the granules have dissolved but not cooked). It says to allow it to boil until it caramelizes - something it never, ever does. Do you know what happens when you boil butter and sugar, praying for it to darken? It crystallizes. It solidifies. It turns into one solid lump.

After two failed attempts and some words I have already asked forgiveness for, I chucked the caramel recipe and made my own - sans butter. With so much butter in the crust, this pie was hardly lacking in buttery flavor, quite the opposite. It was rich, plump with slices of juicy apples, with an oozy caramel sauce that is equal parts sweet and salty. I had some reservations about using uncooked apples in the pie, that method usually produces a soupy mess for me, but it wasn't any trouble at all this time.

Justin pronounced it the "best pie he's ever had," and I believe our dinner guests that night agreed, and after all the trouble this pie caused me, I didn't want to like it, but I did. I liked it very much. I've tweaked this recipe quite a bit - everything from the caramel sauce to the spices to the number of apples. The recipe also called for Angostura bitters as their secret ingredient, but after years working in a hotel restaurant next to the bar, the very sight of that white-papered bottle makes me cringe, so I skipped it. It wasn't missed.

A few notes before you get started:

Spend the few extra minutes to make your crust from scratch - it will be worth it. I used my absolute favorite all-butter pie crust.

Any variety of apples will work. I used a combination of Granny Smith, Cortland, and Gala apples.

If you go with the cookie-cutter route for the top crust, be sure you over lap the shapes just a bit. I didn't do this and when the pie baked, the shapes sagged down a little bit. It was perfectly delicious, but if you really want the most crust for your buck, nudge them in pretty close together with some apple filling still showing through.

The apple slices don't have to be layered in any particular pattern - just squeeze and nudge them in there.

Adapted, quite a bit, from 4 & 20 Blackbirds.

apron giveaway!

2011-05-16T11:10:00.000-04:00

See this apron?

I love this apron. I mean, I really, really love it.

I love the soft, feminine colors. I love the vintage style - the big buttons, the side pocket, the little button-hook for your dish towel. The stripes on the top with the lovely flowers on the bottom? I dig it.

Those ladies at Jessie Steele - they know what they're doing. I spent barely thirty seconds on their website before my mind completely blanked out at the sight of so many vintage, sassy, womanly aprons and all I could think was: I WANT.

Thankfully for me, those same ladies are incredibly generous, and they gave me not one, but two aprons. And you know what that means? One for me and one for you! Now I feel I've led you on a bit and by now you are probably thinking you are getting the gorgeous lime and rose colored beauty you see here, but you're not. That one is mine. What you will be getting is the exact same one in blue! Hooray!

To enter the giveaway, simply "Like" the Give a Girl a Cookie Facebook page. That's it - easy as pie! If you're already a Facebook fan, you're already entered, baby! I'll assign each Facebook fan a number and then choose one number at random on Thursday, May 19. No entries after midnight (EST) on May 18, please.

Many thanks to Jessie Steele for sponsoring this perfect giveaway!

banana caramel walnut cake.

2011-05-16T10:31:00.004-04:00

This cake has been a long time coming. And it's not that I didn't try, because I think we all know my passion for banana baked goods is not lacking.

But you see, I could never find exactly what I was looking for. It's sort of the way you date a man for a few months only to find out he really isn't your type after all but it was okay while it lasted and you might keep in touch with him for a few months post-breakup because you're bored and haven't found anything better yet. But I'm married now, so that's irrelevant. But you get what I'm saying?

Banana bread is my faithful standby, the one baked good that nearly everyone loves (me especially) and can be pulled together without a trip to the grocery store. But what my heart truly longed for wasn't just banana bread, but a banana cake. And not just any cake - a cake with caramel, and maybe some coconut, and perhaps a handful of crunchy, toasted walnuts for good measure. I am a simple woman with simple desires.

I didn't set the bar too high, I started my search with banana + caramel as my only two requirements. Most recipes included a caramel frosting, but that was all wrong. I wanted a real burnt sugar, bubbling cream caramel sauce to sop up off the plate. So I expanded my search to include walnuts, and the one recipe that continuously made an appearance was this one, and I had no interest in a cake whose top complaint is a caramel sauce that turns rock solid and must be sliced with a knife and fork before eating only to induce a sugar coma immediately following. No cake should require a knife. That's just plain silly.

After much searching, trial, error, weeping, and gnashing of teeth, I gave up completely. I stuck by my trusty banana bread recipes and thought that perhaps this would be as good as it gets. I stuck out my bottom lip, pouted to anyone who would listen about my banana woes, and stuffed banana muffins into my cheeks while the tears streamed down. But as my mother always says, when you least expect it - expect it.

So I got an e-mail last week from my sweet mother with a subject line that read, "Lookey lookey what I found for you, little Cookey." I love her. She's just nuts. But in that e-mail was a tiny ingredient list that sounded an awful lot like the banana cake of my dreams. A banana cake with caramel sauce, coconut, and walnuts. My stomach jumped up a bit with a glimmer of hope - this may just be it. A colleague of hers caught word of my quest to conquer the world of banana caramel cake and offered up a humble recipe that had a definite old-school approach. For the caramel recipe, no measurement of cream was given - it simply said, "Add cream to a good consistency." There was no pan size suggested and the bake time was way off, but I had hope. With a few tweaking and twisting, this recipe is everything I'd imagined and more.

The cake is fluffy and moist, not too sweet (you'll be grateful once the topping hits), a bit like a banana scented pillow. That's a place I want to be. So while your banana cake is making your kitchen smell dizzyingly good, you make a quick and painless caramel sauce, throw in a handful of toasted walnuts and shredded coconut, dump it all over the top of the hot cake and praise the good Lord you finally found the recipe you'd pined for.

Now, a word of warning. This is the sort of thing you may have to excuse yourself from the table to enjoy alone. It's likely to induce oooh's and mmm's that would make your guests uncomfortable. Unless they are doing the same thing, which they probably are.

blueberry-honey crumb muffins.

2011-05-11T10:20:00.000-04:00

Last night, for dinner, I made blueberry muffins.

Well, that's not completely fair to say. I did make blueberry muffins for my dinner, but my husband deemed that unacceptable and instead ate leftover roast chicken [from a lovely dinner party with our new neighbors] and a bowl of wheatberry salad that I wouldn't touch due to my aversion to beets. I had no idea I didn't like beets. I wish I did, they are so colorful and lovely.

A few months ago, I received a beautiful book called The Green Market Baking Book. Now, at the time, I didn't know much about natural sweeteners or whole grains. After all, I am solely dedicated to white flour, white sugar baked goods. And really, that's fine. But not all the time. So I've been trying to venture out a bit, I've started shopping at the Common Market on occasion, my cabinet now boasts a natural foods shelf [wheatberries, farro, sweet brown rice, millet, French lentils, and a small bag of juice-sweetened jelly beans] and thus far, I've been wonderfully surprised.

But this particular cookbook arrived before I started doing my natural foods research, so I didn't give it much thought until now. [I spent a few weeks convincing myself that incorporating more natural foods into our diet wouldn't make me a tree-huggin' hippie.] At the time, I didn't quite see its appeal. After all, I didn't have brown rice syrup in my cabinet and for me, that was enough excuse to hold off on exploring the book. But a few nights ago, the recipe for blueberry muffins called to me, and I could no longer resist its charm.

I added a bottle of brown rice syrup to my basket at the Common Market, set up my mixer, and set to work. The original recipe also calls for maple syrup, but we only had strawberry flavored and I didn't think that would fly, so I used honey instead. While the batter was smooth and soft as a cloud, I was a touch concerned at the taste - it was barely sweet, completely unlike almost every other muffin I've ever had. But I stood strong, crumbled a cinnamon-sugar streusel over the top of each one, popped it into the oven and waited.

Let me tell you what happens, friends. The muffins bake up into perfect little domes, their caps crunchy and crystallized with cinnamon bits and pieces, the insides are so tender and moist I dare call it dreamy. The crumbly topping makes all the difference, so I beg you not to skip it, the sweetness and crunch are the perfect contrast to the blueberry-splotched batter underneath.

With a cup of steaming hot coffee and a smear of sweet butter, it was a sweet relief from my daily granola mornings. Happy breakfast.

Adapted from The Green Market Baking Book, by Laura C. Martin

brioche au chocolat.

2011-05-04T10:13:00.001-04:00

Let me tell you why I suck and why my brioche-making skills are not unlike this.

Brioche haunts me. I hear about it all the time, how buttery and lush and fabulous it is, how it puts all other breads to shame, how it makes an insanely good bread pudding and the ultimate grilled cheese sandwich. I especially love when a recipe says "one loaf brioche" like I just happen to have one on hand, like my po-dunk grocery store carries something beyond WonderBread, like I'm going to back up 12 hours and get one started so it's ready in time.

My feathers are a bit ruffled.

So despite my unending troubles with yeast and the general pang of fear that strikes each time I sprinkle the lively little buds into some warm water, I forged ahead. I hesitated to use my precious butter on a recipe that could potentially be disastrous, because then I would lie awake at night thinking of all the things I could've made with all that butter and oh, it would be cruel.

I have tried my hand at brioche before, and I used TK's recipe, but it was a total flop. I am sure it was my own doing since Mr. Keller isn't one for mistakes, but somewhere along the line I began to question the sanity behind rolling the dough out immediately after taking it out of the chilly fridge. With that much butter in the dough, it was hard as a rock, and it split and cracked and cried the entire time. Defeat.

This time, I figured - what the hell - let's go all the way. I decided on brioche au chocolat, or brioche stuffed with pastry cream and chocolate. The recipe was different from the start, it blends the yeast with the flour first, then you add cold water to the mixture before things really get going. Cold water? Yeast? Interesting. Everything was going along swimmingly, I scooped in an unholy amount of butter and watched the dough slap-slap-slap against the sides of the silver bowl before deciding fifteen minutes of beating was much to long for me to sit and stare and I ought to go do something valuable with my time.

Don't make that same mistake. I left the kitchen for five minutes and I came back to see my KitchenAid teetering on the edge of the counter, having walked its way to the cliff of doom with the nonstop rocking produced by super-elastic dough beating about the bowl. It all happened in slow motion, I ran toward it, arms outstretched, begging it not to jump, you have so MUCH to live for, KitchenAid! So many cookies! Cakes! Buttercreams! GOD HELP ME!

[Breathing into a paper bag.]

I rescued it, just in time. Hallelujah.

Now this dough is something differently entirely. It is fluffy and smooth and silky, perfectly stretchable even straight from the wintry depths of the refrigerator. With a slick of vanilla scented pastry cream and a sprinkle of chocolate chips, they bake up to a handsome shade of golden brown with the unmistakable scent of melted butter.

So, you can imagine my disappointment when I sliced the pastries open only to find the cream had completely been absorbed into the bread and the chocolate chips were spread so thin you could barely notice them. I scratched my head and pouted and pawned off the leftovers on the kids at church for snack time the next day, but that didn't solve my problem. I won't lie - this recipe is a lot of work. And for all my effort, such a lackluster result? I weep.

As I was typing up the recipe in the wee hours of the morning, my eye landed on the top of the ingredient list - half a recipe of brioche dough. Half. HALF. How did I miss that? No wonder I ended up with piles and piles of pillowy dough, I used twice as much as was required for my amount of filling. Please, I implore you, do not let this be you.

Adapted from Flour Bakery.

giveaway winner!

2011-05-02T09:38:00.000-04:00

I don't have a recipe to share with you today, and for that, I'm sorry. I was in Pittsburgh all weekend, stuffing my face with French-fry sandwiches and schlepping antiques into my overnight bag. I did make some incredibly chocolaty and lush pudding last night, and I can tell you more about that later this week, but let's get right down to business, shall we?

The winner of last week's blog anniversary giveaway is...

Megan at Pip & Ebby! Please e-mail me at orangeelle@gmail.com to claim your sweet prize - I'll need your mailing address to send the goodies your way. And I won't send you old coupons or junk fliers. Or the fifteen Victoria Secret catalogs I get each week. I swear, you buy one bathing suit cover-up five years ago and they've cut down half the rain forest trying to get you to buy more. Stop, Victoria. Just stop.

Congrats to Megan and big thank-you's to everyone who entered. You're the best. Mean it.

spiced pecans.

2011-04-28T10:47:00.001-04:00

My mother is absolutely mad for craft fairs. She's been that way as long as I can remember - writing dates on the calendar so she can plan around the next one and buying Christmas gifts in July only to decide a few months later that so-and-so probably wouldn't love that anyway and now that rooster clock hangs on her dining room wall. She is classy.

I went with her a few times in my younger years, and I didn't see what all the fuss was about. The summer crafts shows were the worst - it was unbearably hot and all we did was walk, walk, walk. The same snack foods that made their appearance at the carnival also worked the craft fairs - sausage and onion subs, funnel cakes, cotton candy, and caramel dipped apples. The air was so thick with grease and heat, the line for the lemonade stand was wrapped around the block.

As you can imagine, my favorite part was the food. I didn't care so much about the ornaments or the rainbow of soy candles for sale (although I did purchase a Chocolate Chip Cookie scented candle for my mother one year with my own money, I was so proud), I was all about the edible. There was always the same token vendors to choose from, yet I'd endure the heat, the walking, the rows and rows of primitive goods with the hope that we would get to the good stuff eventually. One year, she brought my grandmother along, and we waited outside a stand selling handmade soap from goat's milk for nearly an hour while she asked questions. It was brutal.

There's the condiment stand - the one that has a dozen samples of cream cheese based dips with flavors like Key Lime and Coconut or Strawberries and Cream. Of course, there was the savory side, too - broken pieces of pretzels sticks with jars upon jars of brightly colored mustard for tasting, spinach and garlic dip and mason jars with evenly stacked layers of lentils and dried spices and directions for do-it-yourself soup. The fudge station was always a delight to watch, partly because it was one of the few locations that was purposely chilled to keep the fudge (and customers) from melting and I would sit on the stoop and watched the candymaker slap thick ribbons of chocolate fudge onto the cold marble counter top and wish to be just like him one day.

But for anyone who has ever been to a carnival or craft fair, you know about the almonds. The single tiny stand that is nearly impossible to find yet you go all day long being tormented by the scent of spiced cinnamon floating through the hazey summer air and wondering why they don't provide a map to find it. It's always tucked away some where, most likely to keep the spice-intoxicated patrons from storming the place, but when you do find it, it's a glorious moment. They coat whole almonds with a cinnamon mixture and toast them in a little silver barrel that spins and spins until each one is covered with crunchy, crystallized bits of sugar and spice. It's a magical thing.

I've replicated the almond recipe at home, but truth be told, I like pecans even better. The almonds are delicious, sure, but they are so crunchy that one gets a sore jaw after a few handfuls. Pecans quickly remedy this unfortunate situation. They have a more mild crunch, a bit of sweetness on their own, and allow you to squirrel your cheeks full of them without adverse affect.

And really, it couldn't be easier. You whisk together a bit off egg white that acts as a binder for the aromatic goodness to come. Then you add a bit of soft brown sugar for sweetness and a potpourri of spices and toss the pecans in. Turning them about ever so gently, the goo will pull between the pecans like cinnamon cobwebs and off it goes into the oven where it will permeate your entire house with a fragrance that makes you wish St. Nick was just around the corner.

Now, in case you haven't noticed (and I don't blame you if it missed your eye), my blog turns 2 today! Now because it's been such a fun ride, and because I never want to stop doing it, and because you're just as much a part of this as I am, I'm giving away some of my favorite ingredients to add to your kitchen arsenal.

Here's what you'll get:

1 bag of pearl sugar (perfect for chouquettes!)
1 bag black cocoa powder (enhances anything chocolate)
1 container of Vietnamese cinnamon (I used it on this recipe and oh. my. word.)
A secret surprise!

To enter, become a follower of If You Give a Girl a Cookie, "Like" the Facebook page, and leave a comment below. A winner will be chosen at random on Monday, May 2. No entries after midnight the day before, please. Love you guys and good luck!

Adapted from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop.

ad hoc pineapple upside down cake.

2011-04-25T09:41:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since we had cake.

And since we've been eating pretty healthy the last few days, I think we're entitled to a little dessert.

Yes, a salad with bacon and bleu cheese is still a salad in my books.

We've had pineapple upside down cake together once before, and I don't want you to feel like I am playing mind games with you by offering a second one. The methods are completely different, save the upside down part, with one cake cooking the fruit in a brown sugar syrup before topping it with a runny, pourable cake batter, then the other cake I am giving you today. The latter of the two is far superior - a schmear of honeyed sugar goo slicks the bottom of the pan, followed by fresh pineapple in it's raw state and a thick, creamy cake batter to fill in the nooks and crannies.

While cooking the fruit first will guarantee you a syrupy topping, it makes the cake too sweet and soggy after a few hours out of the pan. Keeping the fruit uncooked before baking ensures it maintains its texture, tangy bite, and gentle tug against each bite.This version comes from TK's Ad Hoc, a book that makes me drool, laugh, and roll my eyes at the fact it's supposed to be for home cooks yet he requires you to have a $600 blender.

This cake is a good introduction, and once my confidence builds up, I'll try something else. But not the brioche. I made that last week and I'm certain the Hebrews used something similar when the Egyptians took away their straw. It wasn't pleasant.

I used a square cake pan for this recipe, and you can, too. As long as it's nine inches, you'll do just fine. Before I forget - the rum. I used coconut flavored rum in lieu of the dark rum, partly because I have a burned-in memory of dark rum involving my twenty-first birthday and a Denny's parking lot, but mostly because I was hoping to replicate the slight twinge of coconut that comes with the Duncan Hines version of upside down cake. I am not ashamed.

Unfortunately, my efforts proved unsuccessful. The rum flavored evaporated completely, and with only 1/2 a teaspoon, I can see why. So if you've got dark rum, give it a go. Please report back.

Adapted from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc.

bleu cheese wedge salad.

2011-04-22T10:00:00.001-04:00

For the longest time, bleu cheese repulsed me. When my mother and I would go grocery shopping at Weis Markets, which in the early nineties meant a crammed little store with brown and mustard yellow signs everywhere and awful incandescent lighting, I'd poke my chubby little fingertip into the blue-veined wedges and demand an explanation.

She didn't have one (but she can make you a grilled cheese in the shape of a circle and call it a 'flying saucer,' and that makes up for any moldy cheese knowledge she lacks).

Her father, Pop, still eats like he's living in the Great Depression. His refrigerator is an eclectic mix of Wisconsin Germans meets Food Rationing - supplies for onion sandwiches, hard salami, Liederkranz cheese, pickles, and a jar of bleu cheese rattling around in the door with bits of dried dressing flecking the top. He buys the kind in the wide mouth jar and scoops the lumps of bleu cheese out of the bottom like buried treasure.

I couldn't tell you when I finally decided I would ignore the sour pungent smell of gym socks that wafted up off the wedge, and in hindsight, it seems rather silly one would ever put something with that smell in your mouth, but I did. And I loved it. It was soft, tangy, delightfully stinky. Bleu cheese and I? We've come full circle.

This salad can probably be found on the menu of any mediocre steakhouse in America, but that's just the thing - you're probably eating a mediocre salad, and life is too short for anything mediocre. Justin and I had a similar salad at a restaurant for his mother's birthday and oh, it was fine enough, but I suspected we'd been shortchanged in some way. The dressing was the right texture, but the barely there specks of bleu cheese made for an incredibly lackluster salad. Plus they forgot the bacon. And who wants to eat a salad without bacon?

If you scale back the buttermilk just a bit, the dressing will instantly be transformed into a dip for all things summer - cucumbers, carrots, radishes, or broccoli. I've also heard a vicious rumor about chopped red onion being added to this salad, and I find all things raw onion to be borderline sacrilegious, but I'll leave that up to you. I'll be praying you make the right decision.

Adapted from David Lebovitz.

honey crunch granola.

2011-04-20T10:24:00.001-04:00

I've been particularly crabby lately. I can't be sure if it's the never ending house troubles, or the unending rain that threatens to flood my basement all over again, or that my little black devil rolled in the mud and then dashed down the stairs on my new carpet - but I'm in a funk. It's raining on my parade. And really, the only way to work it out of my system is to say a prayer and follow it up with an all night baking session. It works 60% of the time, every time.

With my personal police officer working the night shift, I didn't bother to keep up pretenses at the dinner table. With not a soul to witness my unladylike behavior, I sat cross-legged on the counter tops, alternating between heaping spoonfuls of Velveeta macaroni and cheese and sips of Riesling and feeling incredibly cheap. I thought I might be able to channel some of that negative energy into something productive, so when I eyed a pile of sheets waiting to be folded in the basket, I thought I'd give the fitted sheet my best effort. Really, I did. But as usual, it ended with my foot caught in the elastic and the sheet balled up and shoved into the back of the closet.

I stayed in the kitchen. It's better for everyone that way. Trust me.

I've been thinking about granola a lot lately. I've eaten my fair share of mediocre breakfast foods in my lifetime and once I learned to make my own granola, I wept silently for all the good mornings meals that might've been had I known how easy it was. But I've had one staple granola recipe up my sleeve that I use over and over again and yes, it's possible to have too much of a good thing.

Sure, it's everything granola should be - toasty, crunchy, a touch salty with a gentle chew from dried cherries and golden raisins freckled throughout, but after eating it with some vanilla yogurt each morning for months, it's sort of lost its sparkle for me. There were some mornings where it struck me as so cloyingly sweet I could feel the tiny cavities burrowing away in my teeth. I brainstormed a remedy for my granola problem - a brainstorm that involved four batches of granola in varying states of deliciousness, some with chocolate and cinnamon, another without brown sugar and a healthy dose of honey instead. That's the thing about granola, it has that sort of blank slate appeal, the promise to play nice with any number of flavors.

The success of my late night granola factory is what I give to you today - a slight adaptation of David Lebovitz's recipe from The Perfect Scoop. The important thing about this granola is the honey - you'll want to use the best kind you can find. It's the shining star here. Since honey is the only sweetener in the recipe, I used sweetened coconut for a touch more sugar, but you can use unsweetened, if you like.

Adapted from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop.

rosanne cash's potato salad.

2011-04-18T09:31:00.000-04:00

Previously, I've given mayonnaise a hard time. I've even go so far as to divorce mayonnaise from its natural-born lover, potato, and for that, I'm sorry. It wasn't right, and I'd like to retract my previous stance on the humble potato salad.

I will stick to my guns on my general distaste for mayonnaise, that won't be changing anytime soon. Whenever I see it, and you already know this story, I flashback to the fifth grade lunch table and there I am, complete with a purple Trolls lunchbox and peanut butter and jelly with matching purple jelly stained bread, watching Bonnie dissect a bologna and mayonnaise sandwich in the swivel stool across from mine. She'd peel the bread away from the single slice of meat (sans cheese, which I could never understand what sort of mother sends her child a deli sandwich without cheese), dangle it in the air, then slowly nibble at it like some sort of blonde kitten. It was coated in a thin blanket of mayonnaise, and it was gross. I want to crawl under the table just thinking about it.

Bologna sandwiches aside, the sour tang of that awful ivory-colored condiment has always been enough to make me turn my nose up at anything containing it, but this potato salad does something different. It sort of swallows up the mayonnaise in a way - you're so distracted by the noisy orchestra of crunchy celery and vinegary bite of dill pickles rattling between your ears, you hardly even notice the mayonnaise. Really, it's just there to bind everything together, to make sure everything's getting along. And they do.

It's quite important to have a decent potato salad recipe under your belt as picnic season rapidly approaches - make it a priority. And I know this prime time for outdoor eating is just around the corner because my cravings for pulled pork, strawberry shortcake, Arnold Palmers, and yes, potato salad, have increased ten-fold.

Now, in my family, we are dill pickle lovers. Kosher, crispy, sour, tangy dill pickles. My Dad - not so much. He is of the bread and butter variety, and that is a place I simply cannot go as I find sweet pickles to be nearly as repulsive as bologna sandwiches, so he nitpicks through this potato salad, pushing the pickles to the side of his plate and reminding me how much he hates them. But it's the pickles that make this salad a pleasure to eat and I have a reputation for doubling the amount called for here. You can, too. I won't tell.

Before I forget - the onion. I hate raw onions with the fire of a thousand hells. I can get on board with sauteed onions, slowly melted in butter until they're soft and tender, or even swished together with a little broth and a cap of cheesy French bread, but never raw. Never, never raw. They turn my eyes into tiny faucets and I can't deal with the lingering burn it leaves on my tastebuds for hours on end. It's gotten so bad that I can't bear to smooch my husband for at least three days post-raw onion consumption. I swear I can still smell it. So if your feelings for raw onion are similar to mine, leave them out and measure out the same quantity of celery, hard-boiled egg, or pickles to help fill your salad out.

Oh, and Happy Picnic Season.

dutch baby pancake.

2011-04-13T09:59:00.002-04:00

Do you remember when we talked about lemon madeleines? Or how I was overwhelmed with wedding hullabaloo and looking forward to some down time with my new husband? Do you remember how I casually mentioned the next person to ask when we're having a baby gets a frying pan to the face?

I bought the frying pan. A nice, heavy, cast iron frying pan.

So if it's a baby they want - a baby they'll get.

A pancake baby, a Dutch baby, a puffed up funnel-cake tasting baby with toasted, lacy edges and a blanket of powdered sugar, sprinkled with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and ready for my belly. Quite delightful. And if you happen to be married to a husband as curious as mine, you can giggle to yourself as he walks past the stove time and time again mumbling about the baking madness within.

Now about this particular baby - I was a bit nervous about baking it for the full twenty five minutes as it starts to puff up around the edges within the first five, then the center rises up and down a bit, not unlike a real sleeping infant, and with twelve minutes still left on the timer it was starting to look like the perfect shade of golden brown and I was so very tempted to take it out - but you must resist! The edges will crisp up just a bit more and you'll need the extra few minutes to set the center - otherwise your baby's tummy will taste like soggy eggs.

I used a cast iron skillet for this pancake (and for smacking line-crossing folk across the mouth) but you can certainly pull it off in a glass pie plate or metal cake pan.

Adapted just a bit from Orangeette.

black forest chocolate cookies.

2011-04-06T16:41:00.001-04:00

I am sort of getting the feel of my new kitchen, and by "sort of" I mean my too-long bangs constantly whip into my eyes as I'm whisking, the Tupperware somehow mingled with the pots and the whole lot of them come crashing down every time I reach for a saucepan, I flitter between the island and the stove like a dazed moth banging up against a lantern, and my new husband offers his help, only to be rejected time and time again. I'm a proud woman.

I do it to myself, really. Every other day in our household involves a trip to Home Depot, Lowe's, or Bed Bath & Beyond and as a result, my kitchen is usually strewn with light bulbs, paint sticks, receipts, and the occasional bits of gnawed tree trunk that Kona likes to sprinkle around the house like wooden confetti. He's a likable pup if you can get him to sit still, but he'd prefer to rocket out of his kennel like a lightning bolt and tumble across the freshly painted closet doors. Now he looks less like a Dutchie and more like a zebra.

We've had a few newlywed spats here and there - mostly over our difference in eating habits and my inability to recycle on a regular basis. As it turns out, my husband eats like a pack mule, a trait I used to find endearing when we were dating and he'd clean his plate during the one night we'd see each other that week, but when I open the fridge to pack my lunch only to find it barren of leftovers time and time again, my heart sinks just a bit. Then there's the cereal issue: I eat one box per week, he eats one box per day. I didn't see a single puff of the coveted Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch I bought last week - not a single puff! And Heaven forbid we buy generic brand cereal - the sky would fall, people!

I'm considering waiting tables on the weekend or selling my eggs for some quick cash to continue financing the appetite the only member of our three-being household who does not eat sticks. When it comes to menu planning, I don't even bother with the "Serves 2" stuff - that's for lightweights. What we need is a "Serves 6-8" and then we live on a prayer that there will be leftovers. There is my squabbling in the grocery store, my friends, much squabbling.

Yesterday was my first official meet and greet with our neighbor, Rick, and his lovely wife, Teri. Justin and I have always been the type to daydream about summer barbecues and frosty jars of sweet tea with friends, so when Rick announced he'd like to come hang out on our second story deck and watch the turkeys trot across the lawn in the morning (yes, we have turkeys) with a cup of hot coffee, I knew we'd be good friends. Then he asked if I could make him some homemade granola to take on a trip to the Midwest next week. Yes, friends indeed.

So, about these cookies. You need them. You must trust me. Now, at first, I was bugged by the name - Black Forest Chocolate Cookies. I've never been a fan of Black Forest Cake, that sorry excuse for a dessert that generally involved a boxed cake with globs of canned cherries on the top - and I think you are familiar with my feelings on canned fruit, that terrifying, gelatinous goo. But these cookies are something differently entirely. They are a bit like the crackly-topped black and whites but with more complexity - the tart chew of dried cherries, the cloyingly sweet white chocolate chips and the richness of a brownie-like batter that has just enough body to stay out of the fudge category. It's practically perfect in every way.

Now, when you have melted and mixed and married everything together, your "dough" will look more like a pourable brownie batter - everything is just as it should be. A night in the fridge will bring the batter together and it will be a pleasantly soft and scoopable dough. Get on it.

Black Forest Chocolate Cookies
Adapted from Baked

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
16 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
6 large eggs
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dried cherries

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Over a double boiler or in short bursts in the microwave, combine the dark chocolate and butter. Heat until the mixture is completely melted and smooth. Set aside to cool for a bit.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs and sugar on high speed for about 5 minutes - it will lighten in color and thicken. Add the cooled chocolate mixture and vanilla, beating again for about 10 seconds.

Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until just combined, taking care not to overmix.

Using a wooden spoon or large rubber spatula, fold in the chips & cherries. The dough will be very loose - pourable like brownie batter rather than cookie dough. That's just how it should be, not to worry. Refrigerate the dough for at least 6 hours or overnight - it will firm up quite a bit.

When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop the dough by rounded tablespoons (about the size of a ping-pong ball) onto the baking sheets, about an inch or two apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through, until the tops of the cookies crackle just a bit. It's better to underbake these cookies by a minute than to bake them too long. Remove the pans from the oven and allow the cookies to cool on the pans for about 2 minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely.

The cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or you can freeze them for about a month.

chicken in a pot with lemon & garlic.

2011-04-03T14:04:00.000-04:00

Despite the ever-increasing to-do list on our troublesome new digs, I'm still entertaining my newly-minted wife compulsion to cook a somewhat impressive meal for my husband as often as I can. I've been quite adventurous in the kitchen the past week, tackling new dishes like braised short ribs, flat iron steak with lemon and pepper, and chicken in a pot.

Per my previous thoughts, grown men really do like to eat a lot of meat. A lot of meat - thus the onslaught of animal flesh invading my kitchen.

But I take quite a bit of joy in filling his belly on my day off when he's spent the majority of the day at work chasing hoodlums around in his cruiser. Or maybe I take some sort of sick pride in packing him leftovers the next day knowing that his lunch will be way better than what all the other officers packed.

I'm a smug wife.

In the week leading up to our wedding, my now-husband left me a gift outside my door each morning for five days prior to the day. Good people, it was like Christmas each morning! First, a Willow Tree; then, a new camera bag; thirdly, two woodsy owl pillows; next, pearl earrings to wear on our wedding day; and lastly, a hefty bright orange cast iron pot. The man knows his stuff.

I cannot tell you how many recipes I've skipped over due to my lack of stovetop-to-oven cookware, the braises I passed up, the roasts that never came to be! My options for dinner are eternally expanded! This dish requires a bit of chopping prep-work, but you'll be rewarded for your efforts when you pop the lid open and the fragrant haze of garlic, lemon, and thyme wafts out of the pot. With a loaf of crusty French bread and plenty of butter, we huddled around the pot and sopped up the juices from the bottom of the pan, smearing the soft garlic bits onto our nubs of baguette and singing the praises of the that bright orange pot.

The original recipe called for a preserved lemon, but our new town isn't the type to carry such an item and I didn't want to wait three weeks to make my own, so I used a squeeze of fresh lemon juice instead. If you happen to have one, skip the lemon juice part of the recipe and boil the minced rind of the lemon (discarding the pulp) in a bit of sugar water for 1 minute and then set it aside. Mix it in with the vegetables in place of the lemon juice.

Chicken in a Pot with Lemon & Garlic
Adapted from Around My French Table, by Dorie Greenspan

Juice of 1 lemon
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 large potatoes, sweet or Yukon gold, cut into 8 equal-sized pieces
2 medium sweet onions, sliced
8 carrots, trimmed, peeled and quartered
4 celery stalks, trimmed and quartered
4 whole garlic heads, cloves separated but not peeled
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 thyme sprigs
3 parsley sprigs
2 rosemary sprigs
1 chicken, about 4 pounds, whole or cut into 8 pieces
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup dry white wine
About 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
About 3/4 cup hot water

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the vegetables and garlic in two batches (overcrowding the pan will take them even longer to cook and they won't brown evenly), and saute the vegetables until they are brown on all sides, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. Spoon the vegetables into a Dutch oven or other oven-safe pot with a lid and stir in the herbs and lemon juice or preserved lemon peel, if you're using it.

Return the skillet to the heat and add another tablespoon of olive oil. Add the chicken (whole or cut up) and brown it on all sides, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. It should take about 5-7 minutes per side. Add the chicken to the pot with the vegetables, taking care to nudge the vegetables up the sides of the pot and around the chicken. In a large measuring cup, mix together the remaining olive oil, chicken broth, and wine and pour it over the chicken and vegetables.

On a clean work surface, combined the flour and hot water, adding more flour or water as needed, to make a quick dough. Once the dough holds together and is somewhat smooth, twist it into a rope and press it around the rim of the pot. Press the lid down onto the dough and slide the pot into the oven for 1 hour.

Remove the lid from the pot with a screwdriver (it's not sexy, but it works like a charm) and take a moment to inhale. Now get going, people are hungry. If you used a whole chicken, you will have to do a little carving before you serve it. If you used a cut-up chicken, you can serve it straight from the pot.

Serve with plenty of crusty bread and sweet butter and eat it with people you love.

grasshopper brownies.

2011-03-30T15:34:00.000-04:00

I'm back and it feels really, really good. The past few weeks have been such a flurry of activity that I forgot how important it is to stop, slow down, and get out the mixing bowl and wooden spoon - a variation of stop and smell the roses, if you will. Getting married can make you feel a lot of things - excited, nervous and, in my case, hungry.

Unfortunately, all the wedding hullabaloo made it near impossible to spend a decent amount of time in the kitchen, really just a few minutes here and there for a slice of wheat bread smeared with peanut butter or a pomegranate popsicle on my way out the door. I spent a few weeks in between houses, shifting from my parents to my shared home with Justin, thus creating a split kitchen as I tried to make dinner come together at both places on any given night. It's a frustrating thing to open the drawer for your favorite knife only to find its familiar slot amongst the forks and spoons empty. That's why I don't have the recipe ready for these grasshopper brownies ready for you just yet - the cookbook has gone missing in the shuffle of moving and I don't want to bamboozle you by trying to remember it off the top of my newlywed-head. But I promise I will post it soon.

In the meantime, have a look at my new favorite part of the house: the cookbook nook. It's my favorite not only because it's one of the few places of the house that isn't stricken with plumbing problems, but because it's all mine. As it turns out, there is a lot of sharing in marriage - the shower, the sheets, the chores, the toothpaste. But this nook? This is not for sharing. There are no screwdrivers or scraps of sandpaper, no shotgun shells or animal pelts tucked into the corners of the shelves - only page after page of delicious, buttery, belly-filling goodness. And it makes me happy.

In the past eleven whole days of marriage, I've collected a grab-bag of thoughts that I ponder throughout the night as I struggle to sleep in my still unfamiliar new room. Like - will Justin continue to bring me every single bobby pin he finds on the floor, the pillowcases, or the counters? Once totaled, that could be years of his life spent bringing me loose bobby pins. I knew he was a sleepwalker (and sleep shouter), but how could I have known he'd be muttering police codes in his dreams? The muffled 10-4, 10-86, 10-8 (codes not actual) makes me wish his brain would take off the bullet-proof vest from time to time. Obviously, there is some serious spiritual introspection going on here.

I haven't done much baking the past few weeks as evidenced by the home-owning trauma going on at our house, but I did volunteer to whip up all the desserts for our rehearsal dinner. I got a lot of crazy looks, that raised eyebrow that says, "Oh honey, you want to do all that? You've lost all your marbles." And maybe so, but it was my wedding and I'll bake if I want to. Hmph. We hosted the dinner at our new cabin with my Dad serving up thirty (!) pounds of pulled pork on checkered table cloths stacked with frosty beer bottles and sweet wine - it was a picture perfect picnic smack in the center of our living room.

And I made raspberry oat bars, monster cookies, a peanut butter pie that is still stuck to my hips and these brownies - grasshopper brownies, buttercream mint brownies, crème de menthe brownies - whatever you like. My brother, David, came home with a bottle of crème de menthe, accused me of being an alcoholic by "sneaking it into food," and gave me some long winded explanation about why the liquor wasn't green. If your crème de menthe is of the clear variety, you can add a few drops of food coloring, or go au naturel as I did.

Putting these into the Brownie category is really selling them short - they are so, so much more than that. The brownies is simply the base - a chocolaty, fudgy, chewy vessel for carrying an inch-thick layer of minted buttercream to your mouth, held down by a snap of bittersweet chocolate that cracks under your teeth with each bite. They are quite sweet in the best way, and you'll do well to keep a cup of coffee in one hand and a brownie in the other. Also, the liquor alone isn't enough to give the buttercream its minty boost, so you'll need a bit of peppermint extract. I made the mistake of buying mint extract which turned out of be a combination of spearmint and peppermint, and the very smell of spearmint makes me gag worse than strep-test. Do as I say, not as I do.

It's best to keep them in the fridge or else you run the risk of the buttercream becoming too soft and oozing all over your fingers. We even ate them straight from the freezer where they'll keep for a few weeks, tightly wrapped.

and so we are married.

2011-03-21T08:29:00.000-04:00

See you next week.

homeownership.

2011-03-11T23:01:00.002-05:00

I knew that owning a house would be a big responsibility. I knew that houses cost money and time and effort and sometimes that money you saved for a dream dinner at The French Laundry would end up going to buy lightbulbs or repair the fence. But somewhere in there, I thought all those things would happen after a few years, after the house had been a little lived in and a little loved, when we would be able to shrug and say, "Welp, that fence gave us ten good years!"

When I left work today, my brain was bustling with last minute wedding plans and thoughts - when to pick up my dress, if I should have my ring cleaned again, to drop the cake topper off with my friend and baker of delicious wedding cakes. I was itching with excitement for all the guests coming into town this weekend, thrilled to show off our new digs. I was ready to clean, Windex - make it sparkle and shine. I didn't expect to have Justin call me on my way home to say, "Please don't panic, but the basement is flooded."

The words "don't panic" and "flood" do not mix well in my mind.

Naturally, the insurance companies were less than helpful on all accounts. We live in an area not at all notorious for floods, and a sump-pump failure somehow falls under "flood damage" - coverage we do not have. And the "you just paid an obscene amount of money for this house, so we got your back" insurance found themselves a loophole in the pump being outside the foundation so it's not covered. It's great how they really try to help you out, isn't it?

So in lieu of wedding shenanigans today, Justin and I rolled up our jeans like Huck Finn and bailed freezing cold water out of the basement until we couldn't feel our toes. Because when the insurance company tells you that a plumber will be there "sometime within the next 6 hours," you have to take matters into your own hands.

So all the boys spent the evening ripping up the flooring that now magically seeps water each time you step on it, and poor Cory split his hand wide open, and I cried on the phone to my Auntie Trish until my Mom arrived and promised it would all be okay.

I think that's enough for today. Sleep tight - I'm getting up early to pick out new carpet.

housekeeping.

2011-03-10T10:33:00.000-05:00

I feel a bit guilty about not having a recipe to share with you today, but my desire to write is still there, so I feel I must do something about it. With everything else happening these days, I decided I ought to take the pressure to bake-bake-bake off my shoulders and learn to savor the flavor a bit more. Life happens so quickly, doesn't it? So I gave my blog a bit of a face-lift in honor of my mini-revelation, and I do hope you'll stick around. Don't worry, there will still be copious amounts of butter and sugar around here, but in just nine short days, the only people at my table on a regular basis will be Mr. Policeman and his little wife, and there's just not enough stomach room for all that cake. I've got dozens of savory recipes lined up, I even grilled a steak last weekend!

But lately, I've been up to my gills in cowboy wallpaper.

Some might say I am way in over my head in trying to redecorate a room while we are still moving in and planning the wedding - but when I go into our ~~house~~ cabin, it still feels like someone else lives there. When I stand in the foyer and see the kitty-printed wallpaper, I cringe knowing we are "dog people." And somehow I missed the rodeo room, the guest room that was covered with lasso-slingin' Westerners from floor to ceiling. I assume the little boy who lived there had quite an imagination.

But my heart pines for vintage, shabby, chic, rustic decor, something Justin could never understand since he is currently taking measurements for where to hang his deer head on the wall. I so want it to feel like ours, a place where we live and sleep and make memories. So my Mom and I spent hours scraping and peeling the paper off the walls only to find the paper was actually under the trim and baseboards and we had to use a razorblade to get it out. Thank you, previous owners.

And if that wasn't enough, Justin is refinishing an antique dresser my parents gave us, a dresser that has gone through more members of my family than I can remember. I suppose I could figure out who has previously owned it based on the pencil doodles and chewed gum that line the drawers, but some things are better left a mystery. God bless him, he spends hours each day sanding, stripping, dusting, wiping, and staining the dresser and I spend hours...well, cheering him on.

Perhaps we'd been huffing too much paint thinner or the fumes of the wallpaper remover finally infiltrated my brain, but halfway through the day on Saturday we found a 1920's porcelain-top stove for sale and brought it home to our garage within the hour. Now this book you have to judge by its cover, because the innards are so incredibly rusted and rotted you'll get lockjaw just by looking at it. But we are equipped to restore, my friends!

And so our life together begins so very soon. Hallelujah.

lemon glazed madeleines.

2011-03-03T10:10:00.005-05:00

The light at the end of the wedding tunnel is rapidly approaching and heck, I'll be honest, it's sort of blinding. At least five times per day, someone asks me if all the planning is done and, after weeks of this, I finally realized that I was telling big fat lies each time I smiled and said, "Just about!" So sorry if you have been one of those people, but the planning is almost never finished. It's sort of maddening, really. Being asked to make decisions on the tiniest of matters is a new form of torture - like what color the ribbon around the top of the ceremony program should be. Would I like sage green, parsley green, kelly green, mint green, celadon green, fern green, jungle green...for heaven's sake - just give me green!

Thankfully, my sweet mother has held my hand and refilled my wine glass every step of the way. She didn't even judge me when I poured myself a glass at eleven in the morning on a weekday (creating a seating chart is particularly stressful). To top off the bridal blitzkrieg, Justin and I closed on our house this week, which is equal parts exciting and terrifying - the exciting part being the electric dustpan built into the bottom of the kitchen island that sucks up dirt with the click of a button (never gets old), and the terrifying part being the heart-stopping large numbers on the papers we signed at settlement. If I never do that again, I'll be just fine. And while we're here, the next person to ask when we're having a baby gets a frying pan to the face.

Somewhere in all the hustle bustle, I made these madeleines. As I was packing up the 457 baking pans I own, I dug up the seashell shaped pan from the bottom of the cabinet and was instantly panged with guilt - I made such a fuss over getting it for so long and I'd only used it once. Madeleines are the sort of cakey-cookies you can pull off even when you're a lamenting a lack of food in the house - it's a simple batter of eggs, flour, sugar, and butter. Now I don't want to be the type that joins in the never-ending battle of baking powder or no baking powder because lately I have other things occupying my time, but I skipped it completely in this recipe and the tiny tea cakes still had quite a bit of puff to them.

Now I really, really like lemon. Justin says he doesn't, but that doesn't keep his hand out of the cookie jar. So once these cookies are cooled, I dunk them into a tart lemon glaze, let them dry, then dunk them again. It takes a pit of patience for the glaze to set up in between each dip into the lemon pool, but for your time you'll be rewarded with a tender cake coated in a crackly citrus crust, the type that you can hear shattering under your teeth if you're very, very quiet.

Lemon-Glazed Madeleines
Adapted from David Lebovitz

3 large eggs, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Zest of one lemon
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature, plus additional melted butter for preparing the molds

For the glaze:

Juice of 2 lemons
Zest of 1 lemon
2-3 cups powdered sugar

Brush the madeleine molds with melted butter then dust with a bit of flour. Shake off the excess flour and put the pan in the freezer while you prepare the batter.

In the bowl of a stand mixter fitted with the whisk attachment, beat together the eggs, granulated sugar and salt until the mixture is thick and frothy - about 5 minutes. Sift the flour over the mixture about 1/2 cup at a time and gently fold the flour into the egg mixture with a large rubber spatula. It may seem a bit stubborn in absorbing into the liquid, but I promise it will.

Add the lemon zest to the cooled butter and add the butter to the batter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing after each addition. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour and up to 12.

When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Remove the pan from the freezer and scoop a small mound (about 2 tablespoons worth) of batter into each mold without smoothing it out - they will fill the molds as they bake. Bake for 8-9 minutes in the center of the oven, each madeleine should be lightly colored and puffed up just a bit. Allow the cakes to cool in the pan for about 2 minutes before removing each one to a cooling rack.

While the cakes are baking, make your glaze. Whisk together the lemon juice and lemon zest in a medium bowl. Add the powdered sugar about 1/2 cup at a time and whisk until it is a smooth, glossy, pourable glaze.

Once each cake is cool enough to handle, dip both sides into the glaze, shaking off any extra glaze. Allow each cake to cool on the wire rack until the glaze is set and then dip again.

Madeleines are best the day they are made, but they will keep in an airtight container for 2 days.

a magazine.

2011-02-27T20:47:00.000-05:00

When my hometown magazine asked me a few months ago if I'd like to write an article for an upcoming issue, I nodded my head with enthusiasm and quickly sent an e-mail back accepting the gig.

It was all good until they said they would be sending a photographer to my house. You know, to take pictures. Pictures of me. Gulp.

You see, when someone else takes my picture, I get nervous. And then the left side of my face twitches just a touch and I end up looking like a lazy-eyed pirate in photos. The kitchen is my happy place where I can cook alone, so it took me a few minutes to stop buzzing about like a bumble bee to let the paparazzi take a few snapshots where I wouldn't look like a blur with a pink spatula. I'm quick. Things to do.

So I wrote a sassy little article, smiled for the camera, and stuffed the photographer with chocolate caramel crunch and a glass of cold milk (per his request, obviously Hagerstown Magazine is only hiring the cream of the crop).

You can get a copy all around town and see my twitchy face close up. Or you could just make the chocolate caramel crunch.

For the online version, click here.

oatmeal cherry nut cookies.

2011-02-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

With our wedding just around the corner, I thought my mind would be consumed by color swatches and centerpieces and how I can ban the YMCA and Electric Slide from the play-list for the entire night, but no - I've been dwelling on what is to become of my father once I move out and he no longer has full access to baked goods day in and day out.

You see, he's had his choice of cakes, cookies, scones, and all the other beautiful things that come to be when you combine butter, sugar, and flour, for the past fifteen years. With the exception of the few months I lived out of state, he's had a steady intake of sweets, usually after bedtime with a glass of bubbling soda and now that I think about it, I can't believe he's not a diabetic. Well, it's diet soda, after all.

I've been trying to give my mom a little more room in the kitchen so she can master the art of Feeding the Beast, and she's really pulled through with chocolate chip cookies and that lemon cake he likes so much, but baking just isn't her thing. I can't help but feel a little guilty about it. Sure, she makes the finest grilled cheese sandwich this side of Texas (the trick is to smear enough butter on the bread to cover it, then add more), and she's made a handful of birthday cakes in her life, but I just don't foresee her sweet supply meeting the demand of the bushy-mustached head of the household.

That is just one of many reservations I have about leaving home after all this time, that and the fact that I have to live with a boy who will probably leave smelly socks and beef jerky wrappers all around the house, but there are some pluses to the upcoming transition. Like when the rechargeable batteries disappear and nobody knows anything about it - I'll be spared from Dad's rampage on how "they just grew legs and walked away." I know my clothes and earrings won't mysteriously disappear only to show up again on my sister's body the next day. (She goes by the "it was in my room" law when it comes to ownership.)

The real victim here is my poor mother. She'll have to endure the daily conversation about early retirement and all the camping trips to be had; she'll be left to fend for herself against the blind rage of my hormonal kid sister when she can't find her favorite shoes; she'll be icing cakes at midnight when Dad gets a craving; she'll have to watch Glee with my Dad who is famous for nothing if not constantly rewinding and asking her if she heard that last line and how funny it was.

So in my final few weeks at home, I try to pacify everybody with treats to keep the peace, like oatmeal cherry nut cookies, maybe with a scoop of melty vanilla ice cream sandwiched in between if it's been a particularly stressful day of wedding planning and final details. These cookies remind me a bit of a sexed-up version of trail mix, studded with crunchy walnuts and bits of sticky dried cherries, the smoky heat of cinnamon in the background warming the back of your throat. Don't let the word "cookie" deter you from crumbling a few into your morning yogurt. Just sayin'.

Oatmeal Cherry Nut Cookies
Adapted from Baked

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at time, beating a full minutes after each addition. Mix in the vanilla, scrape down the bowl, then add half the flour mixture. Mix on low speed until the flour mixture just disappears, scrape down the bowl, add the second half of the mixture, then mix again.

Add the oats, walnuts, and cherries and mix on low speed until just combined. Cover the bowl tightly and chill the dough for at least 6 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop the dough into heaping tablespoons about 2 inches apart and place the dough balls onto the baking sheet. Baking for 9-11 minutes or until the edges are crisped and the centers are slightly puffed. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

chouquettes (sugar puffs).

2011-02-15T14:14:00.001-05:00

I feel exasperated already and I've barely started writing this post. You see, it's been a long journey to get here, and not a pleasant one. I've spent a few months flipping through recipes for chouquettes, those tiny French sugar puffs sold as mid-afternoon snacks in the country of my heart, bookmarking a handful of variations to include chocolate chips and the crunchy sugar bits that trademark this petite snack.

It was not meant to be, me and chouquettes.

I read through David Lebovitz's book before picking a recipe, and heaven knows there are plenty to choose from, but the idea of a puffed pocket of choux pastry studded with snappy crystals of pearl sugar right after school (assuming I still had school, of course) was so incredibly charming I couldn't resist. His recipe calls for chocolate chips studded throughout each puff, which sold me from the get go, but I should've listened to my internal warning that chocolate burns at 425 degrees when you leave it in the oven for twenty minutes. They were alright once I picked out the burnt bits of chocolate chips, but after munching on a handful, we all decided they tasted like pancakes, and not in a good way. It was almost as if the eggs didn't cook into the pastry, leaving behind that unmistakable flavor of scrambled egg. It wasn't very nice.

[By the way, the pictures of the chocolate chip chouquettes were much lovelier than what we have here today (the result of lousy kitchen lighting and my impatience), but my sister thought it might be a bright idea to "borrow" my camera, break the lens, and erase everything on my memory card. Like I said, not meant to be. God rest her soul.]

This recipe promised a method meant to dry the pastry out a bit more to erase some of the egg flavor - you leave the oven open a bit after turning it off to help the chouquettes cool off slowly, a technique that keeps them from deflating and evaporates and unpleasant egg taste. It also instructed to put the pearl sugar on the baking sheet to add further crunch to each puff - I'm going to save you a headache and advise against this. The bottoms of the puffs get too hot and the sugar melts into a sticky brown glaze that makes it difficult to peel them off the parchment.

I know it sounds like a bit of fuss, but once you get the technique down, they are really a quick and fun snack to prepare. Before you know it, you'll be making cream puffs! Chocolate covered, even! A cromquembouche! The crunchy bits of sugar are key - the more you can stick to the chouquette, the better. And don't be shy about it, they will puff up so much you'll be wishing you added more before baking. Pearl sugar is inexpensive and easy to find, I ordered mine from King Arthur Flour.

Chouquettes (Sugar Puffs)
Adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 tablespoons (25 g) sugar
1 cup (140 g) all-purpose flour, sifted
4 eggs, at room temperature
Pearl sugar for sprinkling

For the sugar syrup:

2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons water

Mise en place - have all your ingredients measured and ready before you begin. In a medium saucepan, combined the butter, salt, sugar, and 1 cup cool water. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat until the butter melts - it should never boil. Remove the pan from the heat, add the flour all at once, and mix vigorously with a wooden spoon until it forms a smooth ball, about 30 seconds.

Turn the mixture into the bowl of a food processor and give it a few pulses to break up the ball of dough. Allow it to cool in the food processor (with the lid off, of course) for about 3 minutes. Add the eggs in one at a time, pulsing a few times after each addition until just combined. Cool the dough in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes or until cool to the touch. In the meantime, give yourself a pat on the back - you just made choux pastry.

Meanwhile, make the sugar syrup. Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small saucepan, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer 1 minute longer. Pour the syrup into a heatproof bowl and allow to cool slightly.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove the choux pastry from the fridge and scoop or pipe it onto the baking sheet, each chouquette should be about the size of a walnut, leaving about 2 inches in between each one. Brush each one with the sugar syrup and sprinkle generously with pearl sugar, taking care to press it onto the sides and tops of each one.

Bake for 20-23 minutes, without opening the oven door within the first 10 minutes, or until puffed up and golden brown. Turn off the oven, open the door just a crack, and leave the chouquettes in for another 5 minutes.

Transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely, although they are delightfully good when warm. Any leftovers will keep in an airtight container for a few days, but I found they get a bit spongy, so a 5 minute reheat in a 300 degree F oven will restore their just-baked texture.

cranberry orange walnut bread.

2011-02-11T14:45:00.000-05:00

My apologies for not joining the ranks of fellow food bloggers who are posting oodles of pink, red, swirly-twirly, lovey-dovey chocolate covered happiness this week. I went out of my way last year with a tin of chocolate iced cookies covered with sparkly sprinkles, and the man I gave them to will be my husband in thirty-six days, so as far as I'm concerned, that deal is sealed.

I posted a similar recipe way back when I was writing for the Frederick News Post, but sometimes I fear that some of you will never scroll to the bottom of the Recipe Index to find it, and knowing that possibility, I just couldn't live with myself. So I dug it up, gave it a quick makeover to skip all that fussy orange syrup and icing, swapped out the dried cranberries (they are so sweet!) for fresh and gave the citrus a much needed kick in the pants. Oh orange and cranberry, truly you are meant to be together.

I was a little hesitant about making this bread, not just because it's been done before, but because that meant I'd have to dip into my shrinking stash of fresh cranberries buried deep in the icy depths of my freezer and risk the wrath of my Dad when he asks for cranberry upside down cake in July and I can't produce one. These are real life dilemmas.

This bread is a one-bowl kind of recipe, the best kind of recipe, if you ask me. I avoided digging in late at night with the intent to eat a thick slice for breakfast over my morning tea, so you can imagine my rage when I came downstairs only to find my mother took the entire loaf to work with her. She brought the leftovers home. Smart choice, Mom. Smart choice.

Make this for someone you love. Or you want to love. Or whoever. Just make it.

Cranberry Orange Walnut Bread

3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
Zest of 2 large oranges
1 cup orange juice
4 eggs, beaten
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
2 1/2 cups fresh cranberries, some whole, some chopped

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter two 8x4 inch loaf pans, line with a sling of parchment paper, then butter the parchment.

In a large bowl, mix together the sugar and the orange zest. Using your hands, work the orange zest into the sugar, rubbing it together and clumping it in your palms until the sugar has a light orange color and is very aromatic. (You can stick your face in the bowl and inhale, I won't tell.) Add in the flour, baking powder and salt and whisk to combine.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the orange juice, eggs, and melted butter. Stir it together until the dry ingredients just disappear and no longer. Toss in the walnuts and cranberries and mix until just combined.

Fill the pans with an equal amount of batter and place both pans on a light-colored baking sheet. (This is not an absolute must, but I find it keeps the bottoms from getting too dark, too quickly, and it allows the loaves to bake more evenly.) Bake for 45 minutes to an hour (mine was about 50 minutes) or until a a thin knife inserted in the center comes out clean. The tops of my loaves never turned very dark, which I like, but it also saves you the hassle of covering them with a foil tent halfway through the baking time.

Remove the loaves from the oven and allow them to cool in their pans for about an hour. Turn them out of the pans and cool completely on a wire rack. Wrapped tightly, they will keep at room temperature for about 5 days, or in the freezer for about a month.

gorgonzola green onion biscuits.

2011-02-03T09:52:00.000-05:00

Is it snowing at your house? Because it's been snowing at mine for weeks. And when it's not snowing, it's raining, the freezing kind. And if it's not freezing raining, it's just plain freezing. And when you've already cranked the heat up and put on your wool socks and yet your core temperature won't rise above what feels like twelve degrees, well, then it's time to make biscuits.

I had an ambitious plan to make a homemade vegetable barley soup to go alongside these biscuits, but that was quickly foiled by the weather report and the line at the grocery store. I don't know what happens to otherwise sane people when Mr. Weatherman calls for snow - it's like something snaps in their minds and they suddenly panic that they will be without bread, milk, and eggs. There are other things you could eat, people. But please, I digress. The homemade soup never came to be, and thankfully we have the sort of deli that puts out their own house-made soups and we spooned spicy Maryland crab across our chattering teeth for dinner.

While soup is fine on its own, I find it's the sort of meal that satisfies you for an hour, then after the broth settles and all you're left with are tiny of bits of vegetables and meat in the bottom your belly, you're starving again. Biscuits to the rescue.

Now, I adore a buttery, flaky, salty biscuit as much as the next ~~bride~~ person, but these? These are something else. For starters, you don't have to bother with all that rolling and cutting, which is a good thing since your fingers are probably still purple from the frigid wind and your motor skills are slightly off. These are drop biscuits, the kind you scoop with two spoons into free-form clusters of pungent Gorgonzola cheese and mildly hot green onions swathed in a buttermilk biscuit dough. So, so right.

For a very small amount of effort, you'll be rewarded tenfold with these biscuits. As they bake, they give off a dizzying aroma of melting cheese and a sort of richness I can't quite out my finger on. Their outsides are a bit crisp, crumbling ever so slightly when you split them open, revealing bits of green and white woven through each bite. I find them quite handsome in a rugged sort of way. But, I'm into that sort of thing.

Feel free to swap out the Gorgonzola for your favorite kind, sharp cheddar would be especially delicious.

Gorgonzola Green Onion Biscuits
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 1/2 cups crumbled Gorgonzola or blue cheese
4 scallions, finely chopped
1 cup well-shaken buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, baking soda, and salt, then work the butter in with your fingertips until mixture looks a bit sandy but with lumps of butter the size of peas. Stir in cheese and onions with a wooden spoon, then add the buttermilk and stir until just combined. (I needed an extra splash of buttermilk for the crumbly bits collecting in the bottom of the bowl.)

Using two spoons, scoop the dough in 12 equal mounds about 2 inches apart onto the baking sheet. Bake until golden brown, about 18-20 minutes.

If you only want to bake a few at a time, scoop the dough, freeze it solid (unbaked), then keep the frozen biscuits in a plastic bag in the freezer. When you're ready to bake, follow the rest of the instructions but add 2 minutes to the baking time.

red velvet cupcakes with milk buttercream.

2011-01-30T12:15:00.000-05:00

The past several days have been a real doozy in the wedding department. Here we are, just shy of fifty days until the day, and everything has been a scrambled mess. My Mom hosted a bridal shower for me last weekend, and it was mostly ladylike, save for the end where my Aunt Trish read back all my reactions to the gifts in a sultry 1-900 voice, promising me that it would be a preview of our honeymoon.

Then I convinced a handful of girls to help me stuff and address the wedding invitations, which seemed like a good way to get a lot done in a short amount of time, so you can imagine my displeasure when several guests called saying their envelopes were completely empty. Empty. No response card, no directions, no dates, no nothing. I was one unhappy bride. Let this serve as a warning to you - do not give your bridesmaids wine while they write the invitations or sweet Aunt Margaret won't ever make it to your wedding. I don't even have an Aunt Margaret, but that's not the point.

So now that my dress is hanging in the to-be-tweaked line-up in the alterations department of my bridal salon, I felt confident to stuff myself at the tasting for our reception dinner, you know - since my dress was being let out just a touch in the hips, I may as well indulge a bit. So I pushed three kinds of potatoes, green beans two ways, prime rib, crab cakes, bacon wrapped asparagus and every other type of belly-filling food down my hatch until I felt I might explode. Justin and I swung by the jeweler, picked out a ring for him, and headed home to sleep off the unholy amount of food we'd just ingested. Well, almost.

Around two in the morning, I had a dream that a wedding guest called and told me they were bringing four extra people than were invited and I had such a fit of anxiety that I ran to the bathroom where I spent fifteen minutes reviewing everything I'd eaten for dinner over the porcelain goddess. It wasn't pretty.

So I thought a little baking might do my heart some good, to think about something unrelated to the wedding. Well, judging by the rest of the week, I was foolish to think it would go smoothly. These cupcakes were a tease - the picture boasts a moist, smooth crumbed cupcake with a white cap of smooth frosting smeared across the top, but what I actually got was a cupcake so frail, so delicate, that they crumbled to bits when removed from the pan. The few that did survive were nearly decapitated - their lids clinging for dear life to the cupcake stump. So, why am I even bothering to share this recipe with you? Well, for the sake of the frosting, of course. This frosting is absolutely delicious - it is an old-fashioned milk buttercream, made by cooking a bit of flour with milk on the stove top before combining it with granulated sugar and butter. It sounds a bit strange, but for your efforts and skepticism, you'll be rewarded with a smooth, creamy, light-on-the-tongue frosting slicked across each cupcake. And really, if you want to lean over the sink and eat these in clumps held together only by that blessed frosting, I won't tell anyone. It's been a long week.

This book has a plethora of charming and historic cake recipes, but the instructions irritate me more often than not. Like his insistence on setting the oven to 335 degrees F instead of 325 or 350, and for those of us who have a dial and not a digital temperature setting, it's crap near impossible to find 335. Or the fact that each recipe calls for "superfine sugar" instead of just regular sugar. C'mon Warren, let's try and be a little flexible, okay?

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Adapted from The United Cakes of America

2 1/4 cups cake flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 ounce red food dye (the gel works best)

Preheat the oven to 335 or 325 if you're on a dial setting. Line two 12-cup muffin pans with paper liners.

Measure the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients into separate bowls. Whisk each to combine.

Measure the butter and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream together on low speed for about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time to the butter and sugar. Beat in the dye.

Alternately add the dry and wet ingredients until they are just mixed into the batter. Scoop the batter into the muffin tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool in the tins for about 5 minutes before turning them out to cool completely on a wire rack (good luck with that).

Old Fashioned Milk Buttercream

1 cup milk
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened and cubed
1 cup granulated sugar
Pinch of kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the flour and 1/4 cup of the milk until it forms a smooth paste. Whisk in the remaining milk and cook for 3-5 minutes, whisking constantly, until the paste thickens quite a bit. (The original directions say to simmer for 30 seconds, but I found the paste thickened so much it was difficult to see a "simmer" unless I stopped whisking. I've made a similar frosting before and I followed the directions for that instead.)

Remove the pan from the heat and pour the mixture into a shallow bowl, cover it with plastic wrap pressed to the surface to prevent a skin from forming, and allow it to cool to room temperature.

Combine the butter, sugar, salt and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Cream them together at high speed for 5 minutes. Add the cooled flour mixture and beat for another 5-7 minutes or until it is a smooth and creamy consistency.

Spread it onto the cupcakes, or any other cupcake that doesn't cause you emotional distress, and decorate with sprinkles.

peanut butter fudge.

2011-01-24T09:44:00.001-05:00

I am not a huge peanut butter person. I think this goes against my American blood because it seems to me that everyone goes absolutely mad for the chocolate and peanut butter combination, everyone except me. Justin will eat a pack of Reese cups before breakfast; my mother is famous for her peanut butter cookies, soft and sugary with a Hershey Kiss smooshed into the center like a tiny chocolate mountain; and I met my very first boyfriend one summer while I was working at an ice cream parlor and he would come in twice a week to get a peanut butter milkshake. Needless to say, I could never be with someone who ate that much peanut butter, so it didn't last but a few peanut-shake filled months.

Around Christmastime last year, my Mom brought home a small plastic tub with snowflakes and jingle bells painted on the lid, the kind you see piled to the ceiling of Wal*Mart all through the season, destined to be filled with cookies and toffee and in this case - peanut butter fudge. I have never made fudge myself, although I was always fascinated with the rows and rows of it at the boardwalk candy stores - cookies and cream fudge, chocolate walnut fudge, and even something called King Tut that could hardly be called fudge since it was really a three-inch thick slice of caramel with bits of toasted walnuts tucked inside and a swath of milk chocolate on the top and bottom. There was even a store that made it right in front of you - a man in an apron looping thick ribbons of the candy all around a marble slab in front of the shop window.

My seventh grade English teacher kept a mini-fridge in the classroom filled with tiny bits of homemade peanut butter fudge in plastic baggies to be given to overachieving students on test days. My classmates would beg, borrow, and steal to get a piece of that fudge, but I couldn't have cared less. First, it wast the color of espresso, nearly black and only slightly discernible as light brown when you held it up to the light, and I've certainly never seen peanut butter that color in this lifetime. And even as a child who didn't grow up with a standard for fudge, the texture didn't seem right to me - it was gritty and chalky and sort of crumbled against your teeth. It just wasn't nice.

So when I peeled back the snowflaked lid that afternoon and peeked inside, I thought that perhaps this was vanilla or coffee flavored fudge - it was a pale cafe au lait color and creamy all the way through. It melted like warm butter on my tongue and the peanut butter flavor was nothing more than a gentle nudge in the background, enough to know it was there but not so much that it sticks to your throat and you make a beeline for the milk jug - peanut butter can be really intrusive that way. And between you and me and the dog who watched it all, I ate six squares of it in one sitting. Six. Then I spent the same number of hours stretched out on the couch, groaning and cursing the day I ate so much fudge.

If you've ever made fudge before, this couldn't be easier. Unfortunately, I was a total fudge rookie and while the person who made this fudge was kind enough to pass the recipe on to me, it was the sort of recipe that has only a handful of words in the instructions and allows entirely too much room for error. It read something like, "Cook sugar and milk, add other ingredients, pour into pan. Cut." I tried winging it, only to find that there are lots of things that can go wrong with fudge - like the fact that you have to stir the milk and sugar constantly or else it scorches on the bottom of the pan. Nobody told me that. Hopefully the kitchen garbage can likes botched peanut butter fudge, because it ate a lot of it that day.

As with all fudge, this candy is tooth-achingly sweet. It makes enough to store in the freezer for later, and while I can't tell you for sure - I bet it is delicious straight from the icebox. Also, and this may seem obvious but I have made the mistake a time or two, be sure you use evaporated milk and not sweetened condensed milk. While there are fudge recipes out there that are made with sweetened condensed milk, this is not one of them.

Peanut Butter Fudge

2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cups evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup marshmallow fluff
1 cup creamy peanut butter

Clip a candy thermometer to the side of a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the sugar and evaporated milk and cook to the soft ball stage - 234 degrees F, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. This should take about 4 minutes or so.

Once you reach the soft ball stage, remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the vanilla, marshmallow fluff and peanut butter (I used a wooden spoon) and mix until it is smooth. Pour the fudge into a buttered pan, about 9 x 9 inches, but smaller or a bit larger will also do. Cool at room temperature for about 4 hours or in the refrigerator for 2 hours and cut into squares.

Makes about 2 pounds.

portuguese sweet bread.

2011-01-14T10:43:00.001-05:00

There are baked goods that are best within the hour they are made, still warm from the oven and oozing warm chocolate all over your fingertips; there are baked goods that won't make it until sundown before they lose their spunk - you wake up the next day hoping for seconds only to find its gone stale during your slumber; and there are those who are fine and well the first few days, but their full potential is reached at the end of the week.

This bread is one of those things.

Fresh from the oven, it certainly stands on its own - a rich, eggy, buttery bread with a crackly, lacquered crust that shatters into a thousand bits and pieces once sliced. Spiked with a bit of citrus that hums gently in the background of each bite, all I could think about was how delicious it would be in its next life as French toast. Or lightly crisped in the toaster with a smear of sweet butter and a few spoonfuls of that strawberry-pineapple jam that's sliding around in the door of the refrigerator. I can't think of a better way for that bread to reach my belly if not by filling up every nook and cranny with jammy bits of fruit.

I fully intend to follow the French toast route early tomorrow morning after the bread has dried out a touch and stands ready to soak up puddles of creamy custard, and if that's the avenue you'd like to go, too, I suggest you start here. The custard has a slip of sticky honey in it, just enough to barely sweeten the bread just a touch more before it slides into the bubbling butter and onto your plate. For those of us who have been poring over a certain cookbook, a splash of maple infused butter will be meeting that French toast for breakfast.

This bread will be added to my list of post-honeymoon cooking - for the lull that comes after the gifts are unwrapped and the hype dies down and we realize it's just the two of us (well, three, but since his brain is the size of a walnut, we'll let it slide) and we may as well eat French toast on a Saturday morning in our pajamas. Yes, I think that's what we'll do.

Portuguese Sweet Bread
Adapted from King Arthur Flour

Sponge

1/2 cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1/2 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

The Dough

1 cup milk
1 stick unsalted butter, sliced
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon grated lemon or orange peel, or 1 teaspoon orange extract/oil
7 1/2 to 8 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
4 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1 egg plus 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash

Make the sponge

Pour the water into a large bowl and whisk in the sugar and yeast. Stir in the flour and set aside in a warm place until the mixture is bubbly and doubled in size - about 20 minutes. It may be a little lumpy, but that's fine.

Meanwhile, scald the milk. Remove from the heat and add the butter, sugar, salt and whatever citrus flavoring you're using - zest or extracts.Whisk it all together then let it cool to lukewarm.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs and yolk together until frothy. Switch to the dough hook and add the milk mixture and proofing sponge to the eggs. Add in 6 to 7 cups of flour, one cup at a time, until the dough comes cleanly away from the sides of the bowl. Increase the speed to medium-high and mix the dough until it is shiny and smooth - it will be relatively soft.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board. Scrape the bowl and work in the bits of dough. Lightly coat the inside of the mixing bowl with oil then turn the dough into the bowl, gently turning it to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with a piece of greased plastic wrap and a clean tea towel and let it rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1-2 hours. (I preheat the oven to about 200 degrees F, put the dough in, then close the door and turn the oven off. It's a warm, draft free place in my super-chilly house.)

After it has rise, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and gently deflate the dough. Divide it into two equal pieces and shape into two round loaves (for a 9 inch cake pan) or 2 loaves (for a traditional 9x5 loaf pan). Place the dough in the buttered pans, cover loosely with plastic wrap and cover with a clean towel. Let the loaves rise in a warm place for another hour or two until doubled in bulk.

Preheat your oven to 375°F for at least 15 minutes. Brush the loaves with the egg white and water mixture.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the loaves sound hollow when tapped on the bottom with a finger. When the bread is done, remove it from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

orange scented angel food cake.

2011-01-10T10:41:00.004-05:00

I have a really good memory. Unfortunately, my memory specializes in the not-so-important stuff like what I ate for my birthday dinner when I turned seven [spaghetti] and that I dressed up as a waitress for Halloween in the second grade. I remember tons of tidbits from two decades ago that don't really mean anything now, but I like that those sort of memories still rattle about in my head from time to time.

I can't remember multiplication tables or what kind of oil my car takes, but I can tell you that one hot July day during the summer between third and fourth grade, I ran down the street in my wet navy blue and white polka dotted bathing suit to my neighbor Sara's house and we tried to make an angel food cake out of a powdered mix. Now that I look back, it's sort of strange that I went down to Sara's at all since it's the only time we ever spent any time together, but back to the cake.

In the cold townhouse kitchen at Sara's, we dumped the packet of mix into a plastic bowl with the simplest instructions to add water. I thought we should just stir it, but Sara whipped out an immersion blender and tried mixing it that way only to have her mother start yelling from the other room. I hate when someone else's Mom yells - it's so awkward for a little kid. After we got the boot out of the kitchen, Sara thought it would be a good idea to hang out by the bus stop and throw rocks at the stop sign and, being the impressionable child that I was, I went along with it.

Well, my aim was terrible at the time (and has not improved since then) and I ended up pinging the side of a gold car with a very nasty woman behind the wheel in my attempt to hit the sign with the tiniest pebble. Sara took off running back home (maybe that's why we were just neighbors and not friends) and the strange woman rolled down her window and screamed her head off at me when there wasn't a scratch to be found. In hindsight, I don't think she had any kids, so she never refined her skills in the Patience With Children department, so I hope she's had the chance to work on it since then.

So now, because of that horrible no good nasty woman in the gold car, my brain has a permanent scar in the angel food cake section. Anytime I tasted it, I'd have flashbacks to standing at the bus stop wrapped in my pink beach towel and chewing my bottom lip out of fear that the screaming banshee would kill me. So this cake has been a long time coming, eighteen years really, and it was well worth it. What angel food cake lacks in fat in makes up for in spun-sugar whimsical flavor, sort of like twisting swirls of cotton candy around your fingers at the fair and tugging each bite apart with the hope your Mom will buy you another one.

I used a bit of orange zest to brighten the flavor of this cake, and the result was a softly scented creamsicle cake, chewy and lush and perfect for dessert in my household of dieters. This cake is infinitely adaptable - omit the orange and add a shot of kirsch instead. Toss in a few tablespoons of grated chocolate for a black and white version. Serve it with berries, whipped cream or chocolate sauce. Whatever you do, don't bother sharing with any unpleasant neighbors, lest it leave a mark on you, too.

This recipe is done by weight - something I am usually peeved about, but if you have a kitchen scale then it couldn't be easier. Set the bowl on the scale, tare it to zero, and off you go.

Orange Scented Angel Food Cake
Adapted from Ratio

12 ounces egg whites
12 ounces granulated sugar
4 ounces cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of 1 medium orange

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and dig out your 9-inch tube pan.

Measure the egg whites into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and 6 ounces of the sugar - set aside.

Whisk the egg whites on medium speed for about a minute or until they begin to foam just slightly. Add the salt, cream of tartar, lemon juice, and vanilla and increase the speed to medium-high. Beat until the foam has thickened and the mixture is opaque - about 5 minutes. Maintaining the same speed, begin drizzling in the remaining 6 ounces of sugar a little at a time until all the sugar is incorporated and the foam holds a very soft peak (if you dip the whisk in and pull it out, the peak should immediately slouch back over).

Add the orange zest to the egg white mixture and sprinkle a few tablespoons of the flour/sugar mixture over the top. With a large rubber spatula, gently fold the zest and flour mixture into the meringue, taking care to scoop from the bottom without deflating the egg whites. Continue folding and adding the remaining flour mixture until it is well incorporated.

Scoop the batter into the ungreased tube pan and gently smooth the top. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the top is a pale golden brown and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Invert the pan onto a bottle (or just on the counter if your pan has "feet" on it like mine) and allow it to cool for about 2 hours. Once it's cool, slide a butter knife around all the edges, sides and bottom (if you have a removable bottom, this will be super easy), and tip it out onto a plate.

Serve with berries, whipped cream, or by itself, wedged in a napkin while you stand in the kitchen.

cheesy, creamy, garlicky rice.

2011-01-08T20:46:00.000-05:00

This was not at all what I intended to share with you today - but I've had one baking flop after another in my little kitchen and its left me humbled, embarrassed, and generally lowered my confidence to produce a decent dessert. Friar Matt thinks I'm jinxing myself by trying to combine my upcoming mawwiage and being a domestic goddess all in one and that something will have to give, and God forbid it should, because I must have Justin and I must bake.

There was a wickedly-good cookie recipe I wanted to share with you, but it crashed and burned the moment I took the pans out of the oven. And I had high hopes for those cookies, not only because they were headed to join the ranks of fully loaded cookies on this blog, but because the raw dough tasted like coffee ice cream. Coffee ice cream. In hindsight, I should I have just plowed through that dough with a spoon because the moment those cookies met the heat of the oven, they spread into massive, transparent discs and crisped up into pieces of sheet metal after they cooled. The fury.

Feeling the pang of defeat in my grumbling belly, my mother suggested it might be wise for me to step away from the stand mixer for a short time and regroup - that's code for "Your father is going to kill you if you don't lay off the butter, please make something for dinner." Roger that.

So I stuck my bottom lip out just far enough to keep from burning it on the stove-top and chopped an onion, shed some more tears, added a little spinach, a handful of sharp cheddar cheese, and a swirl of cream into the silky smooth rice and shoved a forkful into my sourpuss face. People - there is no longer reason to pout.

Not only is this a perfect all-in-one side dish to pile up next to a few slices of roasted chicken, it fills your belly up on the coldest night when you have the crispiest cookies glaring at you from the cookie jar - a cruel reminder of your cookie inadequacy - and suddenly you think that perhaps sleeping it off and trying again is in the cards after all.

Cheesy, Creamy, Garlicky Rice
Adapted from Around My French Table, by Dorie Greenspan

1 cup Arborio rice
3 1/4 cups chicken stock
1 medium onion, finely minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 10 ounce box frozen spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry
1 cup grated cheese, any kind
1/4 cup heavy cream

In a medium saucepan over high heat, bring the chicken stock to a boil. Add the rice all at once, give it a quick stir, reduce the heat to simmer and cover. Cook until the rice absorb the liquid and is smooth and creamy - it should take about 20-25 minutes.

Meanwhile, saute the onions and garlic in a bit of olive oil until they are translucent, about 5-8 minutes. Add in the spinach, breaking it apart with the spatula, and then the cooked rice. Add the shredded cheese and heavy creamy, giving it a few good turns in the saucepan to be sure everything is mixed. If it looks a little dry, add a splash more stock or cream. Season generously with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

chunky lola cookies.

2011-01-02T20:27:00.003-05:00

I've been a really rotten blogger these days - but if you'll take my excuse of "It's just been nuts with the holidays and all the traveling and what not," then I think we can get back to being on speaking terms and smooth things over.

There hasn't been hardly any baking going on in my kitchen these days - my dough-rolling surface has been stacked with paperwork for our new house (I just like saying that, it still feels like pretend) and since the new year came strolling in it seems everyone is on a diet all of a sudden. So any time I set out a stick of two of butter to soften, the gripes and tears start pouring in. It seems backward - here I am, the bride-to-be in less than three months, and I'm the only one not dieting. Yes, my dress is currently too tight. But I will succumb to the seamstress before I give up cookies.

Now, you may be completely exhausted with cookies after Christmas has come and gone - something about the twinkle lights sets the baking buzz ablaze in folks who normally never set foot in the kitchen, but I avoided it this year. By the time I finished my final exams and ate a slice of birthday cake, it was Christmas already and the only thing I had to show for myself was a few balls of peanut butter heaven and a cookie tin with powdery sugar coating the bottom. I'm a disgrace to holiday baking.

So while rest of the world has had enough cookies, this girl has not. My entire household is now watching their pre-wedding waistlines, but this bride is scooping out the chocolate chips. What can I say? I'm a wild woman.

These cookies are akin to monster cookies - they are the all-in-one sort of treat that curbs the sweet tooth of one of four cookie camps - oats, chocolate chip, coconut, or pecans. If you can't find something you like in that jumbled mix of sweets, then God love ya - you're a bigger person than I am. They bake up to a handsome shade of golden brown with a crisp edge and gooey center, flecked through with crunchy nubs of pecans and the underlying tropical sugar of sweetened coconut. The title doesn't mean much, but I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't hum Copacabana while they were baking.

Chunky Lola Cookies
Adapted from Flour Bakery

1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
11 ounce bag semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cup pecan halves, toasted and chopped
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, salt, chocolate chips, pecans, and coconut. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and sugars on medium speed for 5 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla, scrape down the bowl, and mix another 2 minutes. Add the flour mixture in three additions until just combined.

Chill the dough at least four hours or overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop the dough into generous balls (about 1/4 cup) and place on the baking sheets - take care to leave plenty of room in between as they will spread out, I fit 6 cookies per half sheet pan.

Bake for 15-17 minutes or until the edges are crisp and the centers are slightly underdone. Allow too cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 18 big cookies.

glazed raised doughnuts.

2010-12-20T10:55:00.000-05:00

I haven't quite gotten into the Christmas spirit yet, and I think I know why. You see, when you're a kid, you have all these other things leading up to Christmas - a school party, a play, ornaments you made in class, a countdown on the Advent calendar, and peeking into the vent in Mom and Dad's closet to see what's inside. When you're a grown up, things like that pass on by, your calendar fills up with final exams and meetings, and despite the ticking days until the 25th, I'm still not feelin' it.

This semester has been a really tough one, and I'm relieved to say I am officially taking the next one off. I thought that getting married and buying a new house was a good reason to take a break, and after I got over the guilt of taking the courses off my list, I made doughnuts. I was afraid I'd be terribly bored without school - rarely a day went by that I didn't have hours of reading or writing to do, and the first day off, I complained.

I complained to my Mom that I was rotting away, that my brain wasn't stimulated, and I didn't know what to do with myself now that the constant nag of homework wasn't bouncing around my head. She suggested I read a book, and with the help of my new toy, I gave it an honest try. But I kept finding myself thinking about what I should be doing and if there was something more productive somewhere waiting for me. It's a tough habit to break.

So, with all this extra time on my hands, I made doughnuts. Even though they are technically a breakfast food, they really are a half-day chore, so I don't see how anyone could muster up the chutzpah to get up early enough to have these on the table by breakfast. They're the perfect thing to make when you have your first free Sunday in months - you read a chapter while the dough rises, take a little nap while it chills, daydream about your new house while the glaze hardens just a bit, and hang that red sparkly star ornament you made in Kindergarten on the tree with one hand while you eat your doughnut with the other.

This was my first rodeo with raised doughnuts, and if we're being totally honest here, they were a little disappointing. They were still delicious, but not what I'd hoped. I was longing for that unmistakable tang of yeast, and I didn't see how I could miss it considering the recipe includes 3 tablespoons of it, but it just wasn't there. The dough wasn't quite as sweet as I thought it would be, and the oil gave me a bit of trouble (see the recipe notes below). But as it happens, there's nothing a slosh through sugary glaze and a palmful of rainbow sprinkles can't fix.

Glazed Raised Doughnuts
Adapted from Doughnuts, by Lara Ferroni

2 tablespoons active dry yeast
¾ cup of whole milk, heated to 110ºF
¾ cup bread flour

¼ cup whole milk, at room temperature
1 tablespoon yeast

2 heaped tablespoons granulated sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 egg yolks, at room temperature
1 ¼ cups to 1 ¾ cups bread flour
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

Vegetable oil, for frying

In a medium bowl, dissolve 2 tablespoons of yeast into the warm milk. Add 3/4 cup of flour and stir until it forms a smooth paste. Cover the mixture loosely with plastic wrap and let rest in a warm spot (like the oven, turned on to Warm and then turned off) for about 30 minutes.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine 1/4 cup of the room temperature milk and 1 tablespoon of yeast. Add the rested flour mixture along with the sugar, salt, vanilla and egg yolks. Mix until smooth. Switch to the dough hook attachment and add 1/2 cup of the remaining flour. Mix on low for about a minute then add the butter and mix until it is smooth. Continue adding more flour, 1/4 cup at a time and mixing on medium speed, until the dough pulls completely away from the sides of the bowl. It will be a little sticky, but still pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it chill in the refrigerator for 1-12 hours.

About 10 minutes before taking the dough out, heat a heavy bottomed pot with at least 2 inches of oil. Clip a deep fat/candy thermometer to the side and heat the oil to 360 degrees F. (This is what the recipe states - however, at 360 my doughnuts were getting very dark, not burnt, but browner than the picture shows. I lowered the heat to 340 and it still didn't do the trick. Any lower and I was afraid the doughnuts would just start absorbing the oil and not staying fluffy in the center - so please report back if you have any other ideas.)

Line a baking sheet with a non-terry cloth towel and dust it with flour. Roll out the dough on a flour surface to about 1/2 inch thick. Use a doughnut cutter (or water glass and imagination) to cut out the doughnuts - they should be about 3 inches in diameter with a 1 inch hole. Place the doughnuts on the floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Let them proof in a warm spot for 5-10 minutes or until about doubled in size.

Once the doughnuts have proofed, drop them into the oil carefully, 2 at a time without overcrowding, and fry for 1-2 minutes on each side, and about 30 seconds for the doughnut holes. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and move to a wire rack set over paper towels to catch the excess oil. Allow the doughnuts to cool completely before glazing.

Basic Sugar Glaze

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
4 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Whisk all ingredients together. Dunk the cooled doughnuts in the glaze and return to the wire rack.

Chocolate Glaze

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
4 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
4 tablespoons milk

Whisk all ingredients together. Dip the tops of the cooled doughnuts in the chocolate glaze and top with sprinkles, if desired. Allow the glaze to set, about an hour.

cinnamon swirl bread.

2010-12-15T11:34:00.000-05:00

I'm 25 now. Oof. This same time last year, as birthdays go, I was in my living room with a bunch of people I don't really see anymore eating three chocolate cakes. One of those people was a new boyfriend, a boyfriend that will now be my husband in three months. He made the chocolate cake with raspberry jam in the center. That pretty much did it for me.

This was the first year I didn't care so much about my birthday. There's so many other things going on that a birthday didn't seem to warrant a place on the daily agenda. I think I squeezed it in after I mailed back the contract for our! new! house! and picking Kona up from the vet after he decided to dart out in front of a moving car and needed stitches.

I thought I may skip over sharing this part, but in the spirit of keeping it real, I'll say it - we had a Childhood Throwback Dinner for my birthday. My sister made pigs in a blanket, macaroni and cheese, applesauce, and a funfetti cake with rainbow sprinkles. I considered pulling out all the stops and making a sexy triple layer cake of some kind, but since my brain is drained thanks to the 120 page paper and 7,541 word portfolio I wrapped up this week, I cut my baby sister loose in the kitchen instead.

Now, if it wasn't for funfetti cake and the happiness it brings to birthdays everywhere, I might've stuck those waxy candles into this cinnamon swirl bread. I'm not a huge fan of frosting so the lack thereof is of no consequence to me, but it makes up for it with a trail of pecan-studded cinnamon goo swirled through the plush vanilla cake. I haven't yet tried it, but I hear that Vietnamese cinnamon is the stuff of dreams, so if you've got a jar on hand, give it a go.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans, toasted
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan and set aside. In a small bowl, stir together 1/3 cup sugar, the pecans and cinnamon.

In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 cup sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. In a second bowl, whisk together the egg, milk and vegetable oil. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the egg mixture, stir until just combined, taking care not to overmix.

Pour half the batter into the pan, sprinkle the cinnamon mixture over the batter, then top with the rest of the batter. With a butter knife or white spatula (the kind you use for frosting a cake), swirl the layers together.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

chocolate crinkles.

2010-12-11T23:15:00.001-05:00

I love when cookies prove me wrong. It doesn't happen terribly often as my knack for glancing at a cookie and knowing that it's over-baked only gets better with age, but it happened today.

I've seen these cookies around town, generally at this time of year when they join the ranks of Christmas cookies everywhere, but I've always kept my distance. I only had one encounter with them before, an awkward college night (as most awkward things go) when my roommate brought a plastic tub of them to our dorm room. Her friend's mother had baked them for her and packed them up on her way to visit, which is a nice gesture, only the cookies were left in the hot car for hours and continued baking under the heat of the early September sun, so they were more like hockey pucks than cookies.

I tapped the cookie on my desk and watching it bounce right off the wood, and bouncing is something a cookie should never do, so I immediately passed and decided I'd protect my fragile teeth and risk hurting her feelings. My cookie snobbery has probably cost me quite a few friends in my lifetime, but life is too short to eat bad cookies. That's just how it is.

My friend Sara asked me if I had ever made these cookies not too long ago, and my mind immediately switched to those hockey pucks, and I thought I might pass her along a recipe I'd never tried and wish her the best. Naturally, I felt like a big fat hypocrite sending her in blind like that, and I can't afford to lose any more friends over cookies, so here we are.

These cookies go by several different names - chocolate quakes, crinkles, or those-black-and-white-crinkly-looking cookies, but I think they are actually brownies masquerading about as cookies. I was a little skeptical at first since these cookies don't have butter in them but a bit of oil instead, but carry on and you'll be rewarded with a chewy, chocolaty cookie swathed in a cloud of powdered sugar that melts into a glaze once it hits your tongue. They're a bit like a magic trick, going into the oven totally coated in white only to split open and move about like tectonic plates in the oven, revealing cracks and crevices of chocolate cookie underneath.

Two things - don't skimp on the powdered sugar and don't leave them in the hot car. Then you'll be out of cookies and out of friends.

Chocolate Crinkles

1/2 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup confectioners' sugar, for coating

In a medium bowl, whisk together the cocoa powder and sugar. Add the cooking oil, eggs and vanilla and stir until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients except for the confectioners' sugar. Stir again until no more flour is visible. The dough will be very thick and shiny, more like a brown batter than a cookie dough. Chill the dough for at least 3 hours and up to 24 and it will firm up.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Working with one batch at a time, scoop the cookie dough into 2 tablespoon sized scoops (about the size of a ping-pong ball) and roll in the powdered sugar to coat. You will need to coat it with more powdered sugar than you think - it should be clumped up around the dough. Avoid shaking off the excess powdered sugar, without a thick coating, the sugar will absorb into the dough and you'll have muddy-brown cookies instead of a sharp black and white contrast. Be sure to only scoop out the amount of dough you will need for a single cookie sheet as they will need to go straight into the oven without sitting.

Place the coated cookie dough onto the baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until the edges are barely crisp and the centers are puffed. Be sure not to over bake the cookies or they'll be too crisp and you'll miss out on their wonderfully chewy brownie-like texture. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

The cookies will keep in an airtight container for about 5 days.

flour's famous banana bread.

2010-12-06T20:03:00.001-05:00

When I am really, really worn out, all I want to eat is banana bread.

That's no secret around here. Banana bread is my personal security blanket, it's like a warm, softly scented pillow to rest your head on at the end of of a very long, very hard day.

Today has been one of those days.

And honestly, I'm ready for it to be over. I'm fried. Burned-out. Frazzled. Pooped.

So I'm going to snuggle in my favorite chair for a little while with a piece of this bread and chat with Jesus because I miss our talks. A lot. A whole lot.

Oh, and add butter. Lots of it.

Flour's Famous Banana Bread
Adapted from Flour Bakery

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
3 1/2 very ripe bananas, smashed
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup walnut halves, toasted and chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and butter a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

In a stand mixer, beat together the sugar and eggs on medium-high speed until it is pale and ribbon-like. Reduce the speed to low and slowly, very slowly, drizzle in the canola oil. Add the bananas, sour cream and vanilla and beat until combined.

With a rubber spatula, fold in the flour mixture and the nuts until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan, set it on a baking sheet, and put it in the oven.

Bake for 1 - 1 1/4 hours or until a tooth picks inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the loaf cool in the pan for 30 minutes before turning it out on a wire rack to cool completely. The banana bread will keep, wrapped in plastic, at room temperature for about 3 days.

pecan pie & a guest post from friar matt.

2010-12-02T11:21:00.002-05:00

By now, I think you all know I'm a control freak. The late-night frosting meltdowns, the hair-pulling when cakes don't turn out right - I'm not a well woman. So this is a pretty big deal for me, letting someone else take over my blog space like this. But I figure if you can't trust a Catholic ~~monk~~ friar these days, who can you trust? And so Friar Matt of Polish fame, who I met in college under shady circumstances, who I've been mailing cookies to all over the country as he travels around doing his Capuchin thing (I have been against this from the start, brown is just not his best color), will be chatting with you today in our first ever epic blog swap. You can get the scoop on his blog, New Sandals, where I'll be blabbering on and on about chocolate oatmeal drops. Get on it.

P.S. Check out my chocolate chip cookies in the Urbanite today!

* * * *

There is only one person who can tell Baltimore’s best food blogger that her pages need a little spice: and that’s me. I’ve known Brittany for way too long and she has never listened to a damn word I’ve said. Find some liturgy: but it’s boring. Find a place on the coast to live: but it’s too far. Run away with me: but you’re too smart for me. (Ok, I lied. But only about finding a place to live on the coast: she claimed she didn’t have the money.)

Brittany and I met each other as freshman in college. She took the train in from Lynchburg to visit a friend at Catholic University and I wandered down to the fourth floor of Flather Hall on a Friday night and immediately felt the need to antagonize the Southern belle in front of me. She was fiercely Protestant and had a more grating accent than the guttural Jersey sounds regularly emanating from my mouth. And besides, she used the term “hater-ade” when refuting my Catholic witticisms.

Originally, I thought switching blogs with Brittany would be a simply delightful idea. She could bring a bit of color and class to my blog and I could bring a bit of tongue-in-cheek Jersey humor to hers. And heck, since she’s harangued me both on these pages and in real life for many years, I figured I should return the favor of all the good press I’ve been given.

Then I realized: these noble pages exist as a food blog. I am a man’s man in this way. I eat for happiness, but cook solely for the survival of myself and those around me. You see, the main goal of a cook in a house of ten men is to simply not kill anyone. Anything more than that, and you’re a culinary genius.

Take for instance, last night. I hadn’t spoken to our shopper, so he purchased pre-made hamburger patties for me to prepare.* Now, I’m naturally mistrustful of pre-shaped discs of meat, but since these patties are alleged to be foolproof I raised no objection. My original plan had been to broil them, but then I started getting looks from the natives: there is a grill outside. Put on a sweatshirt and grill them.

I faced, however, a major issue in the middle of the grilling process. The propane ran out. So, please picture me at the nadir of my cooking experience and slowly moving into survival mode. It’s forty degrees; there are sixteen burgers each showing varying degrees of rareness because the grill started to extinguish itself from left to right, without attracting my attention. By this moment, I have also realized the turnip greens might be slowly burning themselves to the bottom of a sauce pan and the leftover braciole might be slowly dying in the broiler. I wield my spatula with precision and attempt to pile the still pink patties onto a too small tray, to get up the starts, to open the door, to get them into the broiler, to get them on the table.

I shall spare you the gory details, but last night was a great success.No one died. And since my gracious host always gives you a recipe, I’ll share with you one from my dear mother, completely unrelated to my story of woe, but simply delightful.

My grandmother made this pie every Thanksgiving until her passing and my mother has taken up her cause. Legend has the recipe coming off the back of a Karo Corn Syrup bottle many years ago, but never you mind, it is good stuff. It is the perfect combination of sticky and sweet. The pecans on top of the pie are done just right and sugary filling would bring even the most conscientious diabetic to his knees. Enjoy.

Pecan Pie
Adapted from Matt's Grandmother

3 eggs slightly beaten
1 cup Karo light or dark corn syrup
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cup pecans- some chopped-some whole
1 unbaked 9 inch pie shell

In a large bowl stir together first 5 ingredients until well blended. Stir in nuts. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 350 degree oven for 50-55 minutes or until knife inserted halfway between center and edge comes out clean. Cool.

If the crust begins to brown too quickly and the center isn't fully cooked, cover the edges with aluminum foil to prevent overbrowning.

* A story about meat patties that falls into the “Even if it’s not true, it should be” category. Several years ago, my RA at college swore he once saw a package of hamburger patties in the dining hall whose packages proudly proclaimed, “GRADE D, BUT EDIBLE.” The burgers were indeed edible, but barely.

buckeyes.

2010-12-01T10:03:00.000-05:00

A few years back, I was really ambitious about the concept of the holiday cookie exchange. I accepted every invitation that came my way, spent eight hour days in the kitchen trying to outdo myself with every batch, adding edible glitter to the tops of sugar cookies, stuffing chocolate cookies with nubs of soft caramel (more on that later) and generally trying to secure my place as the baker with the best cookie at the party.

Well, that gets tiring. My forearm was killing me from clicking the cookie scoop hundreds of times a day, I can't tell you how much Tupperware has gone missing after I loaned it to other cookie exchangers who were short a container, and once I saw my much-hyped cookies were tossed into a tin with a dozen other cookies - all destined to go stale and untouched long before St. Nick tumbles down the chimney - I decided to throw in the towel. Or apron. Whichever.

One year, I thought it would be a good idea to make buckeyes instead. I had never made them before, but it seemed pretty straight forward - just peanut butter, butter and enough powdered sugar to glue it all together, all tucked into a little chocolate cup, like a sexy version of a Reese cup. It was only a few minutes into rounding out each ball that I realized I hadn't done myself any favors in the scooping department, but I forged on. It wasn't until the super-soft balls of fudge began slipping off the skewer and sinking to the bottom of the bowl of chocolate only to fall to pieces during a botched rescue attempt did I realize this was not a positive alternative solution to cookie baking.

A third of the way through that fateful batch, I scooped what was left into a plastic tub, handed it off to my brother's then-girlfriend and told her it was just peanut butter fudge. I'm pretty sure I showed up with lemon poppyseed muffins to the cookie exchange the next day since I had the ingredients in the house, but I also brought a hefty dose of shame with me that year. I haven't attended a cookie exchange since then, I don't have the time or the endurance these days, but I still bake Christmas cookies - only one kind. Last year it was monster cookies because they are everything right about a cookie all in one, and the jury is still out this year. Maybe coconut macaroons, or chocolate toffee cookies, or maybe this new version of buckeyes.

I think most buckeyes, and fudge in general, are entirely too sweet. If you can feel the cavities developing as you chew, it might be time to downgrade on the sugar content. These buckeyes do the trick - a bit of cream cheese adds a gentle tang to the candy and a scoop of warm, toasty graham cracker crumbs give the candy a little bulk and chew against the creamy-sweet peanut butter fudge center. With a little chocolate jacket wrapped around each one, I think these candies are a sweet relief to the hoards of cookies this year.

Buckeyes
Adapted from Baked Explorations

1/4 cup cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
12-16 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped*

* The standard recipe calls for 12 ounces of chocolate, but I got halfway through the batch and I was out of chocolate and had to melt a few ounces more to finish the job. If your candy dipping skills are as sloppy as mine, you'll end up needing more chocolate. In hindsight, I didn't melt the chocolate well enough and I had a thicker coating - not altogether a bad thing, but if you like a thinner coating, heat the chocolate a little further and it will give you more bang for your buck.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and peanut butter together until it's smooth and creamy. Add the graham cracker crumbs and mix until just combined. Starting on the lowest speed, add the melted butter and confectioners' sugar and slowly increase the speed as the powdered sugar is absorbed into the mixture. The mixture will look a bit crumbly and dry, but that's just how it should be.

Using a small cookie scoop [or you can just eyeball it], roll the peanut butter filling into balls. Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and set aside while you make the coating.

Melt the chopped chocolate in a deep, microwave-safe bowl, stirring every 30 seconds until it is smooth and completely melted. Using a large skewer or a fork, dip each ball into the chocolate and roll it enough to coat most of it, leaving a small amount of peanut butter filling peeping through at the top. I was really lazy with this - each of my buckeyes had a tiny hole in the top from the skewer, but when you're dipping 60 pieces of candy, you shouldn't aim for perfection.

Chill the dipped buckeyes for about 30 minutes or until the chocolate is set. Kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator, they will last about a week.

roasted sweet potatoes with crunchy fall salsa.

2010-11-29T09:55:00.006-05:00

I just have to get it off my chest - I'm not even one sentence into this post and I already feel like a liar. As soon as I typed "sweet potato" into that little title bar up there, the pang of guilt struck me. You see, I spent Thanksgiving at Uncle Bill and Aunt Cindy's farm again this year and that means I come to you with a new-found wealth of knowledge regarding vegetables and the true meaning of a free-range turkey because they raised it themselves and it saw its final days in the barn in their backyard...but mostly sweet potatoes.

A casserole dish of bright orange "sweet potatoes" has no place at their Thanksgiving table - not decorated with toasted marshmallows, not covered with a gingersnap-cookie crust, not cleverly disguised as not-technically-dessert even with heaps of crushed pecans and brown sugar swimming through it. Why the sacrilege, you ask? Well, because those bright orange numbers are yams, not sweet potatoes. Yam. Sweet Potato. Not the same thing. It's just that the word yam strikes me as sort of yee-haw, and I am plagued by the voice of Uncle Bill in my head saying, "Sweet potatoes are better." Pay no attention to that recipe title behind the curtain.

Real sweet potatoes are a pale golden yellow with an interior so lush you'd swear it was filled with cream. At the farm, Uncle Bill slices them lengthwise and sends them for a dip in a pool of maple syrup and melted butter before they make their appearance, in front of my plate, of course, on the dinner table. I made the mistake of sitting just two seats to the left of the 42-pound turkey (yes, 42-pounds) and in Justin's family, since they abide by the pass-your-plate rule when serving, that meant I would be second to last to eat. While this normally would not concern me, watching those slices of sweet potatoes disappear off the plate in front of me one by one was giving me ants in my pants. Justin's cousin, Jamie, must've seen the fear in my eyes since she leaned over and spooned a few of them onto my plate before the turkey ever reached my mouth. God bless her.

Maybe it was the sweet potatoes, or maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was the love-drunk feeling of having both my parents, my almost-husband and his family that is now my family all at the same table, but I am thinking that meal will be hard to beat. In a way, I've outsmarted them all, because by agreeing to marry Justin that means I've locked in Thanksgiving at the farm, and Uncle Bill's sweet potatoes, for years to come. Could I make them myself? Sure, but it wouldn't be the same. When I asked him for the recipe, he smiled and said, "Does it have to be measured?" I love that. He just wings it.

So here's the thing - this year, we perfected the art of not hosting Thanksgiving dinner and were fortunate enough to gather around the tables of relatives who were up to the challenge of stuffing a bird the size of my dog. There is a downside to this method - you don't get any leftovers. As the rest of America ate turkey sandwiches for dinner this weekend, my Mom and I tapped our fingertips on the refrigerator door and stared at the empty shelves, waiting for dinner to appear. She requested a low-fat option, and normally I would balk at the idea, but then I remembered that my wedding dress is a bit too snug in the hips and maybe I should cancel my liposuction appointment and just eat a light dinner instead.

I won't try to promote this dish to anyone on earth who eats like my police officer and requires a slice of animal next to his potatoes, this is girl-food. Since all the men in my life are propped up in tree stands, sitting perfectly still in the freezing cold in the wee hours of the morning on the chance that Bambi might walk by [sorry boys, I just don't get it!], Mom and I were free to indulge without any complaints from the carnivores. Let me get right to it - this dish is so, so good. You roast the ~~sweet potatoes~~ yams until they are toasty and browned but not mushy, then top it with a crunchy seasonal-salsa of pecans, celery, tart cranberries and a very pungent, smelly cheese. Tossed with a gentle vinaigrette that packs just enough tang to brighten up the dish, I couldn't be more excited about the leftovers I'll be eating for lunch.

I detoured from the original recipe quite a bit and it still turned out beautifully, so I imagine you could do the same. Swap walnuts for pecans, cranberries for dried cherries, add parsley (I left it out), use goat cheese instead of Gorgonzola, whatever tickles your fancy.

Sweet Potatoes with Crunchy Fall Salsa
Adapted, quite a bit, from Smitten Kitchen

3 pounds sweet potato, a.k.a. yams, scrubbed, unpeeled, sliced into 1 inch slices
6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2-3/4 cup toasted pecans, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon smooth Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Warm the oven to 450 degrees F. Coat the bottom of a baking sheet with 4 tablespoons of olive oil, there should be a generous amount on the pan. Lay the slices of sweet potato down on the baking sheet and sprinkle the tops with salt and pepper. [Don't worry about not oiling the top just yet, you will flip them later.] Roast the potatoes without touching them for 20 minutes. The tops may look a little dry, but don't fret, my dear. Flip each slice of potato over; their bottoms should be a lovely shade of golden brown and they should come off the pan easily. If they stick, bake them a little longer. Sprinkle the flipped slices with more salt and pepper and continue to roast for another 10-12 minutes.

Meanwhile, get started on the celery-salad. In a medium bowl, mix together the celery, pecans, and cranberries. In a small bowl, make the vinaigrette. Whisk together the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil with the Dijon and red wine vinegar. Pour the dressing over the celery salad and then add in the Gorgonzola cheese. Spoon a good amount of the salad on top each slice of sweet potato and eat, eat, eat.

snickerdoodles.

2010-11-23T20:12:00.000-05:00

I've never been a huge fan of snickerdoodles. When I was younger, even saying the word snickerdoodles made my cheeks flush and that weird embarrassed feeling would rise up in my belly - it was such a stupid word. I think I would be willing to look past it if that word was attached to something delicious, but for me, the snickerdoodle always fell short.

I am cinnamon's number one fan, so you would think anything that boasts the toasty warm spice as its pride and joy would tickle my fancy, but it doesn't. My cookie-squirreling father adores them and at least once a month we have this exact conversation:

Dad: What are you making for dessert?

Brittany: I don't know, what do you want?

Dad: How about snickerdoodles? Those are good.

Brittany: No, those are nasty. They taste like flour.

Dad: Come on Britt, stop being a pill.

Britt: Make your own dessert.

I used to babysit for a snickerdoodle-lovin' family when I was in high school - they always had them in the house and one time there was even a snickerdoodle cake perched atop the cake stand, half crumbled from the girls picking at it all night long. But it just wasn't there for me. I am a real pain in the neck when it comes to the texture of baked goods - I categorize them into little cubby holes and they don't meet the criteria I tend to complain a lot. A whole lot.

In my book, brownies ought to be fudgy and cake needs to be fluffy and cookies should be chewy and crackers are best when crispy. Every snickerdoodle I've ever had was one of two things: puffy as a pillow or crisp as a cracker. Combine that with a lackluster flavor and that's just not something I want to spend my calories on. I was long suspicious of the addition of cream of tartar in the recipe because snickerdoodles were the only thing I ever used it for, and I hated the way the cookies had a shelf life of four hours before going from plush to crunchy.

So when a friend of mine requested that snickerdoodles make an appearance on this blog, I cringed a little. I hated snickerdoodles, but if I am to be in the business of making baked goods better, then I must learn to embrace what is possibly my least favorite cookie. First things first - ditch the cream of tartar. Next, I browned the butter to give the typically bland cookie a nutty, rich flavor; spiked the batter itself with Saigon cinnamon rather than just the cinnamon-sugar topping; let the flavors mingle in the fridge for a few hours before baking them really hot, really fast. Once the centers are gently puffed but not cooked completely through, it's time to take them out.

With quite a bit of tweaking to the classic recipe, I'm not sure these could even be called snickerdoodles anymore, more like cinnamon cookies of some sort, but I'm not one to cubby hole recipes.

Snickerdoodles

2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the cinnamon sugar:

1/4 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, melt and brown the butter. This will take about 5-6 minutes but keep a close eye on it, it can go from golden yellow to toasty brown to dark as night in a few seconds. Pour the browned butter into a medium heatproof bowl and set aside.

Whisk together the sugars, flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. There may be a few clumps of brown sugar mixed in, I squished them up between my fingers. Once the butter has cooled a bit, whisk in the three eggs and vanilla. Pour the butter and egg mixture over the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon until just combined.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. In a wide bowl or pie plate, mix together the cinnamon and sugar.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop the dough into 2-teaspoon sized balls and roll in the cinnamon sugar. Place on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart and bake for 7-8 minutes or until the edges are golden brown and the centers are still very soft. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely. [The hot baking sheet will continue to cook the cookies a bit and underbaking them helps keeps them soft.]

Makes about 3 dozen cookies, store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.

heartland turtle bars.

2010-11-19T14:19:00.002-05:00

Let's right to the down and dirty, shall we? The winner of the Best-Ever Cupcake Icing Kit is according to random.org is...

Congratulations to Katie, and may her Thanksgiving be free of tomato-flavored Jell-o and full of gorgeously frosted cupcakes. Katie - please e-mail me at orangeelle (at) gmail (dot) com to claim your prize.

Now that we've got the formalities aside, I need to talk to you about turtles. Not the reptilian kind, no, I stay away from those due to a traumatizing experience in the fourth grade. We went to some sort of science center with different stations where you could touch a horseshoe crab or starfish or, in my case, a small turtle. Well, the parent volunteer instructed me to "hold the turtle like a hamburger" and when I did, it started moving its feet/fins/claws really fast and the tiny nails scraped at my hands. Did I bleed? No. Did I cry? Yes. Was I a wimpy child? Yes. Have I eaten a hamburger since then? No.

What I'm talking about here are turtle candies - a combination of crunchy, toasted pecans stuck together by a swath of chewy caramel and doused in a chocolate bath before making a nonstop trip to your tummy. I've splurged on the fancy turtle at the beach this past summer, and with only four turtles in my hand and twenty-five dollars out of my pocket, I couldn't help but feel a little jipped.

Thankfully, there are ways around such a dilemma. You can have the turtle experience in the privacy of your own home. And if you're feeling a little crazy, you can add some brown sugar and oats to the mix and watch the wonderful marriage of oatmeal cookie and turtle candy take place. Love is a beautiful thing.

Perhaps it's the 3 1/4 sticks of butter, or maybe it's the toasted pecans and their dizzingly delicious aroma, or there could be something magical that happens when you close the oven door on the combination of butter, chocolate, silky smooth caramel and pecans but you must listen to me - the scent of it will make your head spin. As soon as it was out of the oven, I spent ten minutes just leaning over it, inhaling the sugary haze and hoping my hair didn't singe from the heat. I'm a thrill-seeker that way - anything for a rush.

One quick note - I went a little overboard on the filling. I used 2 cups of chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups of pecans. While it increased the thickness of the bar, the slim ratio of caramel to chocolate/pecan left me without lovely threads of caramel pulling out with each bite. Follow the measurements as listed below and you'll be in good shape.

Heartland Turtle Bars
Adapted from Baked Explorations

For the bar topping and base

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 3/4 cup rolled oats
2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
1 cup toasted pecans, chopped into large bits
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

For the caramel filling

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and butter the bottom and sides of a 9x13 inch glass baking dish. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pan with a bit of overhang on the ends and butter the parchment.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and dark brown sugar. Stir in the oats. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the melted butter in, stirring until well combined. Press about 2/3 of the oat mixture into the bottom of the pan and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven to cool on a wire rack for a bit, leaving the oven on. Sprinkle the chopped pecans and chocolate chips over the somewhat-cooled crust.

Meanwhile, make the caramel filling. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt together the butter and light brown sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil and allow it to boil for one minute, stirring constantly. After 1 minute, remove the pan from the heat and quickly whisk in the cream (careful, it spatters a bit). Immediately pour the caramel evenly over the pecans and chocolate chips, taking care to cover as much of it as you can. (The caramel is somewhat thin so it seeps down into the nooks and crannies rather quickly, you won't have time to go back and spread it out later.) Crumble the remaining oatmeal mixture over the top and bake for 10-12 minutes or until the top is golden brown. (Mine was closer to 12 minutes, but start checking after 10.)

Allow the bars to cool in the pan for a few minutes and then refrigerate(or set it on your back deck because it's so freezing outside) for about an hour. Cut the bars into squares or triangles and serve.

These bars will keep, covered, at room temperature, for about 3 days.

mobbies awards & a spiffy giveaway.

2010-11-17T10:42:00.002-05:00

When I started this blog two April's ago, I never, ever thought anybody would read it. I never thought anybody would read it and like it. I never thought anybody would read it, like it, and want to give me an award for it. So when a little e-mail from the Baltimore Sun popped up in my inbox with a hip-hip-hooray for this blog taking the figurative cake in the Foodie category of the Mobbie Awards, my initial response was, "Ummm....you sure?"

Of course, this only confirmed that people are actually reading this, which made me panic as to what I'd ever written that I maybe shouldn't have, then I started skimming my mental archives for posts that I would delete as soon as I got a chance, but then Justin reminded me that maybe you crazy kids stick around this neighborhood because you actually enjoy small doses of my insanity coated with copious amounts of butter and sugar.

So we jumped in the car last night for my first of four trips to Baltimore this week (yay Baltimore, boo commute) for the awards party at RA Sushi, which is really quite unlike any sushi bar I've ever been to. First, it's loud. Second, everything is bright, bright red. Third, sexy 20-somethings fill every corner of the room, holding Japanese beers and wearing impossibly high heels. I looked at Justin, and he must've seen the look of panic on my face because he grabbed my arm when my small-town toosh made a bee-line for the door.

And I'm glad he did, because I met some very fun, very down-to-earth fellow food bloggers at the party and heck, when someone says, "Hey, you're Cookie!" how can you resist? It's incredibly disarming. We talked about stuffed pumpkins, the merits of making homemade Canadian bacon, camera lenses, strawberries and all the other sorts of thing that make my toes tingle.

So, because you all are as much a part of this blog as I am, because I love ya and because I want to say thank you for all your votes and support, I'm giving away The Best-Ever Cupcake Icing Kit from Bake it Pretty to one of you! And I already have my own kit and yes, it really is the best ever. And it came with two tiny plastic ballerina cupcake toppers that I haven't had the heart to use because they're so darling adorable. And I love the icing tips - they are bit and fat and pipe a perfect swirl onto your cupcakes every single time. Each tip is about 2 inches long with a 3/4 inch opening for maximum frosting pleasure. Oh, yes.

Here's what you'll get:

Round Tip
Star Tip
Closed Star Tip
French Tip
One 14" pastry bag made of lightweight, double-coated polyurethane with a reinforced bottom, stitched border and hanging loop.
Glossy 4x6 postcard label with instructions and helpful tips!

To enter to win, become a follower of If You Give a Girl a Cookie and leave me a comment telling me what your least favorite Thanksgiving food is. Mine is that awful sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top, I know, sacrilege, but still, it's like eating baby food.

No entries after 1:00 p.m. Friday EST, please. The winner be chosen at random and announced this Friday afternoon, so be sure to check back. Okay, on with the show!

roast chicken with warm bread salad.

2010-11-15T09:47:00.000-05:00

This chicken was a labor of love. My police officer worked a crazy long day, so I got it into my wifey-head that he might like to come home to a hot dinner and I spent the entire day prepping for it. Naturally, this is me we're talking about here, so, of course, it did not end well.

I rarely shy away from laborious recipes, but after the second hour of cooking I find myself muttering things like, "This better be worth it," and, "I have to let this sit for how long?" But as the footnote at the bottom of the recipe states - if you want great chicken, suck it up.

My relationship with roasted chicken has been a tumultuous one - it's never consistent, some nights I end up with a beautifully roasted bird with golden skin and juicy meat, and I could make the same recipe two nights later only to have it turn up dry as sawdust and tasting like wood chips. I can't explain it, but know this - chicken will not have the last word.

So I salted the bird the night before, tucked a few nubs of garlic and sprigs of thyme under the skin, swaddled the whole thing in plastic wrap and waited for the magic to happen. Salting it ahead of time gives the meat more time to season and guarantees a glossy skin, crisp as parchment paper, the sort that shatters under your fingertips with a few taps against the thigh. Now really, that's the easy part. It's the 20-step, 15-ingredient (numbers not actual) bread salad that will make you wonder if maybe you shouldn't just toss a bag of steamable broccoli into the microwave.

But I whisked and cooked and dressed and broiled until it all came together, packed it up into the car along with our naughty mutt and managed to keep that naughty mutt under control until the seventy mile gap between that police officer and I closed and we were together again. So, being the chivalrous man that he is, he takes the bag of dinner out my hand, announces it's too heavy for me to carry, and then, of course, the bottom of the bag rips out, bread salad topples all over the floor, the chicken slid across the hardwood like a hockey puck and I stood there, wide-eyed, before excusing myself to cry in the basement.

I think you and I, dear readers, have known each other long enough for me to confess this to you - we ate it anyway. After my police officer explained to me that he had seen many, many terrifying things that day, having dinner fall on the floor didn't scare him in the least, and he would happily eat it. So, if you find a man who will eat the dinner that fell on the floor and does the dishes, marry him.

Oh, and this dish is insanely good. It's a melody of flavors - vinegary, sweet, sour, salty, bitter, peppery - there's not a bite that doesn't hit every single one of your tastebuds. I have seen some version of this that had pine-nuts thrown into the bread salad, so if you'd like to add "crunchy" to that list, by all mean, toss in 2 tablespoon of toasted pine-nuts. Also, don't try and get away with a larger bird - you need a lower ratio of skin-to-meat to get the most flavor, juiciness, and crispy skin.

Roast Chicken with Warm Bread Salad
Adapted from The Essential NY Times Cookbook

For the Chicken

One 2 1/2 - 3 pound chicken
2 teaspoons kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
4 sprigs fresh thyme
4 cloves garlic, lightly crushed

For the Salad

1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon warm water
1 tablespoon dried currants or cranberries
6 cups stale Tuscan-style bread, cut into 1 inch cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/4 cup Champagne vinegar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, slivered
4 scallions, thinly sliced
3 cups mixed bitter greens (arugula, chicory and/or frisee)

To prepare the chicken, the day before serving, sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Run your fingers between the skin and flesh over the breasts and legs to make 4 small pockets. Place a sprig of thyme and a clove of garlic in each pocket. Wrap the chicken in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

About 2 hours before serving, start the salad. Heat the broiler. Combine the red wine vinegar and warm water in a small bowl with the dried currants/cranberries and let soak for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, toss the bread cubes with the 2 tablespoons of olive oil on a baking sheet and broil for 2 minutes. Set aside.

Heat the oven to 425 degrees F. Place the chicken breast side up in a shallow roasting pan. Roast for 30 minutes.

Turn the chicken over and roast until the juices run clear when the chicken is pricked in the thickest part of the thigh, about 15-20 minutes longer. Let stand for 10 minutes, leaving the oven on.

Whisk together the mustard, champagne vinegar, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Slowly whisk in 2 teaspoon olive oil. Add the bread and toss to coat. Set aside.

Heat the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil in a small nonstick saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and scallions and cook for 2 minutes. Drain the currants and toss them in the bread mixture, along with the scallions and garlic. Place the salad in a baking dish. (It fit perfectly in and 8x8 for me.)

When the chicken is done, place the salad in the oven and bake for 5 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the salad in for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, carve the chicken and reserve the pan juices.

Toss the salad with 2 tablespoons of the pan juices and the greens. Divide the salad among 4 plates and top with 2 pieces of chicken.

Serves 4.

chocolate cupcakes with crispy magic frosting.

2010-11-11T14:00:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but the bombardment of cupcake boutiques popping up and all the television stations making a virtual war out of whose cupcake is best is getting a little overwhelming for me. Since I live 246 miles from the famed (although I'm not sure why, most of the reviews are mediocre at best) Magnolia Bakery and 70 miles from Georgetown Cupcake and there's not a heck of a lot in between, I'd just as soon make a batch at home.

And I can't justify spending three bucks on a single cupcake. I'm sorry, but that's a pound of butter, and a pound of butter makes a lot more than just one cupcake, plus frosting. I'm a practical woman.

So, I don't always see the appeal of cupcakes. I'll confess, I went through a phase a few years back before the cupcake craze hit everyone on the planet where I imagined myself working behind the counter of a bakery with hardwood floors and pink carryout boxes stacked to the ceiling, spending my days pushing dollops of chocolate buttercream all around the top of a vanilla cupcake. And that's still a lovely daydream, but I think that's where I'll keep it - in the Daydream File.

Not that there's anything wrong with a pocket-sized babycake heaped with mounds and swirls of fluffy frosting, but I find them to be a bit overdone and je ne sais pas...kitschy. So I don't make them very often these days, but then there was this recipe. I was spending another ill-advised late night flipping through cookbooks in my pajamas when I should be sleeping but then what would I do in the morning if not complain about the circles under my eyes?

I stopped on the page, squinting at the chocolate cakes with piles of a frosting dubbed "crispy magic" being piped onto their little chocolate heads, and thumped my index finger against the page for a few moments debating my stance on not making cupcakes. Well, I'm not that strong. The cupcakes won.

The cupcake batter followed a quite unconventional as far as cupcake batters go - rather than creaming the butter and sugar together, you melt the butter and sugar together in a saucepan and then pour it over the chocolate and cocoa powder before whisking in the remainder of the wet ingredients. I was skeptical of the method, but what it produces is a cupcake that actually tastes of chocolate and not just a brown colored cake. It's not incredibly moist, but I mean that in a good way, the chocolate flavor is completely unmasked in all its chocolaty glory.

The frosting, while it's a bit of a process to make, is a heavy contender for the best frosting I've ever eaten. It's a meringue/buttercream hybrid and it's light, sweet and nearly weightless on the tongue, a delicious contrast to the intensely chocolate cake. The cupcakes are a bit crumbly, and it's a bit of a stretch to open your mouth wide enough to take an all-encompassing bite, but if you lean over the kitchen sink just a bit to catch the crumbs, you can do it.

Oh, and about the frosting title - the original recipe promises that with a bit of uncovered rest, the frosting will develop a tiny sugar shell around the outside, forming a delicate crunch with each bite. I must confess, I didn't wait long enough to dig right in, so if you give this recipe a try, please report back.

P.S. There's only one more day of voting left for the Mobbie Awards! I'm having a great time meeting new readers so take a minute or two to vote for If You Give a Girl a Cookie at the Baltimore Sun in both the Foodie Category and Best Overall Blog (you'll be casting two votes.)

Chocolate Cupcakes with Crispy Magic Frosting
Adapted from Flour

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 cup granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Crispy Magic Frosting

2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 egg whites
3 sticks unsalted butter, softened, cut into chunks
1 2/3 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

In a small heatproof bowl, combine the chocolate and cocoa powder. In a small saucepan, heat the granulated sugar, butter, and water over medium-high heat, whisking occasionally, for 3-4 minutes, or until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved. Pour the hot butter-sugar mixture over the chocolate-cocoa mixture and whisk until the mixture is smooth and combined.

Whisk the milk, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla into the chocolate mixture until thoroughly combined.

In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until well mixed. Dump the flour mixture on top of the chocolate mixture and whisk until the dry ingredients are totally mixed into the chocolate mixture. Let the batter sit at room temperature for one hour to allow the liquid to be totally absorbed into the batter, it will thicken up a bit.

While the batter is resting, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tops spring back when pressed with a fingertip. Let cool completely in the pan on a wire wrack.

While the cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting. In a small heatproof bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar and egg whites to make a thick slurry. Place the bowl over (not touching) simmering water in a saucepan and heat, whisking occasionally, for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the mixture is hot to the touch. It will thin out a bit and turn opaque-white as the sugar melts.

Remove from the heat and scrape the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whip on medium-high speed for 6-8 minutes, or until the mixture becomes a light, white meringue and is cool to the touch. Turn down the speed to medium, add the butter a few chunks at a time, and beat for 3-4 minutes. Add the confectioners' sugar, salt, milk, and vanilla and continue to beat on medium speed until the mixture is smooth and satiny. You should have about 3 1/2 cups. Use immediately to frost the cupcakes.

Remove the cupcakes from the muffin tin. Fit a pastry bag with a round or star tip and fill the bag with the frosting, then pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes. Or, spread the frosting on the cupcakes with an icing spatula.

The cupcakes taste best on the day they are baked, but they can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.

pumpkin doughnuts with buttermilk glaze.

2010-11-09T09:30:00.001-05:00

I'm glad to see that Libby's is back to the land of the living after their little home on the grocery store shelf sat vacant for two years. Apparently, a few weeks of nasty weather nearly depleted the pumpkin crop and homes everywhere went pumpkin-less for entirely too long. So when those precious orange cans reappeared a few weeks ago, I stocked up. You can never be too sure when bad weather will strike again.

I thought I was doing okay in the pumpkin department until a friend casually asked me if I had any pumpkin recipes she could try, and I immediately defaulted to my recipe index only to find that the only pumpkin-anything on there is a recipe for pumpkin butter and that is just not enough pumpkin, my friends. How did I let this entire season pass me by without a craving for pumpkin pancakes, muffins, or pie? I'm a disgrace.

What I haven't missed out on are pre-natal-esque cravings for doughnuts. (No, I am not preggo, just to clarify, unless you count the food baby that I have every week after too much pasta.) I used to have so much self-control, I could say no to the box of Krumpe's, the perfectly round, blue-dotted cake doughnuts from Krispy Kreme, but I'm growing weak in my old age. Just the other night, I dragged myself in from school at nearly midnight only to find a box of glazed doughnuts sitting on the counter. All alone. Nothing else. They may as well have had a sign on them saying Eat Me. I felt like Alice after she tumbled down the rabbit hole only I had doughnuts instead of that little vial of elixir.

Now, I like a yeast doughnut just as well as the next person, but yeast hates me and we rarely see eye to eye, so I opted for an easy cake doughnut recipe instead. Plus I'm lazy and didn't want to wait for the dough to rise and I cringe at the idea of deep frying anything. Well, it's a good thing I am not easily discouraged or these doughnuts would never have made their way to my belly. The dough was almost soupy, gloppy and gummy all over the countertops and it seemed no amount of flour would keep it moving.

Once the doughnut shapes were cut out, the dough started creeping together again, threatening to seal up the center hole and leaving me with, oh no!, Frisbee-shaped doughnuts. So I nudged it apart a little bit and crossed my fingers after I slipped the plan into the oven, hoping they didn't balloon up into mini-cakes that didn't look at all like a doughnut shape.

Well, they did. Mostly. Some of them cooperated, others closed up all but a pencil-sized hole in the center of each one and I endured few stink-eye looks from my Dad after he questioned if they were actually cupcakes gone awry. But, redemption lies in the flavor. These are richly spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon, sloshed into a bath of buttermilk glaze and left to form a sugary shell, I almost didn't mind the absence of the required doughnut hole.

Pumpkin Doughnuts with Buttermilk Glaze
Adapted from Cheeky Kitchen

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or 1 teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg)
1 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup pumpkin puree

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, spice and sugar. Set aside.

In a second medium-sized bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients until well combined.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and whisk until well combined. The dough will be very, very wet - don't be nervous. Sprinkle a good amount of flour on your work surface and have a bowl of extra flour ready - this dough will glue itself to your counter like that blob from Ghostbusters if you're not careful. Pat it out to 3/4 inch thick, keeping it moving to prevent sticking, and cut out the doughnuts with a doughnut cutter. (I imagine you could fudge this with a water glass somehow, but this dough is so fussy as is, I'd hate for you to make it harder on yourself.)

Transfer to a parchment-paper lined baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes or until the doughnuts are cooked through. Drench immediately in the buttermilk glaze and serve warm.

Buttermilk Glaze

3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl until smooth. Dip the hot doughnuts in the glaze and allow them to air dry on a wire rack until the glaze forms a crackly shell.

rigatoni with leeks and sausages sauce.

2010-11-07T20:27:00.001-05:00

It's eight p.m. now and I was ready to be asleep two hours ago. I hate daylight savings time. It's dark when I get up, it's dark when I get home from work, my body is ready for dinner at four in the afternoon and for sleep at seven. My whole system is thrown off, and I'm not happy about it. Except my sudden increased craving for carbohydrates. That's an okay thing in my book.

I've been unknowingly hoarding pasta the past few weeks, a box of Barilla wound up in my grocery bag after every trip the store and I didn't even remember putting it in the basket. By this weekend, I had seven boxes of pasta in the pantry. Seven. You'd think they were going to stop making it at this rate. [God forbid.]

So I flicked on the stove, salted a pot of boiling water, and set to work on a recipe from that oh so delicious Essential NY Times cookbook that now has a permanent place on my nightstand. [Not that I recommend it for reading material if you're as obsessed with food as I am, then you just end up excited about all the possibilities rather than feeling drowsy as bedtime reading ought to make you feel.] This recipe, a short pasta with leeks and sausages sauce, sounded oddly familiar and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It wasn't until I bit into the chewy noodle swathed in a satiny smooth sauce that I remembered my aunt's Sicilian father and the way he makes pasta.

He would make a bowl of barely sauced noodles, seeming to have no sauce whatsoever just by looking at them, but one bite would prove your entire mouth wrong - the aroma of fennel seed, red pepper, and a dozen other spices packed into a sausage covered each and every forkful. I couldn't figure out how he did it at the time, there was only a single sausage at the bottom of the bowl, a sausage he insisted was "just for flavor, not for eating." It seemed like a waste of perfectly good meat to me, but now it makes perfect sense. That nub of sausage goes a long way, flavoring the entire dish without overpowering it. Add a handful of baby peas and the sweet-onion flavor of leeks and you're ready to snuggle into bed at a ridiculously early hour.

You should know that the sausage in this dish is not the star of the show. In most dishes containing any amount of meat, the meat is the center of the dish, but not here. The sausage is meant to add flavor to the sauce - if you want it to add a bit more bulk for a stick to your ribs dish, feel free to cook up a few extra sausages in with the leeks.

If you haven't voted in the Mobbie Awards yet...wait, you haven't voted yet!? Hop on over and vote for Give a Girl a Cookie in both the Overall and Foodie categories - you can vote once a day until November 12.

Rigatoni with Leeks and Sausages Sauce
Adapted from The Essential NY Times Cookbook

2 large leeks
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 sweet Italian sausages, casings removed
1 teaspoon minced shallot
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup chicken broth
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pound rigatoni or other short pasta
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, trim the leeks, discarding the top one-third of the rough green portion, and slice into 1/2 inch rounds. Rinse in several changes of cold water to remove all soil and grit; drain well.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the leeks and sausages and saute for about 10 minutes, breaking up the sausages as you go. Add the shallot and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the butter, peas, and broth and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper and keep warm over low heat.

Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente. Drain well and return to the pot.

Add the sauce to the pasta and toss well to coat. Add the cheese and toss well. Serve with additional cheese on the side.