Archive for ‘Recipes’

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April 25, 2012

Variations on a Theme: Homemade Granola

 

On camping trips, our menu varied, but my mom would always pack three camping staples in the cooler: chili con carne for our first dinner at camp (who wants to cook on the first night when there’s so much set-up to do and so much excitement to be had in the great outdoors?), a 2-pound block of Tillamook cheddar cheese with Dad’s bread, and homemade granola.  Nowhere do those food taste better than on a campground.  Mom mostly only made this granola when we went camping, rarely anytime else.  I’ve been breaking my cream of wheat habit and eating this granola for breakfast these days, because the whole grains and dried fruits fill me up so I can last until lunchtime.

The recipe is originally from the Menonite cookbook “More with Less,” but my mom and I have both adapted it for our liking. And that’s the great thing about this recipe: its endless variations. I mix it up a little each time I make it, but the base always stays the same: oats, honey, oil.  It’s easily scalable, so feel free to double or triple the recipe (if you have a convection oven and multiple large cookie sheets, you can make up to three batches of this at once!).

The only tricky thing is keeping track of the cooking time. You might think that a minute here or there doesn’t count, but trust our experience here: it counts. Keep a timer, and don’t wander too far from the oven when the granola is baking. And lastly, don’t skip a stir, it’s necessary to make sure everything is coated and bakes evenly.

Now go get creative, and let me know what you come up with! And as camping season gears up, remember to pack this easy breakfast along with your sunscreen.

 

Homemade Chewy Granola
Yield: 6-7 cups (depending on added ingredients)
Time: 20 minutes, including prep and baking time

Note: I’ve broken down the ingredients by round that they get added to the baking process.  This will help for when you choose variations. The only ingredients you have to have are the oats, honey, and oil – and are marked with asterisks.  Otherwise, feel free to mix things up!  If you want a crunchier granola, use less honey (but not less than 1/2 cup)

1st Round
6 cups whole rolled oats*
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup flax seeds (if seeds are already toasted, add in 2nd Round)
1/2 cup walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, or nut/seed of your choice (if nuts are already toasted, add in 2nd Round)

2nd Round
2/3 cup honey*
2/3 cup vegetable oil*

Last Round
1/2 cup dry fruit (currants, dates, raisins, apricots, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, go wild – but not too wild, I usually only put one of these in at a time)

*Required ingredients

Baking Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper (important: even if your cookie sheet is non-stick, this stuff sticks and you’ll thank me later for telling you about the parchment paper).

Mix 1st round ingredients together and bake on lined cookie sheet for 10 minutes.

Take out, add 2nd round ingredients, stir to coat evenly. Bake again for 5 minutes.

Take out, stir ingredients, and bake again for 4 minutes.

Take out, stir ingredients, add Last Round ingredients, and bake for 3 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool. Enjoy!

Suggested nut/fruit combinations: walnut & currant (pictured), pecan & date, almond & apricot, hazelnut & cherry

 

Posted in Baking, Breads, & Pastries, Breakfast, Recipes | Leave a Comment »

March 19, 2012

Making Hazelnut “Cotton Candy”

I stumbled across Hazelnut “Cotton Candy” by accident. It was a result of a total experiment before my friend’s wedding. And it’s a good thing it went well, because if it had gone wrong, over 150 people would have known about it.

 

I’ve been known among my friends to make chocolate truffles. I have made upwards of 300+ for a few weddings. The first times I made them they included four different kinds with tempered chocolate coatings. However, last summer for a hot Willamette Valley vineyard wedding (say that five times fast!), my friend and I decided that simple would be better. Many of her guests were coming from out of town, and she wanted to spotlight Oregon’s bounty. What better way than to have a hazelnut dessert?

 

 

We decided on making a hazelnut center with a chopped hazelnut coating. I took it a step further and candied the hazelnuts, then ground them in a food processor. I had no idea what I was doing, but when I tasted it I jumped up and down with glee (if you know me, you know I did this, and then looked around sheepishly to see if anyone in the empty house noticed). It took me a second, and then I realized it: these hazelnuts had the texture of fluffy cotton candy with a sweet nutty flavor. Perfect!

 

 

The truffles were delicious, despite the 90-degree melting heat.  Since then I’ve also used this “cotton candy” for coating a Frankfurter Kranz (see above), and I’m sure it would be delicious sprinkled on custards and topping berries. Or, you could just eat it plain with a spoon when nobody’s looking. Not that I’ve done that before…

Hazelnut “Cotton Candy”

1 cup hazelnuts, whole
1 Tbsp butter
1 cup sugar

1. Preheat an oven to 350F and roast the hazelnuts for about ten minutes, until golden. Let cool, then rub in a kitchen towel to remove any loose skins.

2. Prepare a cookie sheet by lining it with parchment paper. Set aside.

3. While the nuts are roasting, in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter and sugar on medium-low heat. If you have not made caramel before, keep it on the low side of heat. The sugar will begin to melt, then parts will start to brown. Do not stir it. At some point, you will have some whole sugar grains, melted clear sugar liquid, and caramelized brown liquid. Pick the pan up and rotate it gently to make sure the brown liquid doesn’t burn, but still don’t stir it. Be zen, and let the whole thing just melt out. If it looks like it will burn, immediately take it off the heat and let it cool.  If it burns, start over.

4. When the sugar has completely melted and becomes a nice light-brown color (careful, it will go from perfect to burned in milliseconds!), add the hazelnuts. Stir quickly to coat as much of the hazelnuts as possible, then turn out onto the prepared cookie sheet. Let cool. It will be one big, ugly, almost unmanageable, and incredibly hot chunk at this point. That is okay, just be careful not to burn yourself. Do not touch it until it’s cooled for at least fifteen minutes!

5. When cool, break up the hazelnuts with your hands (carefully, the caramel can be sharp), and toss them into a food processor. Whir until you get a fine powder. It will keep for several days in an air tight container. If it becomes hard, break it up and then process it again, or use it in larger chunks (delicious for breakfast with cheerios or other unsweetened cereal). If you prefer larger chunks, just don’t process it as long.

Posted in Baking, Breads, & Pastries, Recipes, Sweets | Leave a Comment »

December 14, 2011

You Can’t Get There from Here

 

I have a great travel story to share with you, but it would probably sound like every other travel nightmare.  A last-minute realization that my passport had expired three days before my flight, and a series of delayed flights and trains, left me with a very stressful and unusual route to Tübingen.  After I squared away the passport fiasco, I first flew to Dublin, then to Paris Charles-de-Gaulle.  A not-quick-enough transfer from the airport to the Paris-Est train station left me with an hour and a half wait in Paris (despite the help of an incredibly nice traveling companion and a French stranger who walked me a block in the right direction and spoke to me in French even though it was obvious I was a foreigner – yay!).  As I was running through Paris I had two thoughts: “I’m late, I’m late!” and “I’m in PARIS and it looks like PARIS!!  It’s so beautiful!”

The train trip was just as eventful: a forced transfer due to “technical difficulties” left me on the German/French border in Saarbrücken for another forty-five minutes.  This is where I decided the theme of my trip was that at almost every transfer I was essentially told “You can’t get there from here.”  But I could move forward darnit.  And so it was off to Mannheim, then Stuttgart, and finally Tübingen and a late-night cab ride home.

 

 

Okay so I cheated and actually took this photo this evening, not last night, but that’s pretty much what it looked like.  And I have to say: I’m so happy to be here! After a good night’s sleep, I ran around town this afternoon and Christmas shopped, and window shopped.  The streets are so familiar, and yet they still take my breath away.  This evening my sister Sarah and I made a batch of cookies and drank homemade Glühwein.  Even though it’s far too warm for Glühwein, it tasted mighty fine.

 

 

Glühwein

1 bottle cheap red wine (quality is not important)
1 Tbsp whole cloves
1 slice lemon (or orange)
1 stick cinnamon
ca. 1 cup sugar

Put all the ingredients in a pot and stir to combine the sugar.  Taste to make sure there is enough sugar – it should taste quite sweet, but not cloyingly so.  The amount will depend on how dry your wine is.  Set heat to medium low and steep for ten minutes.  Serve hot.

Posted in Beverages Bars & Cafes, Recipes | 8 Comments »

November 28, 2011

Spritz Cookies

 

Spritz cookies are not something I grew up making.  However, I’ve certainly had them a lot growing up – in plates of cookies given to my family over the holidays and at friends’ houses.  I never thought twice about them – they were simply, tasty, crumbly cookies, sometimes with colored sugar decorations.  I never thought about how they were made, or that I would even ever make them.

And then two years ago, I inherited my grandmother’s cookie press.  I had no idea what to do with it – it came with its original “recipe booklet” which I was more fascinated in as a historical object than as a useful tool to help me learn how to use this thing that came with metal disks shaped like trees, camels, and flowers.  No idea that is until I asked my friends for their favorite cookie recipes, my friend M sent over her family’s spritz cookie recipe.  Suddenly I realized it was time to give this thing a turn (literally).

It wasn’t easy – the dough never stuck to the cookie sheet so I couldn’t actually press things out.  I gave up and did several batches  of cookies as blobs on the sheet.  And then I decided to go on YouTube (yup, it’s become one of my g0-to sources when I don’t know what else to do).  The recipes I was reading said to put the cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet, and the videos all said you “don’t need to grease the pan.” However, I’d been doing what I always do when I bake cookies: even when recipes say to just plop cookies directly on the sheet, I always put down parchment paper.  Well, what the recipes and videos should be saying is not that you don’t need this, but that you shouldn’t do it.  Don’t do it!  Press directly on the cookie sheet.  Only this way will the cookie batter stick to the sheet and come off the press.  There is enough butter that the cookies won’t stick to your cookie sheet.  Also, do not put this dough in the refrigerator – use it at room temperature.

Now, without further ado, here is the recipe my friend shared with me.  She said her mom got it from a traditional American cookbook like Better Homes and Gardens or Betty Crocker, she couldn’t remember where.

Spritz Cookies

1 cup butter or margarine, softened (I used butter)
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract or vanilla (I used anise)
1. Preheat your oven to 400F.  In a large bowl, with a hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until they appear white.  Add the egg and extract and blend in briefly.  Add the flour and salt and continue to mix with the hand mixer until the batter is uniform.

2. If you wish, you can portion out the recipe and add food coloring to different batches.  People often do this to make the green trees.  I didn’t, because I don’t care much for food coloring, but if you do it do it in this step.  Be sure to use the hand mixer and not your fingers, because they will get stained.

3. Put the batter into your cookie press and squeeze onto the (unlined, ungreased!) cookie sheet.  You don’t need to space them too far apart because they will not expand.  Switch out shapes as you like, and decorate with colored sugar or sprinkles if you like.

4. Place the cookie sheet in the oven and bake for 6-9 minutes, until set but not browned.  Cool on the cookie sheet, then transfer to an air-tight container.

Posted in Baking, Breads, & Pastries, Festivals & Holidays, Recipes | 4 Comments »

November 23, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving friends!  I hope you all have safe travels today and enjoy the holiday. This is my first year celebrating Thanksgiving not with family (I count my JYA Thanksgiving as a family event, as well as my Fulbright Thanksgiving, because those two years were so intense and awesome, and we all bonded as if we were related).  I was sad at first, but then a dear friend from childhood asked David and me to have Thanksgiving with her, and now I know it’s going to be a great holiday.  I can’t wait to spend the entire day tomorrow cooking and eating with her and her husband, and Friday and Saturday lounging around (and packing their house for a cross-country move – sad!)

 

 

Thanksgiving for me is about family, and about community.  My good friend Kristina organized a bunch of musicians, artists, and other friends of hers and edited a community cookbook.  This isn’t just any cookbook – it’s probably the best community cookbook you can have!  It was organized through an online community, and its story is pretty amazing.   I love the book, I love the recipes, the art, and the obvious fun that comes out of the book.  It’s clear these are cool people, eating awesome food, and I kind of want to be friends with each and every contributor (there are over 50 people who worked on this book)!

If you’re looking for a great new cookbook, consider Cook Food Every Day.  100% of proceeds of your purchase goes directly to the Greater Boston Food Bank, and the book has raised over $1000 dollars, and there are still books left.  Click over to the Cook Food Every Day blog where a PayPal donation gets you your very own copy of the book.

Also, Kristina writes a pretty incredible blog called No Gluten Required.  I recommend it whether or not you eat gluten.  She’s currently got a pretty sweet round-up of Thanksgiving recipes up!

Posted in Books, Festivals & Holidays, Food Writing, Gastronomy, Recipes | 4 Comments »

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