Vegan Apple Bread

Love quick breads. Love them.

Yesterday, in an effort to warm up our kitchen and use up some of the nearly inedible apples in our crisper, I made a vegan version of apple bread. It was fabulous.We have been enjoying it all week for breakfast.

Here's the recipe:

-In a small bowl combine 2 cups cooked apple chunks or chunky apple sauce or just apple sauce, 1/4 cup oil, 1/4 cup honey. (I also had some grated zucchini on hand so I threw that in. It was about a scant 1/4 cup.)
-In a larger bowl combine 1 cup white flour, 1 cup wheat flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 cup brown sugar, a few dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg.
-Add wet to dry plus 1 cup soy/coconut/almond/rice milk. Don't over mix.
-Pour into greased loaf pan and cook at 350 for about 1 hour.

"Five" Minute Pita - For Real

 In my last post I glossed over the fact that I made pita to go with our amazing falafel dinner. Lest you think that I am some kind of baking guru, let me assure you that pita bread is so so so easy to make. The only "technical" piece of equipment you need is a pizza stone. But I think you could probably use a baking sheet and make it work.

Last spring I posted about the wonders of the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes book. You can make a really good loaf of bread following their method. But you can make really incredible pita bread. What I mean to say is: You can make the best pita ever. And it really takes no time at all.

Here is their basic bread recipe with step by step instructions and photos. Once you have made a bucket, or pot, or big bowl of dough you can do all kinds of things with it. Obviously, you can shape a whole loaf of bread, or make bread sticks, or a pizza etc. But if you want to have fresh bread ASAP, make pita.

Here's what you do:
-Heat your oven with a pizza stone to 400. If you don't have a stone, put a heavy duty baking sheet in the oven and let it get hot.
-Scoop out a small handful of dough and roll it out to about 1/4 to 1/8 inch. You will need lots of flour.
-Use a pizza peel to slide the flattened dough on to the stone. Or, place the dough on parchment and use a pan or cookie sheet to slide it onto the hot baking surface.
-Turn on your oven light, call the kids and watch your flat dough bubble up and become pita. Takes about 7 minutes. Highly entertaining.
-BTW: If you prick the dough all over with a fork before putting in the oven, it wont puff and you will have lavash instead of pita. Equally delicious.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars.

Make them right now.

Do not pass go.

I found this on Dinner With Julie, a very cool blog with lots of delicious recipes. These bars will make you a the most popular party guest, the MVP of the cookie exchange, the most-loved employee at the office potluck. Amazing.

Homemade Challah

Challah is one of my most favorite things on this earth. Next to my family, friends, etc., of course. But seriously, challah is probably the yummiest bread I know. If you don't know from challah, you are missing out. Get yourself out to a good deli or bakery and grab a loaf. Sweet, rich and soft egg bread, challah is the perfect breakfast toast, the best pb&j bread and hands down the best French toast bread - it's not even a contest.

In my continuing quest to make my own bread, I made some challah a few weeks back. It wasn't quite as good as the bread my Grandma Bea gets for me when we visit, but it was a close second. It's really easy to make and looked gorgeous. This would be super fun to do with little ones too.

This recipe should make 2 loaves.

-In a large bowl mix 2 eggs, 1/4 melted butter, 2 1/4 cups lukewarm water, 1/4 cup honey, 1 1/2 tbsp yeast
-Add 3 1/2 cups flour and mix until combined. The dough will be wet and shaggy.
-Let rise for at least 2 hours.

This is what the dough looks like just mixed. (Nice bread bucket, right?) It expands quite a bit, so make sure you use a big bowl or pot to avoid a dough fiasco on your counter.

-At this point, you can make your bread, or refrigerate the dough for up to 4 days. I recommend refrigerating the dough for at least a couple of hours - cold dough is just easier to work with.

-When you are ready to bake: Divide dough in half. Divide each half in to three pieces and roll into long ropes - about 12 inches each. You will need to flour your hands and work surface to keep from having a sticky, frustrating dough mess. Line up the 3 pieces of dough and starting from the center braid out to one end and then repeat so that you have one big braid. Pinch the ends together. Place braided loaves on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Let stand for at least an hour.

 I don't usually do the step-by-step photo thing, but I was 

pretty proud of myself during this cooking endevor.

-Heat oven to 350. Brush the tops of the bread with egg wash. Bake for 25-35 minutes.

 I made one plain loaf and for the second loaf  I improvised a cinnamon raisin version. I just rolled out each strand of dough, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and about a 1/2 cup of raisins. I closed up each strand and then braided as usual. It was fabulous!

One more tip: This is a dough scraper, a tool I had never even heard of until a month ago. If you ever make anything involving dough, you should invest. And by invest I mean plunk down the whole 5 bucks that this costs. It is great for cutting, measuring, dividing and, clearly, scraping up dough. Amazing gadget that I wish I had owned before a month ago.

Happy Birthday, Kara!

My darling 6 year old girl.

Last week we celebrated Kara's birthday, again, with a big family dinner. She originally wanted to have mac and cheese, Kraft not homemade, but was amenable to a menu alteration in light of the fact that guests were coming too. So Kara went with her second favorite dinner, rotisserie chicken, sweet potatoes, asparagus, cranberry sauce. It was awesome.

With a June birthday, Kara often has strawberry shortcake for her birthday dinner dessert. This year we decided to mix it up and make this Strawberry Cake recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod. My friend Katie introduced us to this amazing dessert when she brought it to a dinner a few weeks ago. I generally don't like cooked berries, but this cake manages to sweeten the strawberries without turning them to unappealing mushy blobs.We served it up with fresh pink whipped cream. Love those gel food colors.

PS: Not for nothing, spring strawberries are one of the best illustrations that locally grown food just plain tastes better. What goes better with birthday cake than a side of food politics?

Cupcake Catastophe

This is the week of Kara's birthday - the big 6. By our count, she will get to celebrate her big day four times: at the beach with Dave's family, at school with her class, at our house for our traditional family birthday dinner and at her birthday party with her girls this weekend. I am exhausted just writing about all that frolicking. Though this all could seem a little excessive, I am apt to shrug off those concerns. If you can't totally embrace the joy of birthdays as a six year old, I don't know when you can.

I will admit that one of my favorite parts about celebrating Kara's birthday is making the classroom cupcakes together. As I have mentioned before, I love box cake mix, so this is the perfect excuse to purchase and then sample some of Betty Crocker's finest. I also love the icing in a can. I know that objectively speaking it is a pretty nasty concoction of oil and high fructose corn syrup, but it tastes great and is super easy to use on cupcakes. (Box cake and icing exist in a special loophole of my basic philosophy that we should eat locally, sustainably produced whole foods. I embrace my hypocrisy on this one.)

Yesterday while Kara was at school, Jamie and I made the cupcakes in anticipation of decorating them after school. After applying a thick layer of icing, Kara got busy decorating each individual cupcake with a rainbow of sprinkles. It was darling and those cupcakes looked lovely.

All was well until we went out for t-ball after dinner. I "hid" the cupcakes on the top of the microwave which is about 5 feet off the ground. I was under the assumption that this would prevent our dessert-loving mutt from eating them. Bailey, the mutt in question, has quite a tradition of gobbling sweets off the counter, so we are pretty well trained to keep them out of harms way. Imagine my shock when Dave called to "mentally prepare" me for what he found when he got home. Bailey didn't eat all the cupcakes - turns out her limit is 15. Sometimes I wonder why we have pets at all.

Anyway...I ran out to the store for more Betty Crocker, whipped up another two dozen cakes, and this morning Kara decorated them all over again. All in all, we handled the cupcake incident with uncharacteristic grace and calm. Kara wisely commented, "I am bummed Bailey ate my cupcakes, mom, but at least we get to make them together again." Smartest six year old ever.

"Five" Minute Bread

After determining that the gluten free diet wasn't really helping my knees all that much and realizing how much I missed bread, I have gone to a GF diet by day and a gluten-allowed diet by night. The only other "rule" is that when I eat bread, pizza or some other gluten-laden product, I make it myself. Needless to say, this caveat in my bread eating allowance prevents me from eating lots of stuff I might otherwise choose. Also, it has inspired me to do a lot more bread baking.

I have had a bread machine for the past 3 years and I have used it quite a bit, but I have to say that the results have been uneven. I have made some fabulous breads, but also had some real duds. Recently, I have used the machine mostly to make the dough which I then bake in the oven. I have also tried the No Knead Bread that Mark Bittman and others have written about at length. It was good, but I wasn't overwhelmed.

Then a couple of weeks ago when I was in the library looking for books on GF baking, I found the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The premise is that, much like the No Knead method, you can make a big batch of bread dough, keep it in the refrigerator for up to two weeks and then bake bread as you need it with great success. The basic recipes can be used for a variety of breads. From one bucket of plain dough you could make, a bagette, pita, pizza dough, ciabatta, boule, bread sticks etc. Choose a sweet dough and you could make brioche, cinnamon rolls, monkey bread, bagels, muffins etc.

Call me a convert. I have now tried four or five recipes from the book and its sequel, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and they have all been amazing. The loaf pictured above was one of the most delicious things I have ever baked. (Sorry for the small pic - I ran down the battery in my camera and had to resort to a picture with my phone. Bad blogger!) If you like bread at all, I highly recommend these books.

A few things to note: The "five minutes" claim is a little deceptive. It does take about five minutes to mix the ingredients, but in order to actually get a good loaf, you need to let your dough rest for 40 to 90 minutes before baking (depending on the temperature of the dough - colder dough = more rest) and then bake it for 30-45 minutes. That being said, you can also use the dough straight out of the fridge to make delicious flatbread  in about 20 minutes not counting the time it takes to preheat your oven. The pita we made was so good, I cannot understand why we don't eat it every night. Kara and Jamie demolished this bread in minutes.

Happy Birthday, Jamie!

Jamie LOVED hearing us sing "Happy Birthday" to him.

Last week Jamie turned two. A few things that have changed in the last year:

Jamie walks, but mostly runs, everywhere.

Jamie talks. In the last week or so he has even said some sentences. My favorite: "I want more mango!"

As promised to her when he was born, Jamie can now play with Kara. He even lets her dress him up in princess attire.

For Jamie's birthday we had some family for dinner and, of course, cake. Now I am not especially in favor of big birthday celebrations for little kids. (Unless as adults you are looking for an excuse to have a party.) But I am always in favor of cake. I love birthday cake. In fact, the cheaper, more industrially produced, the better in my book. Costo cakes? Fabulous. Safeway "bakery" concoctions? Yum! Duncan Hines? Perfection in a box.

Given that I am continuing the gluten free madness, I was pretty much convinced that I would be missing out on cake this year. And though I have been pretty impressed by my will power, I didn't think I could handle having a birthday cake in the house that I couldn't eat. Then I remembered that my friend Val had recently posted a recipe for her family favorite gluten free carrot cake.

After a phone consultation and a trip to the store, I made this cake (with a few adjustments) and can whole-heartedly proclaim that it is delicious. Not only yummy, it is pretty much indistinguishable for the gluten filled variety. I had my doubts when I tasted the batter and it was, well, peculiar. But after baking and slathering with cream cheese icing, it came out great.

"Ace of Cakes" I am not.

Val points out that one of the best things about this cake is that it is very flexible. You can use pretty much any kind of "flours" you have on hand. Same goes for sugars. Here is my version of Val's Best Carrot Cake Ever.

-Grate 3 cups of carrots. Set aside.
-Grease 2 cake pans or 8x11 pan
-In a mixing bowl sift together

• 2 1/2 cups of gluten free flour (I bought a Bob's Red Mill mix. Val has used brown rice, almond, quinoa.)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon

-In a separate bowl combine

• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (I used 3/4 cup but would reduce to 1/2 next time.)

-Use a hand mixer to beat wet ingredients. When combined add carrots.
-Beat in dry ingredients. Mix on high for 1 minute.
-Fold in 1 cup raisins and 1/2 cup walnuts if desired.
-Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.
-After cakes have cooled, cover with cream cheese icing. (8oz cream cheese, 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 stick butter - beaten until smooth.)

 This cake, and especially the icing, was Jamie approved. Happy Birthday, baby!

Cheesecake Brownies

As part of my "impress Josh's girlfriend" dinner last weekend, I made cheesecake brownies. Not only was I craving something rich, gooey and chocolaty, but I had never made this version of the brownie before. I think I spent longer searching for a recipe on the internet than I actually did cooking. After viewing a ton of recipes, most of which were discounted for including a chocolate ingredient that I didn't have in my cabinet, I settled on this version by David Lebovitz. If you haven't checked out his blog, it is absolutely worth a look.

Even though they didn't come out as pretty as the ones in Lebovitz's picture, they tasted delicious and were easy to make.

After all of this searching and baking, I had an email exchange with Mrs. D, Josh's mom, who makes the best cheesecake brownies I have ever had.

Mrs D:  I haven't made them in a long time and they're from the side panel of a Betty Crocker brownie mix box...Dave Lebovitz would cringe!  I hope you're not too disappointed that the wonderful brownie recipe would qualify for that semi-homemade show on the Food Network; definitely not from Ina Garten!  

Me: Disappointed? Are you kidding? I am thrilled! I will make brownies from scratch, but I honestly don't think I get a better result than when I make them from a box. I am psyched to try out the Mrs D/Betty Crocker version.
  

Josh was over at our house again this weekend helping Dave re-insulate our house. (More on that another time.) Megan stopped by to join us for dinner. Since I was going to have the full cohort of brownie test subjects, I decided to make Mrs. D's version for comparison. The things I do for science, right? The unanimous verdict was that the semi-homemade version was superior to the Lebovitz from scratch version. We did extensive testing to back up our results.

So, if you are in the mood to make brownies from scratch, go for it. But if you have a box of Betty Crocker around, make this version of the cheesecake brownie. Just to be clear: Best. Brownies. Ever.

Here is Mrs. D's recipe:

Philly Cheesecake Brownies
Prep time:  20 minutes
Baking time:  40 minutes

1        pkg. Betty Crocker Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownie Mix
1        pkg. (8 oz.) Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese, softened
1/3    cup sugar
1        egg   
1/2    tsp. vanilla
*I added 1/2 bag of chocolate chips to the batter as well.
Prepare brownie mix as directed on package.  Pour into greased 13x9-inch baking pan.
Beat cream cheese with electric mixer on medium until smooth.  Add sugar and vanilla;
           mix just until blended.
Pour cream cheese mixture over brownie mixture; cut through batter with knife several
           for marbled effect.
Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until cream cheese mixture is lightly browned.

Changes to original recipe:  I use an 8x8 pan, pour a little more than half of brownie mixture into prepared pan, dollop the cream cheese mixture over that (without spreading it), then pour rest of brownie mixture over the cream cheese and marble it very lightly.  I think we decided we didn't like too much of the cream cheese getting browned.  In my oven, the 8x8 pan takes 50-55 minutes.

Quick Breads

I am not by any means an accomplished baker. I can make cookies, brownies and the occasional cake, but my lack of precision in the kitchen does not really lend itself to baking. I may scoff at recipes that suggest that you weigh the flour instead of just using your fingers to brush off the excess in the measuring cup, but it turns out that attention to detail really does make a difference when baking.

Quick breads, I have found, are the exception to this rule. Make one, you can make them all. Make one, and you can make a dozen variations. Make one with your kids, they will have the pleasure of eating a snack that they cooked with you.

Banana bread is the gateway quick bread. It is nearly impossible to mess up and can be a template for countless iterations of baked goods (like the apple sauce raisin bread I wrote about a few weeks ago).

My favorite banana bread recipe is from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

• Preheat oven to 350 and grease a loaf pan.
• In a small bowl mash 3 super ripe bananas. (Tip: If your bananas go dark brown before you are ready to use them, just toss them in the freezer and defrost when you are ready to bake. Also, if you are dying to have banana bread, but your bananas are actually fresh, you can ripen them in the oven.)
• Add 2 eggs to bananas and set aside.
• In a mixing bowl combine 2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda.
• Combine wet and dry and pour into pan. Bake 1 hour. 

This will all take about 10 minutes to prepare.

Some variations to consider:

• Only have one brown banana? Use pureed pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot, zucchini (grated) or apple sauce to supplement. No bananas at all, just pick a different fruit/vegetable.
• No fruit or veggie to add in, you can use dried fruit instead and add more liquid to the batter (milk, juice, soy milk, water, yogurt, kefir, sour cream etc.) You may also need to add a little more sugar if you want to keep the bread on the "fruity" end of the spectrum.
• Add some wheat germ, ground flax or quick oats for a little more texture. 
• Experiment with different sweeteners: honey, molasses, agave, brown sugar etc.
• Add chocolate chips and make it sweeter.
• Add some fat - butter or oil - to make a richer loaf.
• Top it with streusel.

Applesauce Raisin Bread

Last week I ventured out to Maple Acres Farm to see if they had any apples around this late in the winter. As luck would have it, they still had a few baskets hanging around. The very kind woman who was working on that frigid day sold me a big box full for $8.00. Not bad. These apples were pretty banged up - just perfect for making applesauce.

After I cooked up a big pot of applesauce, however, I realized that I had neither the time nor the inclination to actually go through the whole canning process. Consulting the Google, I learned that you can freeze applesauce. In fact, some cooks out there claim that freezing actually improves the flavor of the fruit. Even after filling several quart freezer bags, I had some sauce left. So I decided to make applesauce raisin bread. Again, consulting Google, I found lots of recipes, but none of them seemed like what I was looking for. They either used way too much sugar and butter, or they combined the applesauce with pureed zucchini or pumpkin or banana. Not surprisingly, I have all of those other purees in my freezer too. (Have I mentioned how cool I am?) But I didn't feel like searching them out.

Using my favorite banana bread recipe from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook - a great kitchen reference, by the way -  as a template, I made up a recipe. It came out great. Very moist, not too sweet. Delicious toasted with butter, apple butter and/or cream cheese. Plus, it made the whole house smell delicious. (If you are trying to sell your house, pop this in the oven during your open house. The offers will be pouring in.)

Here it is:

• In a mixing bowl combine 1 cup white flour, 1 cup wheat flour, 3 tbsp ground flax, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt.
• In a small bowl combine 1 1/2 cup applesauce, 2 eggs, 3 tbsp oil, 3 tbsp honey
• Combine wet and dry ingredients. Add heaping 1/2 cup raisins.
• Bake at 350 for 1 hour. 

If you really want to take it to the next level, add some streusel topping. It's super easy. Just use a fork or a pastry cutter to combine 3 tbsp butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 quick oats, 2 tbsp flour and a dash or two of cinnamon. I baked the bread for about 20 minutes and then added the streusel.

Cinnamon Buns

I wanted to make Kara's teacher's something for the holidays. Something other than cookies. So I decided to make them each a tin of cinnamon buns. I figured they would be a good holiday treat, or they can be easily frozen for a time when we are not quite so inundated with sugar and baked goods.

I have been wanting to try Pioneer Woman's cinnamon roll recipe for a while and this occasion offered me the perfect excuse. A few notes on her recipe:

•  I made the dough the night before which worked great. If you do the same, make sure you check on it before you go to bed. It definitely needed to be punched down. I  recommend making the dough ahead of time and refrigerating it for at least several hours - the cold dough is much easier to deal with.
• I added raisins. You could also add nuts or apples.
• I didn't have "maple flavor" for the maple icing - I just added about a tbsp of dark maple syrup.
• I did add the 1/4 cup of coffee, and I also added about a tsp of vanilla extract.
• The icing isn't really that maple-ish. It it, however, unbelievably delicious.
• She calls for 1/2 cup milk for the icing. I needed more like 1 to 1 1/2 cups to make it thin enough.
• This makes a TON of cinnamon buns. I got 8 round tins out of it.
• This would be very fun to make with kids.

Let me say, that this recipe entirely lives up to the hype. They looked so pretty. I had so much I gave a tin to my sister in law and mother in law, too. Christmas carbs for everyone!

Here is a pan right out of the oven.

Here they are after I dumped a healthy portion of the maple icing on them.

Goodness gracious! Yum.

Christmas Cookies

This weekend, Kara and I made Christmas cookies. This is one of my favorite holiday pastimes.Christmas cookies are not especially easy, quick or neat, but I find them immensely satisfying to make, especially now that I have a little helper. I know it is probably not on any pediatrician's list of milestones, but I think that it is pretty remarkable when your child actually helps you in the kitchen. I have made cookies with Kara since she was three, I think, but this was the first year that she basically worked at it on her own and produced some really lovely looking cookies. See that candy cane in the center of the picture? That was all Kara.

This recipe comes from my stepmother, and though I am not at all close with her now, I have fond memories of making cookies with her. Cooking together was one of the few ways that we could spend conflict-free time together. So in the spirit of not just conflict-free but joyous holiday time with your family, I give you the best Christmas cookie recipe ever.

• With a hand mixer or in a stand up mixer, cream 1/2 cup margarine.
• Add 3/4 cup sugar and beat until fluffy
• Add 2 egg yolks and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. Reserve the whites.
• Add 1 tbsp cream, half and half or whole milk
• Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp baking powder and combine into wet ingredients
• Divide dough into 4 quarters, wrap in wax paper and freeze until ready to use. You can make the dough days ahead of time.
• When you are ready, roll out the dough to scant 1/4 inch thickness on a floured surface. It may take some additional flour to prevent sticking. Cut out shapes and place on non-stick or greased regular cookie sheet. Use a pastry brush to wet the cookies with the egg white. If you want to use sprinkles, sprinkle away. If you plan to ice your cookies, pop them in the oven. Don't skip the egg wash, it make the cookies look much prettier.
• Bake at 350 for about 7 minutes.
• Note: I usually double this recipe. Also, you can reserve part of the dough and add 1-2 tbsp cocoa powder, depending on the amount of dough you saved, to make chocolate cookies. You can also add food coloring to make red/.green cookies. You can also add a little cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice to make a spicier cookie. These are flexible cookies.

I really love using icing to decorate the cookies. Here is a basic Royal Icing recipe. (You can find about a million more on the web.)
-Mix 1 box (1 lb) confectioners sugar with 5 tbsp meringue powder, 1/2 cup water and a squirt of lemon juice. Use a hand mixer to beat until icing is thick and smooth. You can add more sugar or water to achieve the thickness you are looking for. You can also use 2 egg whites instead of meringue powder. I have done this many times and no one has died of salmonella, but when I am decorating with kids, I usually don't risk it.

Cute gel colors - I even saw these at Target last week.

-Divide the icing into small bowls and add either food coloring or invest in gel pastes. I made this leap last year, and it was wall worth it. Gel coloring makes much brighter colors and there are a wide variety of color choices. You can buy them at craft stores like Michael's or online at any baking supply company. Yes, they cost more than the food coloring that you get in your local spice aisle, but they last a long time and can be used with any white icing to decorate your next batch of cupcakes.

-If you are cooking with kids, definitely let them do the addition of colors to the white icing. Good times were had by all.

When you have the colors you want, spoon icing into plastic sandwich bags and cut a tiny hole in the bottom corner. Use the bags to pipe icing on to cookies. You can also leave the icing in bowls and use paint brushes, Popsicle sticks, or toddler utensils to spread it on the cookies.

Frolicking Food

No one is more into Christmas than Dave's father. We actually call him Captain Christmas...to his face. Dave's family, and our family now, like to partake in the holiday "frolic." No we don't dress up like elves or anything, but during the month of December, we look for ample opportunities to hang out together. Frolicking for us is synonymous with the pleasure of being together as a family - no real agenda is necessary. The main requirements to for frolicking are family, cocktails, and food. Lots of food - particularly appetizers and desserts.

Captain Christmas and Jamie high fiving after an awesome tree trimming.

Last weekend, we hosted the clan at our house to trim our tree and generally frolic together. The dinner I "served" was basically just assorted cold cuts, rolls and salads. Nothing special. But I knew that people would fill up on the "pigs in a blanket" (also known as "cocktail franks in puff pastry") and spanikopita that I purchased at Costco. If you have not tried either of these holiday hor d'oeuvres, you really should. And if you are tempted to look down on a dressed up hot dog, I strongly encourage you to rethink your position. Sure, hot dogs are mass produced and of questionable nutritional merit, but they taste really good. And hot out of the oven wrapped in buttery pastry, they are even better. Spanikopita, a Greek pastry, are marginally less bad for you - they contain a vegetable at least - and taste equally amazing. (If you are hosting a vegetarian at your holiday gathering, spanikopita are great as they can pretty much be a meal in and of themselves.) Basically you take phyllo dough, coat it in butter and wrap it around a mix of spinach and feta cheese. You could make these from scratch. (My mom and I have done it on many occasions.). But you could also buy them frozen. I recommend the latter.

Since the meal I was serving was pretty much pre-fab, I felt the need to actually cook something. A perfect opportunity to try out a cookie recipe that caught my eye. Pioneer Woman posted this recipe for "Cleta Bailey's Toffee Squares" and it looked delicious. But contrary to the title, it didn't seem very toffee-ish. The general idea is to make a cookie dough without any levening agent (ie baking soda) and then cover it with melted chocolate and chopped nuts. I am not a big fan of nuts in my cookies, and I also wanted to up the toffee taste. So I made her recipe but covered the chocolate in Heath "Bits o' Brickle." Yep, I found pre-chopped Heath bar in the grocery store. They rock.


These bars are wonderful. They are so easy to make, freeze well, are good for kids to help with, and look lovely. I think I will try them with white chocolate on top, and maybe chopped dried cranberries?


PS: Sorry about the poor photo quality on the family pics. Our living room has about the worst light ever in the winter.

J playing peek a boo with his great grandfather.

Apple Crumble Perfect Pie

A very good family friend turned 60 this weekend, and his wife, Carol, threw him a surprise party. I was honored when Carol asked me to bake an apple pie for her hubby's big night. First of all, Carol is a great cook. And second, she has only heard of this pie from my mom, so she is putting a lot of trust in me and my pie prowess.

Even though my Thanksgiving apple pie was not all that good, I feel supremely confident about the apple crumble pie I am making for the party. It never fails to be perfect. It is just the right amount of sweet, crumbly and goes perfectly with vanilla ice cream. A great addition to holiday or birthday festivities.

The original recipe for this pie was from Bon Appetit. I have made just a few changes.

-Make a pie crust or use a pre-made one. I like Pillsbury's crust.
-Preheat oven to 400
-For the filling: peel, core and slice 1/4 inch thick about 3 lbs of granny smith apples
-Combine apples with 1/2 to 2/3 cup sugar depending on your tastes, 2 tbsp flour, 2 tsp cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg, ginger and allspice, 2 tbsp melted butter. Set aside.
-For topping: Combine in a food processor: 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 6 tbsp unsalted butter chilled and cubed. Pulse until mixture is combined in to moist meal. (You could do this with a pastry cutter too.)
-Mold crust in to a pie pan. I recommend using a deep dish pan if you have it.
-Pour apples into crust. It will seem like you have way too much apple mix. It will be a big mound of apples. Just go with it.
-Pour topping on to apples and use your hands to squish the topping all over the apples. Again, it will seem like the pile of apples is too big and that the topping will never stick. Trust me - it will all work out.
-Put pie on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 for about 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake until it looks browned and bubbly, about 45 min to 1 hour more. If it looks like the topping is getting too dark, just cover with foil.
-You can easily make this a day ahead and reheat it before serving.

Here it is. I gave it a little dusting of confectioners sugar since it is for a party and all.

Happy 60th, Mike! And thanks, Carol, for letting me contribute this yummy dish to your party.

Beer Bread

It's cold here. Really cold. Winter cold. Perfect weather for making soup, goulash, or, Dave's specialty, chili. And if you are going to serve a pot of spicy, hot deliciousness, I believe you need fresh bread to go along with the meal. How else will you mop up the juice at the bottom of the bowl?

You can, obviously, buy great bread. (I recommend the artisan breads at Trader Joe's and Costco makes really yummy Italian loafs, both whole grain and traditional white.) But with minimal effort, you can make your own bread. I will admit to often feeling intimidated by the prospect of baking bread - which is why I now have a bread machine. But I am quite brave when it comes to making quick breads. Quick breads don't require yeast; they use baking powder/soda for leavening. Quick breads are easy to make, easy to adapt and, yes, they are quick. You can have the whole thing done in under an hour, baking time included.

There are lots of quick bread recipes out there, but my favorite variety for serving with winter stews and soups is beer bread. Here is a basic recipe:

• Preheat oven to 375
• Sift into a bowl: 3 cups flour (white/wheat or a combo), 3 tsp baking powder, 3 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt
• Add 12 oz of beer at room temperature and stir gently until just combined. (Get your kids to help with this part - lots of bubbles = fun times in the kitchen.)
• Pour into a greased loaf pan and cover with 2 tbsp melted butter. (Don't wimp out and skip the butter!)
• Bake 35-40 minutes. 

You can do all kinds of things to customize this recipe. Add some spices, shredded cheese, jalapeno peppers, bacon, honey or molasses in place of some or all of the sugar. Try different beers. We like Dogfish's Raison D'etre, any pumpkin beer, Magic Hat's #9 and pretty much anything by Victory.

And if you are looking for a cute, cheap and creative holiday gift, combine the dry ingredients in a ziploc bag or mason jar, put the bag/jar in a gift bag with a bottle of beer and a card with the cooking instructions.

It's Carbtacular!

If there is one thing that I particularly love about the Thanksgiving feast, it's the complete overindulgence in all that is carby. When else would we think it is necessary to serve at least two kinds of potatoes? What other meal demands that one serve butter rolls to go with all the other buttery concoctions? As Dave likes to say, "It's carbtacular!"

Make this recipe - Your rolls will actually look like this. Promise.

This year, I found the most delicious recipe for dinner rolls. This is a version of the Pioneer Woman's Buttered Rosemary Rolls. But instead of using frozen dinner rolls from a store, I make dinner roll dough in the bread machine. Here is dinner roll recipe that I use from Tasty Kitchen contributor, Sprucehill. You can find a step by step and pictures of the recipe on her very cool blog.

These rolls are great no matter how you cook them. But I highly recommend busting out your cast iron skillet if you have one. (If you don't have one, ask Santa, or other gift-giving entities, to hook you up ASAP. It is an inexpensive and invaluable kitchen tool.) Check out Pioneer Woman's steps, but the basic idea is:
-Make or purchase dinner roll dough
-Place balls of dough in a cast iron skillet that is generously coated in butter. I use seven balls, like in the picture from the PW site.
-Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes. Brush with more melted butter and sprinkle on spices to suit your tastes. I think they are especially good with a little Parmesan grated on top.
-Bake at 375 or 400, depending on your oven, for 15-20 minutes

These are so soft and delicious. Not to mention that they look beautiful - a great addition to your holiday feast. Because you can never have too many carbs.

Make This Now - Donuffins!

To cap off the events of American Education Week, a mom from Kara's class offered to host a parent coffee today. Perfect excuse to bake, right?

Tasty Kitchen is the recipe sharing site attached to the Pioneer Woman website. It is great place to find recipes, especially in the realms of comfort food and baked goods. I was perusing my "recipe box" and found a recipe called "Muffins that Taste Like Donuts." Seemed like the perfect parent coffee offering.

Thanks, Lemanada, for this recipe and pretty picture, too.

The basic idea is that you bake a muffin and when they are cooked, you dip them in butter and coat them with cinnamon sugar. Kara, Dave and I tested them out and determined that they rock. The only complaint: "Muffins that taste like donuts" is a little unwieldy as names go. Dave suggested "Donuffins" - I think that one's going to stick. (And since this is a family friendly blog, I wont share the other contenders for new name.)

These things are awesome. Make them now.

PS: These were so good, that made a pumpkin muffin version. Just add about 1 cup of pumpkin puree and reduce the milk.

PPS: If you make these as mini-muffins, they are pretty much like munchkins.