Oatmeal Pancakes
This is definitely a recipe to be added to the go-to, all the time dishes. These pancakes were easy to make, delicious, and super filling. The one thing that I don’t like about pancakes usually is that I always eat a ton of them and get super full but then am hungry again in a few hours. This is not the case with these wonderful breakfast treats. They don’t feel heavy when you eat them but they stick with you for hours. I highly recommend these for your next breakfast adventure. I would like to see if they freeze well and could be reheated on a weekday morning – if I could just keep from eating all of them….
The recipe came from Smitten Kitchen and can be found here. There were 5 of us at breakfast and we ate all of the pancakes. We probably could have eaten more if they had been available.
3/4 cup oat flour – I found this in the bulk section at the co-op near my house but I have heard you can make it yourself by throwing oats into a food processor or spice grinder.
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbs sugar
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbs melted butter
1 cup cooked oatmeal
1 tbs molasses or honey if you don’t have molasses
2 eggs
Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate, smaller bowl, beat together the rest of the ingredients. Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, making sure to mix only until just combined.
Heat a large skillet on the stove over medium heat and rub it generously with butter. Pour the batter onto the pan, making whatever size pancakes you prefer. The pancake is ready to flip when lots of bubbles appear on the top. Cook until both sides are golden brown and serve hot. I served mine with maple syrup, powdered sugar and blueberries but there are a million other things that I’m sure would be delicious – be creative and enjoy!
Pork Tenderloin with Spiced Rhubarb Chutney
Hello again! For today’s recipe I wanted to do something with a big pork tenderloin that I got on sale this week. I don’t buy meat super often so It is a big treat when it happens. This recipe was pretty straight forward and turned out beautifully.
The pork was lightly seasoned, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside and the rhubarb chutney was the perfect combination of spicy, sweet and tangy. I served it with roasted asparagus and summer squash and it was absolutely delicious and very satisfying. The chutney would also make a great addition to other meats. I found the recipe on epicurious. It can be found here.
Chutney:
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon cumin (I think I used a little more than this)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
4 cups 1/2-inch cubes fresh rhubarb (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 medium red onion chopped
1/3 cup dried tart cherries or golden raisins (about 2 ounces) – I used golden raisins and they were fantastic. I can’t vouch for the cherries but I bet they’d be great.
Pork:
1 pork tenderloin, trimmed (You can really use as much pork as you would like)
2 teaspoons ground cumin (I definitely used more than this)
2 tablespoons olive oil
To make the chutney: Mix together the first 8 ingredients in a large skillet over low heat. Stir until the mixture starts to simmer and the sugar dissolves.
Throw in the rhubarb, onion, and the raisins/cherries. Keep on stirring it regularly and wait for the rhubarb is slightly mushy and the whole thing has begun to thicken. Cool completely. You can do this a day ahead if it makes it easier.
To make the pork: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rub the pork with the cumin. Pour oil into a large skillet over high heat. Add the pork and brown on all sides. Move it to an oiled pyrex or other baking dish. Toss some of the chutney on top and spread it around. Roast until a thermometer inserted into the center reads 150 degrees. (about 20-30 minutes). Occasionally spread some more chutney on the pork.
Let the pork cool slightly and then slice into medallions. serve with the chutney.
Let us eat cake!
This morning I realized that if I didn’t cook something before noon there would be no time to cook at all. Enter Danielle – my super fabulous roommate who had the day off from work. We scoured the internet for a baked good that we had all the ingredients for and found this one. And it was really delicious. And super easy. Basically I’m a big fan and I think that everyone should make this cake all the time.
Blueberry Buttermilk Cake
The recipe was for raspberry cake but I had blueberries so we went with those.
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 stick (plus maybe a little more for extra deliciousness) butter
2/3 cup sugar (I forgot to sprinkle the extra tbs or so on just before baking and it turned out fine but I bet it would have been delicious with a sugary crust too)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup or so of blueberries (or raspberries, or strawberries, or really anything else you can think of)
I did not add the 1/2 tsp of lemon zest but I think that would have been very tasty and will try that the next time I make this cake.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and prepare a 9 inch round cake pan.
Mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set this aside. In another bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until fluffy. Next, beat in the egg, the vanilla, and the lemon zest if you are going in that direction.
Using the lowest speed on your mixer, add the flour mixture, alternating with the buttermilk. The recipe said to do this in three batches for each and make sure that you begin and end with flour. I’m not sure what the reason for this is. I followed these directions the first time I made it but will be doing some experimenting with that in the future. Regardless, beat until just combined and then pour into the prepared pan. Sprinkle with blueberries (and sugar if you remember) and throw it into the oven.
Bake 20 – 25 minutes or until it is golden brown on the top. Then eat it.
Cheese Fest Recovery Vegetable Dinner
Today I attended the first Minnesota Cheese Fest with my friends Annie and Jack, which means that I ate a lot of cheese. And I mean A LOt – enough that I am feeling too full of cheese. It was amazing. Now I am in the mood for a vegetable dinner so I turned to a new veggie cookbook I picked up at the library. The cookbook is called Fast, Fresh & Green and I would highly recommend it – great pictures. The recipe I chose was for Tuscan kale with maple, ginger, and pancetta.
Overall the recipe was pretty good. Not my new favorite food but definitely worth trying.
Tuscan Kale with Maple, Ginger, and Pancetta
Kosher salt
1 bunch Tuscan kale – this is also called cavalo, dinosaur, black or Lacinato kale
1 oz thinly sliced pancetta
1 tbs butter
1 1/2 tsp chopped ginger
1 tsp maple syrup
Cut the kale into smallish pieces and steam until it is soft but not limp and gross. Set aside.
In a big skillet arrange the pancetta slices on the bottom. Cook over medium-low heat until the pancetta is crisp and golden brown – about 6 to 8 minutes. Flip once or twice while cooking. Move the pancetta to a plate. Add the butter to the pan and add ginger. Cook for 30 seconds or a minute and then take it off the burner. Add the maple syrup. Resist the urge to add more maple syrup than the recipe calls for. Maple syrup is ridiculously delicious but this recipe does not need any more than it already has. Trust me.
Add the kale to the pan with the maple mixture. Put the pan back on medium heat and toss together until the greens are coated. Crumble the pancetta on the top and serve.
Saturday = Brunch!
Hello again! Today is Saturday and it’s time for brunch! I went with a recipe for dutch babies from the Joy of Cooking. I’ve been looking to try these for a while but don’t usually have the dedication necessary to try something new so close to un-caffeinated time. I’m glad I did though because they were delicious and really easy to make.
There was really nothing about this recipe that I would change. I made a triple batch and it comfortably filled 6 people with no leftovers. The directions below are for a single batch but it is easily multiplied. For a double batch just double the ingredients but in lieu of the skillet the Joy of Cooking said to use a glass 9×12 pan and skip the part where you put it on the stove. Melt the butter in the pan as it preheats and then increase the cooking time to about 15 minutes. I did one double recipe this way and then one single in a skillet starting on the stove and honestly there was little to no difference between the two.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Mix together in a bowl 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 eggs, and a dash of vanilla (that was my addition but it’s not necessary). Melt 4 tbs (1/2 stick) butter in an ovenproof skillet on the stove (or in the 9×13 in the oven). Swirl it around a bit until the butter coats the sides of the pan. Pour in the batter. For the skillet, cook the pancake on the stove for a minute or so without stirring and then put in the oven for about 12 minutes. For the larger batch just shove the whole mess in the oven.
Serve them as quickly as possible once they are done as they will fall very quickly. I topped mine with raspberries and powdered sugar and with strawberry-rhubarb jam but there are probably another zillion things that would also be delicious. I will definitely make these again.
Baba Ganoush
So today I was asked by a friend to make a party snack. Hummus and spinach artichoke dip were both on the menu already so I decided to go with a baba ganoush and keep it in the dips family. The recipe I found on the food network’s website called it roasted eggplant spread but at the end of the day it was really baba ganoush.
This process was a good example of me not following directions well. I’m going to break down the recipe for you in the way it should have been done, instead of the way I did it. I kind of ignored when they said to roast the onion and the red pepper with the eggplant and then wondered why my did just tasted like eggplant all mushed up….sigh. In the end I roasted the other vegetables and added them un with no harm to the dip but I could have cut the cooking time by a lot had I just taken a minute to read the instructions more carefully.
In the end the dip still tasted a little bland so I added some extra crushed garlic to it (raw). I added maybe a little bit too much and it made everyone’s breath stink until Sunday. I would say probably one clove of garlic at the end would probably be perfect.
For the directions – peel 2 medium sized eggplants (I used three small eggplants). Chop the eggplants, the red pepper and a red onion into 1 inch cubes. Toss them with a ton of olive oil and garlic. The recipe said to use cayenne but I opted for a generous sprinkling of New Mexican red chili powder. Any of the spicy red powders would be fine but be conscious of changing the measurements based on what you choose. Bake all of the veggies at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. Let them cool slightly before continuing.
Toss all the veggies into the food processor. I think a blender or one of those hand held deals would work too. Add two tbs each of lemon juice and tahini and blend until it looks like you want it to. Add the clove of minced or crushed garlic (or more if you feel like it and can spend the next day or so locked in a room with a bottle of mouthwash). Throw in a bunch of choped parsley and serve. I served mine with homemade pita chips. Cut white pocket bread into triangles and separate the two halves. Brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and broil on high for 1-3 minutes. Keep your eyes on them because mine burned super quickly.
It appears that I totally forgot to take pictures of the finished product. Sorry about that!
I hope you enjoy – talk to you tomorrow about brunch. 🙂
Blondies!
Hello again! Today I decided to go the dessert route. I had some great blondies the other week and since thne have been wanting to make my own. Also, any excuse to buy a bag of butterscotch chips. 🙂
After searching around I chose a recipe from epicurious (one of my favorite sites) for blondies with pecans and chocolate chips. The original recipe was found in Bon Apetit from July 1998.
The biggest modification I made was to add butterscotch chips. I cut the chocolate chips down to 1/4 cup and added 1/2 cup butterscotch chips. Okay, I may have added an extra sprinkle on top of that. I love butterscotch chips. The other change I made came from looking at the reviews of the recipe. Several people said that the final result was a little dry and cakey. My solution – more butter. I upped the recipe to a little under 2 sticks of butter instead of the original 1 1/4 stick.
The result – fantastic. They taste (in the words of my roommate) like carmel or butterscotch with some cookie dough in it. They took longer to bake than the recipe said and mine never really got done all the way, but that only meant that they were gooey, goopy and delicious. If you want yours to come out a little more solid, I would try adding about 1 1/2 or 1 2/3 sticks of butter. These are really good.
Melt the butter (however much you decide you want) until it is mostly melted and then take it off the heat and stir to melt the remaining chunks. I read that keeping the butter from getting too hot would help keep the texture of the blonidies awesome. Add 1 1/2 to 2 cups dark brown sugar and beat well. Add 2 eggs and 2 tsp vanilla and mix again.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare the plan. I actually just realized that the recipe called for a 9×13 inch pan. I used a 9×9 because apparently I need to get my glasses checked or at least learn to pay attention to directions. In retrospect though I think the smaller pan was a good choice. The end product was thick but not too thick. I guess this explains why mine did not cook thouroughly in the time in the recipe. Oops! Regardless, take whatever pan you want and grease and flour it.
In a separate bowl mix together 2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 3/4 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp baking soda. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the butter/sugar mixture. I chose to mix the two kinds of chips and the 3/4 cups chopped pecans into the batter rather than sprinkling them on top like the recipe said and I will stand by that choice. Pour the whole mess into the pan and throw it in the oven. I initially put then min for 25 minutes. That was not enough so I put them in for another 5 minutes. I took them out and put them on the rack to cool. We all ate some and decided that they were not done (delicious but not done). I put them back in the oven, cooked them for another 5 and then turned the oven off and let them sit in there. They still weren’t really cooked so I decided they were just going to be like that and put them in the fridge. Done!
A note from a few days later – they have been in the fridge since Thursday and they still taste like cookie dough. Yum!
Chicken dinner
Today I don’t have to babysit which means I have all day for cooking if I want! I’m serving dinner to my house plus a friend so I wanted to do something impressive. The final decision was for Roast Chickens with Pistachio Salsa, Peppers, and Corn. I found this recipe on epicurious while I was looking for a healthy chicken recipe.The original recipe was from Jeff Cerciello in the June 2012 issue of Bon Appetit. I decided to skip the whole chickens and try the recipe with boneless skinless chicken breasts instead. Eventually I might get to the point where I want to do whole poultry on a day that’s not Thanksgiving, but that day is not today.
I’m going to give my review first. This was delicious. At every step I thought that the ingredients wouldn’t go together well. It smelled kind of funny when the capers went into the pepper mix. The pistachio stuff was so-so on its own. However, it all pulled together magnificently and looked beautiful on the plate. It was a time consuming recipe but worth it. I would make this again.
My initial intention was to get up this morning when Ben was leaving for work and get the chicken marinading by 9:00 at the latest but my body did not agree with this plan. Oh well, they were in by 12:30 and I feel better rested than I have in a long time.
To marinade the chickens I followed the ingredient list for the actual recipe but did not follow the measurements at all. I poured a whole bunch of lemon juice and olive oil into a pyrex pan and added 2 big scoops of chopped garlic. I then chopped up a whole bunch of fresh sage, rosemary, and thyme and added all of those to the pan. In went the chicken and the whole thing went into the fridge for the next 7 hours.
I followed the recipe pretty closely for the pistachio salsa – chopping the nuts and chives together and adding the lemon est. 1 cup of olive oil seemed a little ridiculous so I just added enough that everything was coated and there was a little extra. I think it ended up being about half a cup and it was most certainly enough in the final recipe.
There wasn’t a whole lot to do then until about an hour before dinner would be served so I went for a run – never my favorite but it’s getting easier.
At about 5:45 I started making the corn and pepper mixture. I adjusted some of the amounts because it sounded like the original recipe was a bit larger than I would need. Also, I’m not a huge fan of measuring things, in case you haven’t caught that. I chopped up a little more than half of a red, a yellow, and an orange bell pepper and half of a large red onion to start. I was using fresh sweet corn so I dropped 3 cobs into a big pot of boiling water and left them in for 1 minute and then set them aside to cool. Once they are cool, cut the kernels off the cob and set aside.
I heated a big glug of olive oil in a large skillet and added the onions, 3 T of capers, 1 t red pepper flakes. While they were sizzling away I preheated the oven to 375 degrees and greased a couple of cookie sheets with olive oil. I threw the chicken on these and into the oven. I didn’t blot off the extra oil from the marinade because I figured that I lost all the fat from the skin of the whole chickens when I substituted the breasts. I set the timer for 20 minutes. Start checking around then for when the chicken is done. I think I overcooked mine.
Back to the stove – I cooked the onions until they were soft and getting a little brown around the edges which is a bit longer than the recipe said. I tossed in the peppers and about 1/2 cup of green chiles. If you don’t have green chiles, the recipe called for fresno chiles. I think also some chopped serano, poblano, or even jalapenos would work just fine. Cook this until the peppers are soft and everything smells delicious. I tossed in the corn, sprinkled some salt and pepper on it and let it cook for a few more minutes before setting it aside. Toss this with 1 T red wine vinegar and a bunch of chopped parsley right before serving.
Around this time the chicken was done. Top each piece of chicken with the corn mixture and the pistachio stuff and enjoy!
Day One
So far so good! Today marked the first day of this experiment and I decided to go all out. I went to Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite websites for sitting around drooling over food pictures, and poked around over coffee (with delicious hazelnut coconut milk creamer) this morning. After a lot of recipe-scanning and stomach rumbling I stumbled upon her recipe for Balsamic Braised Brussels with Pancetta and decided to give it a shot. Tuesday night is date night, but Ben was feeling sleepy so he took a nap while I put dinner together and then we enjoyed a lovely romantic brussel sprout dinner. 🙂
I got most of the ingredients from Trader Joe’s which meant that the pancetta was great, but the brussles sprouts were maybe not as fresh as they could have been. Next time I think I’ll spring for more expensive sprouts at the co-op or wait until they are available at the farmers market.
To start off I mixed 1 cup of plain breadcrumbs with a splash of olive oil and a handful of fresh thyme. This got spread on a cookie sheet and toasted at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. The recipe said to toss them frequently, but it being me I just threw them in and then promptly forgot about them. When I remembered and panicked about 10 minutes later they were perfectly toasted. Disaster averted.
To start on the brussel sprouts, I first washed them and cut off the icky stem part at the bottom. I didn’t until after I finished the recipe realize that you are also maybe suposed to take off the outermost leaves. I didn’t do that and they still turned out just fine. Some of mine were quite huge so I cut them in half before cooking. Finding myself in the chopping-grove I minced 4 cloves of garlic…fine I lied, I got out a big spoonful of the pre-minced garlic in a jar. We all have our weaknesses – I really don’t like chopping garlic. The recipe also called for 3 Tbs of minced shallots but neither TJ’s or Whole Foods had any so I wound up with a couple of fancy-pants little onions as a substitute. I chopped up two of those little onions which probably came out to 4 or 5 tbs.
While I was chopping up the sprouts I had a bunch of butter and olive oil melting on the stove (at med-high heat). The recipe called for 6 oz of pancetta but at TJ’s it came in 4 oz packages. Knowing that I’d be short on pancetta later I upped the butter to probably 5 tbs. In retrospect I probably didn’t need to do this. They were incredibly rich and could maybe have done well to be toned down a notch. Anyway, once the butter was foamy I added the sprouts and sauteed them for about 5-7 minutes until they started to be a litle bit brown. This time could probably be reduced a little bit to keep the sprouts from getting overcooked.
Once the sprouts were looking a little bit brown I added the pancetta and cooked it for about 10 minutes until the pancetta was crispy and delicious looking. I then turned the heat to low as directed and added the “shallots” and the “freshly chopped garlic.” The whole mess then cooked for about 2 minutes – just until everything was a little bit cooked.
Then I cranked up the heat to high and added 1 1/2 cups of beef stock and 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar. If I were doing this again I would cut the stock to 1 cup or maybe even 3/4 cup. By the time the liquid boiled away tonight the brussle sprouts were slightly overcooked and the results were super rich and salty.
Once all the liquid had boiled off I divided the sprouts into two bowls and topped them with a generous amount of the breadcrumbs and choped fresh parsley and served them. The recipe has these slated as a sode dish but they also made a lovely main course and were definitely plenty of food for two.
Overall I think that this was a tasty recipe, but it was SUPER rich. Neither Ben nor I could finish our bowls and in the end it was a bit overwhelming. I served it with some garlic toast but I think that this recipe might truly be better as a side dish than as the main event. For wine, I paired it (as I do everything else) with a classy bottle of $4 LaFinca Tempranillo from TJ’s. This recipe did nothing to dispell my belief that all good brussel sprout recipes involve cooking them in massive amounts of butter. If anyone knows of a good one please send it my way. I am not the world’s biggest fan of them as a vegetable but I would love to have that changed.
I’m super excited to keep experimenting. Today I went to the library and got a bunch of new cookbooks to play with and have come up with a plan for tomorrow’s dinner. I think that there will also have to be some baking coming up in the next few days as well…Stay tuned!
And the adventure begins!
A new recipe each day. This is my goal for the month of June as I face more than four weeks of little to no work and thus more free time to myself than an extrovert like me knows what to do with. The plan is to find and make one new recipe each day – some may be big and elaborate, but many will be small, simple, cheap, and (hopefully) healthy. If I stick to my resolve, each new recipe will be posted here with all of my notes, alterations, and pictures.
Feel free to take recipes to try or suggest new ones for me to try! I am also always looking for cooking buddies to join me at any point.
Here goes!
Nightcheese 