8th week is a time for treats

With my comps talk being complete, I found myself with some free time during 8th week. Since 8th is often crunch time, I figured that friends would appreciate a treat. I decided to try a new recipe for shortbread, as it should be able to handle a day or two in a mailbox.

After returning from stuffing mailboxes, I tried the shortbread and immediately considered returning to the Post Office to retrieve the bars that I had just delivered. Why had I shared these? I wanted them all! Although shortbread isn't usually my favorite baked good, this recipe is now on my go-to list.

Hungarian Shortbread with Raspberry Jam

from Baking with Julia

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 lb. unsalted butter, at room temperature

4 large egg yolks

2 cups granulated sugar

~3/4 cup raspberry jam

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

Using a mixer, beat the butter on high speed until it is pale and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and sugar and beat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is light. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until the ingredients are incorporated.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface and cut in half. Shape each half into a ball and wrap each in plastic. Freeze the dough for about 30 minutes, until firm. (You can freeze the dough, tightly wrapped, for up to a month at this point. Thaw overnight, still wrapped, in the refrigerator.)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 350F. Remove one ball of dough from the freezer and using the side of a box grater with the largest holes, grate the dough into a 9-by-12 inch baking pan. Pat the dough gently just to get it into the corners (you don't want to press it down) and spread with the rhubarb jam. Grate the remaining dough over the jam and press it lightly to distribute it evenly. Bake the shortbread for about 40 minutes, or until golden brown.

As soon as you remove the pan from the oven, dust the top of the shortbread heavily with confectioner's sugar. Cool to room temperature on a rack. Cut into bars when it is cool.

Starting the New Year Right

Oatmeal's not very photogenic. That's not the point of any porridge. I guess.

I never liked oatmeal growing up. Unless it was mixed with brown sugar and on top of apple crisp, then I loved it. But the rest of the time, not so much.

Home over Christmas I had some and remembered why. The quick cook oats have the texture all wrong. I want the chewy oats. Most oatmeal days are rolled oats with a layer of berries, pour on some boiling water. Let sit in toaster oven for a few minutes so cinnamon sugar can caramelize. But for special days I've graduated to steel cut oats.


Grown up Oatmeal

Basic Skeleton of the Recipe from Alton Brown and the Food Network. But really, dress it up. Make it an occasion.

Bit of butter
1 part steel cut oatmeal
3 parts water
1 part milk
 Add-ins

Following Alton, I melt the butter and toast the oatmeal for a few minutes. (Might as well since the water needs to come up to a boil.) Pour in the water and let it simmer for 25 minutes. Do the dishes from last night or something.


Add the the milk (today a cup of skim, often a mixture of buttermilk and skim), I stir in a Tablespoon of brown sugar, a dash of cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. Today I added a handful of raisins. Some crumbled walnuts. Frozen blackberries and raspberries. (Frozen blueberries are picked out of the Target mix fruit bag to save for muffin making.)

Simmer some more until the liquids are mostly absorbed, today it took 14 minutes.

 Curl up with the bowl and enjoy.

A Lesson in Trust

For the past couple of years, my Chinese friend Qi and I would get together once per term to bake. Since I bake regularly but Qi didn't bake much, I usually taught her and walked her through the recipe. After each baking session, I told her that I wanted her to teach me sometime. I wanted to learn to cook some food that reminded her of home.

Given that we're both in town for winter break and cooking for ourselves, I decided that it was the best time to follow through and invited her to come over and cook. I said that I was up for making whatever she wanted.

I imagined stir-fries and egg drop soup, dumplings and spring rolls. I knew that traditional Chinese food was not the same as take-out Chinese, but I figured that she would choose something with a familiar flavor combination.

Qi returned my email saying that she was eager to share one of her favorite recipes that her grandmother used to make her: cucumber pancakes. Immediately, I realized that this must be a translation problem. Cucumber pancakes? Cucumbers are so watery and don't make sense in pancakes. Maybe she meant zucchini? Zucchini bread is delicious, so there could be zucchini pancakes.

That evening, Qi showed up with soy sauce, seaweed, a special ground pepper from China, and sure enough, a cucumber. Given that those and my flour and eggs were our ingredients, I realized that I was going to have to trust. All humans have taste buds, so surely it would taste fine?

Qi proceeded to set me up grating cucumber and beating eggs, and soon enough, we had cucumber pancakes. (I'm uncertain if pancakes is quite the correct word. They were more similar to crepes, except more eggy. So omelet-crepes?) And they were delicious! It seems that I should have more trust in my friends' tastes.

Cucumber Pancakes

4 eggs
1/2 a cucumber, grated
a couple of Tablespoons of water
~3/4 cup flour
Pinch of salt

1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Gradually, beat in the flour and water. The 3/4 cups flour really is an estimate. There should be enough flour that its noticeable, but the mixture should still be mostly egg. Beat in the salt.
2. Stir in the grated cucumber.
3. Cook like a crepe. (Pour a bit of batter into a frying pan and then quickly rotate around so that you have a nice thin, even layer of the mixture on the bottom of the pan. Then, cook on one side until it can be flipped. Cook the other side until done.)

Cabbage Tofu Soup

Qi suggested that we make this to go along with the cucumber pancakes. It was much more along the lines of my expectations.

1/2 package of tofu
canola oil
green cabbage
water
soy sauce
pepper
salt

1. Chop the cabbage, separating the stem part from the leafy part.
2. In a large saucepan, briefly fry the tofu in the oil, until it just begins to turn brown.
3. Keeping the tofu in the pan, fill the saucepan with water. Cover and bring to a boil.
4. Once at a boil, uncover and add the stem part of the cabbage. Then, season with soy sauce, salt and pepper. Keep at a boil.
5. After the stem has begun to cook, add the leafy sections of the cabbage.
6. Boil until fully cooked.

Applesauce!

Is deliciousness! And should be made every fall.

Quarter the apples to fill your pot(s). Add an inch or so of water to the pot(s) and turn on the heat. Medium high.

There were a lot of apples.

Also, the frontier meets alien spaceship thing I'm holding is my apple mill. Ebay sold it to me as "Wearever ~ Sieve & Pestle w Stand."* Because when I moved to the city, I realized there wasn't the grandma down the street who I could borrow one of these from.

If you don't have one, you can peel and seed your apples before you cook them. But using it is so much therapeutic fun.

Stir the apples. Mushy apples. Steamy apples. Apple-scented steam. Personal apple spa...

And then you mush 'em. You mush 'em.

Fill the jars with hot hot applesauce. Follow your canning directions. (Instead of my lax canning directions.)

Voila! Enjoy apples in all forms. Julie and I put up 12 pints of plain applesauce made with Empire and Galas AND 12 half-pints (also known as cups) where we added some grated ginger and cardamom while the apples were simmering. Had not realized it was possible for her apartment to smell even better. But it did.

*Though searching at the moment, I'm failing to find anything like this.

Birthday Pie

The story is that mom put the blueberry peach pie in the oven. And then her water broke. Thus, pie is mandated for my birthday.

Recipes used for today's potluck picnic.

Easy Oil Pie Crust
The family classic.

Stir together:

2 cups flour (we usually use up to 1/4 of it [1/2 cup] whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

Combine:

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup milk

Mix into flour mixture with a fork. Shape into a ball and divide into two balls. Make one ball slightly larger for the bottom crust. Roll out between two sheets of wax paper.

Blueberry Peach Pie

Mom won a blue ribbon at the Gilbert Peach Festival for this one.

Makes one 9” pie.

Mix together the pie filling:

   1 c. blueberries

   3 c. peaches

   1-2 Tbsp. lemon juice

   3/4 c. sugar

   2 Tbsp. tapioca (or 3 Tbsp. flour)

   1/2 tsp. cinnamon

   1/2 tsp. salt

Make Easy Oil Pie Crust (or other pie crust of choice).

Shape into ball and divide into two balls, making one slightly larger for the bottom crust.  Roll out larger ball between two sheets of waxed paper.

Place rolled out dough into pie crust.  Place filling on top.  Dot with 2 Tbsp. margarine. For top crust, roll second ball between used wax paper. Cut into strips for lattice top, or simply place crust on top of filling.

Making the lattice.

Bake at 400º for 10 minutes; then 30-35 minutes at 350º.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Adapted from Vegalicious

Makes one 9” pie.

Mix together the pie filling:

   2 c. rhubarb

   2 c. strawberry

   1/2 c. sugar

   1/2 c. brown sugar

   2 Tbsp. tapioca (or 3 Tbsp. flour)

   1 tsp. cardamom (I used about 5 green pods worth. Cut them open, grind them up with a mortar and pestle. Or a rock and bowl. Same difference.)

   1 tsp. ground ginger

   1/2 tsp. salt

And the rest is the same. I baked them in the oven at the same time.

But I'll copy/paste here to help us all out later.

Make Easy Oil Pie Crust (or other pie crust of choice).

Shape into ball and divide into two balls, making one slightly larger for the bottom crust.  Roll out larger ball between two sheets of waxed paper.

Place rolled out dough into pie crust.  Place filling on top.  Dot with 2 Tbsp. margarine. For top crust, roll second ball between used wax paper. Cut into strips for lattice top, or simply place crust on top of filling.

Bake at 400º for 10 minutes; then 30-35 minutes at 350º.

Edited to add photos taking on a getaway weekend.

Palak Paneer...of a sorts

This evening, I was craving Indian food and palak paneer is my favorite Indian dish. However, I didn't have all of the ingredients and am heading out of town tomorrow. Additionally, this house doesn't have a food processor or a blender (which is even more of a travesty when it comes to pesto but that's another story). Anyways, I just had to make do. Nevertheless, it turned out well, and I'd make it again.

Recipe:
1. Bring water to a boil. Add in however much spinach you feel like eating/having leftover. Boil for 3 minutes. Then, drain. (Note: nothing was measured. Just done by feel/what looked right, so feel free to adjust accordingly.)
2. Pour a couple of teaspoons of olive oil into a saucepan on medium heat. Briefly saute a bit of cumin and tumeric before adding garlic and ginger.
3. Dice a quarter of an onion, and add it to the saucepan. Saute until it becomes translucent.
4. Add a diced eighth of a tomato, some salt and a crushed red chili. Cook for about 3 more minutes.
5. Add in the spinach, and turn the burner down to 2 on the dial. Add a pinch of garam masala. Simmer for 5 minutes.
6. Turn off the stove, and stir in a spoonful of yogurt and some chunks of monterey jack (I warned you that this wasn't real palak paneer).
7. Let sit for a few minutes to allow the flavors to combine. Then, serve over rice.

Trail Mix

Since I'm spending this summer in the Rockies, I plan on hiking a lot. My first trip is this weekend to Estes Park, and I realized that I'm going to need something to eat while on the trail.

Trail mix is wonderful. It packs easily, tastes great, and provides energy to help you keep going. However, there are tons of options for what to bring. Nowadays, coops and grocery stores sell premade trail mixes. However, I'm still in favor of buying the ingredients in bulk and mixing them yourself. That way, you get everything you want in the ratios that you prefer.

My general plan for a trail mix is:
-nuts-they provide protein to keep your energy and stamina up
-dried fruit-healthy way of getting simple sugars for a quick energy booster
-something chocolately-another (albeit less healthy) means of consuming simple sugars; plus, chocolate tastes great

That being said here are some of my repeated mixes. I'm sure that my repertoire will have increased by August.

GORP
Good Old Raisins and Peanuts is an absolute classic, though it usually isn't just raisins and peanuts. I mean, the M&M's are kind of essential. To be honest, GORP isn't my favorite anymore--the scent of peanuts in the car gives me a headache. However, I have fond childhood memories of eating GORP on family trips and hikes. And you still better give me double the number of peanuts as raisins so that I can make "hamburgers."

-2 part peanuts
-1 part raisins
-1 part M&M's

Almond Craisin Mix
I've never been a fan of cranberries, but during freshman year of college, I discovered that I love craisins with my granola. This is my other favorite may to devour craisins.

-1 part whole almonds
-1 part craisins
-1 part flaked (not shredded) coconut
-1 part semi-sweet chocolate chips

Work in Progress
I'm still figuring the recipe out. I love all of the ingredients but need to fiddle with the ratios. I'm also trying to decide on craisins or dried apples, but I think that I prefer the craisins. Of course, there could always be both.

-pecan halves
-yogurt covered pretzels
-crasins