Happy St. Patrick's Day...and another snow storm

So, everybody's home again (snow day #14 for anyone keeping track) due to a storm that dumped another 7 inches on us. This, after we had 60 degree days just 2 days ago.  I like winter, I really do (I grew up in Minnesota, after all, and have Viking blood coursing through my veins, so that should surprise no one), but enough already! Mostly, though, when I'm cooped up inside and it's cold out, all I really want to do is stuff my face with baked goods.  Not cool.  Why can't I crave, say, carrots on a cold day?  I'm sitting here, drinking my tea, pretending it's tastes as good as hot chocolate and feeling a little grumpy.

On the plus side, it's also St. Patrick's Day. The day that everyone is a little bit Irish, even if it's just to drink Guinness.  :-) According to family lore, I actually am a teeny bit Irish.  Unfortunately, I don't have any traditional, handed-down-through-the-generations, secret family recipes to help me commemorate the day, so I had to rely on the internet for help.  I decided to try Martha Stewart's crock pot version of corned beef and cabbage, because I love a crock pot recipe where you can just dump everything in and cook it, but also wanted some Irish soda bread to serve with it.  I did a little research to try and find the most "authentic" recipe (and by authentic, I mean the one that sounded like it had the most history attached to it, because, let's face it, I have no idea what "authentic" or "traditional" Irish soda bread is supposed to be).

Did you know, according to "people on the internet" (whom I assume know more than I do), that traditional Irish soda bread does not have raisins/currants in it?  That it actually only has 4 ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk)?  Neither did I, but I am all for simple, tasty recipes.  So I found this one on allrecipes.com that I thought I would try.  I also read that the flour in Ireland (at least in the past) was kind of poor, without a lot of gluten, so some people in current times use pastry flour to replicate that.  I, one the other hand, did not have pastry flour.  But of course, I couldn't just leave well enough alone. So I used a blend of all purpose flour, cake flour and whole wheat flour.

I also found out that corned beef and cabbage isn't exactly the traditional meal for the Irish on St. Patrick's Day, either. WHAT?!?!  Corned beef is the lutefisk of Irish food traditions?? (for non-Norwegian-Americans, lutefisk is a traditional Norwegian fish dish, usually served by Norwegian-Americans at Christmas, but is hardly ever eaten by actual modern-day Norwegians, probably because no one wants to eat gelatinous, re-hydrated, fish that only tastes good if you dump a boat-load of melted butter on top)   My world was rocked today.


 Before baking:

After: 

 Just before eating:

But I digress. This post was really going to be about soda bread.  Let me tell you, this bread is so tasty and so easy, you will want to make it whenever you want fresh bread with a meal (say, with soup, for brunch, whatever).  Seriously, it's that easy. Except for the flour blend, I did not change anything from the original recipe. Honest. Okay, I did incorporate a couple of technique-type tips from the comments section into my instructions. But that's all. Really.

"Traditional" Irish Soda Bread

1/2 cup cake flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (mine was on the "heaping teaspoon" side of things)
1 cup of buttermilk
caraway seeds (optional)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. While the oven heats up, put the dry ingredients in a bowl, then stir with a fork to combine.  Start adding the buttermilk, first about half a cup, then stirring to combine with the dry ingredients, then the other half a cup.  Keep stirring everything together with a fork until it comes together (there might still be some flour left in the bottom of the bowl), then use your hand to knead the rest of the flour into the mixture (I did this in the bowl - no need to dump it out and get flour all over the place).  Pat the dough into a disk and put it in a cast iron skillet. With a sharp, serrated knife slash a cross in the top, then sprinkle with caraway seeds (optional).

Put skillet in the pre-heated oven and bake the bread about 15-20 minutes, until it's lightly golden on the outside and sounds hollow when you thump it lightly with your finger.  Take the skillet out, and, while the skillet is still warm, cover the bread with a 9-inch cake pan for 5 minutes. (This helps keep the outside crust from getting too hard).

Makes one loaf -- 8 nice wedge-shaped slices.  Enjoy warm with some good butter.  :-)

Bonus recipe:

Roasted Cabbage

I had some cabbage that wouldn't fit into my crock pot, so I took those two slices and roasted them in the oven while the bread was baking.  Just toss the cabbage with olive oil, salt and pepper, put on a rimmed baking sheet, then roast for about 20 minutes, until it's starting to get brown on the edges.  Pull out of the oven and sprinkle with a little apple cider vinegar (or not, it's good without it too, but I liked the idea of a not-too-sour sauerkraut flavor).












And here's a final photo of our "traditional" Irish meal:

A Dessert That's Almost Good For You!

Recently, a good friend of mine asked me to try out a recipe.  She follows a relatively strict diet, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't be able to treat herself occasionally, right?  I'm here to tell you that this pie is FABULOUS and has very little refined sugar (only the amount that is in the dark chocolate).  My kids even liked it.  Well, my oldest, liked it all. My younger, pickier eater only liked the crust and didn't care for the coconut flavor of the filling.  But if you like chocolate and coconut together, this is the dessert for you! Confession: I had a piece for breakfast and only felt mildly guilty about it.

The original recipe comes from Nom Nom Paleo and is called Kelly Brozyna's Chocolate Pie and Raw Graham Cracker Crust. Since I'm linking to the recipe, I won't reprint it here, but will walk you through some of the key steps.

The recipe calls for coconut cream, but not the canned coconut cream that has tons of added sugar.  Just take two cans of unsweetened coconut milk (NOT the "lite" kind), put them in the fridge for an hour, then open them up and scrape off the layer of hardened cream (don't shake the cans -- you want to be sure the cream stays separate).  What do you do with the leftover coconut milk?  You can make Carrot Coconut Soup, like I did, or use it in a smoothie.

The other thing that I had to change is the type of nuts used, because I didn't have enough walnuts.  So I used almonds instead.  I don't know if almonds have less oil in them than walnuts, but my crust wasn't very sticky, so I added another date.

I should have added two extra dates, because it still wasn't very sticky (or at least just sticky enough to stay formed in the pie plate), but I forged ahead.  

I tried using my measuring cup trick to spread the crumbs evenly, but the dates just kept sticking to the bottom of the cup, so I ended up just using my hands, anyway.  Ironically, the crumbs weren't sticky enough to stick to each other. I had a tough time with that part...

The filling couldn't have been easier.  Just dump the stuff in all together and blend.  Unfortunately, using the food processor (as suggested in the recipe) left little date chunks:

I wanted to try and get it as smooth as it showed in the original recipe, so I dumped it all in the blender. Success!  The blender got the filling a lot smoother.  I suggest using that, if you make this recipe.

Then, just put in the fridge to set and you have a simple, delicious, healthy-ish, yet decadent dessert that even non-Paleo folks will appreciate!

Snow Day Shenanigans

Who's a little tired of winter?  <raising my hand enthusiastically>

Here in Virginia, we got a big snow storm that cancelled classes Thursday and Friday, and with President's Day on Monday, that means the kids have been home for 5 straight days in Loudoun County. We've already had 11 snow days, and frankly, I'm done with all of it.  Fortunately for me, my kids are old enough to get their snow gear on and play outside with their friends without my direct supervision, so I had some extra time the past few days. The majority of that time has been watching the Olympics, I won't lie, but I managed to get a few more things done.

After making snowmen pancakes for breakfast (nothing fancy, folks, just three small, connected blobs of pancake batter with chocolate chips for eyes and buttons), the kids went outside and I started making this:

I had seen this recipe for chocolate swirl bread and thought is looked so good! It's from the Woman's Day January 2014 issue.  While none of the steps are really difficult, it is a little fussy.  The results were so good, though, I would definitely make it again, but doubling the recipe.  I figure, if I'm going to go through all that work, I might as well get two loaves out of it, because the first loaf will be gone in minutes!

Even though it's a yeast dough, I found it really easy to work with.  Maybe it's the eggs that are in it. When you first turn the dough out, it will look a little shaggy:

But it only takes a couple of kneads to get it nice and smooth:

See what I mean about being easy to work with? It rolls out beautifully!

The chocolate filling is also easy, basically just melting all the ingredients together and stirring until smooth.  If you are not familiar with the spreading tool in the picture below, it's an offset spatula.  If you are spreading anything -- cake batter, bars, icing, fillings -- you really need one of these!  It works so much better for getting everything smooth and even than using a regular flat knife or spatula.  This particular one is from Pampered Chef (the one pictured is the large one. I also have the small spreader). 

Rolling the dough is always my downfall -- I never think I get the roll tight enough.

Making the "braid." Don't worry -- it's not complicated, more of a twist than an actual braid.

Popping it in the parchment-lined pan:

Clearly, I could have done better at forming the dough...

Making the crumb topping, I went old-school, using two knives to cut the butter into crumbs.  When I make this again, I'm going to use the food processor.  So much easier and faster!

Before:

After:

You pat in the crumbs before you put the bread in the oven. Here's the finished product:

It's a beautiful bread, worthy of gift-giving, I think. And, as I mentioned before, none of the steps are hard. Don't you want to have some of this??  So, so yummy!

Unexpected Ooey, Gooey Caramel Rolls

I love sweet rolls: caramel rolls, cinnamon rolls, whatever.  But most of the time I don't have time to mess with yeast, waiting for the dough to rise, etc. So I was looking for a faster, easier cinnamon roll recipe, when I came across something that sounded pretty good at the blog Iowa Girl Eats (if you've never read her blog, I highly recommend it).  But remember that I had that sweet potato caramel from the experiment last time?  I did, and had to figure out what to do with it, since it's been sitting on my counter for 2 weeks.  So the gears in the brain started grinding away and I thought, "Why not a sweet potato caramel roll?"  The addition of sweet potato is the "unexpected" part. :-)

Now, I am under no illusions that what I came up with is much healthier than any other sweet roll out there, but I did try to cut down the refined sugar, and I thought that adding the sweet potato, using some whole wheat flour, cutting the butter a teensy bit and taking out a little of the salt might help just a bit.

Y'all, they were really good! Which, of course, is why I'm sharing with you, because I wouldn't waste your time with crap.  :-)  I know there are a few steps, but none are very hard, and even the mixing is pretty straight forward.  Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Preparing the pan with the nuts and caramel topping:

Getting on with mashing up the cooked sweet potato. The heat from the potato will melt the butter:

After adding the flour, you'll get something like this:

Don't worry if it's not really well mixed. You'll knead that together so it gets nice and smooth.

Rolling out the dough is not an exact science...

On goes the yummy cinnamon filling:

Rolled and sliced, then placed in the prepared pan.  See my little wonky one in the bottom right corner? We never leave a man behind, even if it's the sad looking end pieces.  See that bench scraper in the picture on the left? It helps a lot for baking: I used it to help roll the dough (loosen parts that might be sticking to the sheet) and cutting the roll into pieces.

Puffed and ready to take out of the pan.  Looks like I could have brushed off some of the flour, though...

They need to rest, and let that gooey caramel goodness drip down onto the top.

 Voila! Sort of healthy-ish but super delicious caramel rolls!

 Unexpected Ooey, Gooey Caramel Rolls:

(Inspired by this recipe on Iowa Girl Eats)


For the Dough:

about 1 cup mashed sweet potato (or take a small sweet potato, pierce and microwave on high for 7 minutes until cooked - be sure to peel it before using in the recipe)
2 Tbsp butter
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup whole wheat flour
1.5 cups all purpose flour (plus more for rolling out)
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Throw warm sweet potato and butter into a mixing bowl and combine (if sweet potato was already mashed, melt the butter and combine with mashed sweet potato). Add buttermilk and combine until smooth.

Measure dry ingredients into separate bowl. Whisk to combine. Add to the sweet potato/buttermilk mixture and stir until the dough comes together. It might look a little shaggy, but that's okay.  Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead a couple of times to get a smooth dough. Roll out to a 9x14 -ish inch rectangle (it doesn't really have to be exact).

Cinnamon Filling:

1 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
3 Tablespoons butter, melted

For the Cinnamon Filling:   Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside.

For the caramel topping:

1 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 Sweet Potato Caramel (or you could substitute pure maple syrup)
1 Tbsp butter



For the pan and caramel topping: heavily butter the bottom of a 9x9 inch baking pan. Sprinkle nuts over. Combine brown sugar, syrup and butter in a small bowl, microwave for 30 seconds on high, then stir to combine.  Pour caramel over the nuts.

After you have all the components ready, spread filling over the dough. The filling has a wet sand kind of texture, so don't worry if you don't get it spread completely evenly -- I didn't.  ;-) Roll up dough from by the long end, trying to keep the roll as tight as you can (I admit I'm not very good at this part).  Cut dough into nine pieces. How do you do this, you ask? Cut off each of the ends, set them aside for now, then cut the remaining roll in half, then cut each of those pieces in half, then in half again.  And there you go.  Put rolls in the prepared pan, then take the uneven ends, smoosh them together a little, then use that as your ninth roll.  press each of the rolls down slightly.

Put pan into a preheated 400 degree oven and bake for 25 minutes. After pulling the rolls out of the oven, immediately turn over onto a serving plate, but keep the pan on top for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, remove pan. There might be bits of the caramel-nut topping left in the pan. I just scrape that out and spread over the rolls.  Enjoy!  Makes 9.

"Healthy" Caramel? Color Me Skeptical...

When I saw this on the bon appetit blog, I thought, "Wow! Caramel sauce with no refined or processed ingredients? I have to try this!" Well, I tried it, and came away disillusioned. The recipe seemed simple enough: roast 3 pounds of potatoes in a little water, then let drain into a saucepan. Cook down the resulting liquid.

Here are the potatoes, ready to go into the oven:

Here are the roasted potatoes, draining in a cheese-cloth-lined strainer:

And, after an hour and a half of roasting, an hour of draining, and another half hour of cooking down the liquid, here is what I got:

A third of a cup of syrup (never got to a caramel-y state of thickness) that still tastes overwhelmingly like sweet potato.  At least I had enough mashed sweet potato to make sweet potato pancakes (just add some of the mashed potato to your regular pancake batter) and sweet potato biscuits.  :-)  As for the "caramel sauce", I'm still skeptical, but I saw enough promise to try it again -- roasting the sweet potatoes uncovered for longer to concentrate the sugars more might do the trick.  It just seems like a lot of time to take up just to make a small amount of caramel sauce.  Still not sure what I'm going to do with the small amount of syrup I have, though.  It seems a shame to just waste it.  Simple syrup for a cocktail, perhaps? Send me any thoughts you have!  :-)  

Savory Dutch Baby

This one's another entry in the "I'm not sure what to make, so I have to punt" dinner.  I had a bunch of egg yolks left over from the meringue experiments (see previous post), but I didn't feel like scrambled eggs, so I thought about a savory dutch baby.  A dutch baby (or oven pancake, pfannekuchen, etc.) is a simple mixture of egg, milk, flour, and salt (sometimes you add sugar for a sweet version) that's poured in a hot, buttered pan.  It's baked at a high temperature and gets all beautiful and puffy.

I've made these before, but only the sweeter version, served with either sauteed apples or maple syrup, and usually for Sunday breakfast.  This time, however, I had some cheese and bacon (what a surprise!), so I thought, "Maybe I should just add some of those and make it a savory dinner."

Let me tell you what.  It was GOOD!  A little side salad, and you've got a light dinner or lunch.  Plus, it's really easy.  Try it.  You'll like it!

Savory Dutch Baby with Bacon and Gruyere

2 Tbsp. butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup flour

3 Tbsp bacon bits

handful of shredded gruyere cheese

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees (F). Put butter in a 9-inch cast iron skillet (you can use a pie plate or other oven-safe 9-inch skillet) and put in the oven to melt.  Meanwhile, whisk together eggs, milk and flour until smooth.  When the butter is melted and the oven is pre-heated, pour the egg mixture into the skillet.  Return to oven and bake for 18 minutes.  Pull out the skillet and sprinkle the bacon and cheese on the pancake.  Put the skillet back in the over for 10 more minutes, or until the pancake is golden brown and the cheese is melted.

Remove the skillet from the oven, cut pancake into four pieces.  Serve with a simple side salad.

Two for One: Making weeknight meals easier

I am all about easy prep and quick weeknight meals.  An easy way to make dinner happen is to prep ingredients ahead of time, then all you have to do is throw everything together and voila! Dinner is done.  For example, this week I made a sausage and cheese strata, but cooked all of the sausage (one pound's worth) and saved the other half to put in a soup later in the week.  Similarly, I bought a whole head of savoy cabbage, but used it three ways (in a citrus slaw with roasted salmon, in soup, and as a side dish).  Makes easy work for weeknights AND it's economical.

Here's what I did:

I cooked all the sausage, along with half a chopped up onion and 4 oz. of chopped, fresh mushrooms. Beause there was some great crispy bits of sausage left in the pan, I put half a cup of water in the hot pan to scrape up all those bits of flavor, then put everything in a bowl and stored it in the fridge for later.
 

When it came time to make the strata, I ended up only using about 1/3 of the sausage, which I scattered over a mixture of 4 eggs, 1 1/3 cups of milk, salt and pepper, 5 slices of thick-cut bread (cut into 1-inch cubes) that had soaked together for about 15 minutes.  On top of everything, I scattered some grated cheddar cheese, then baked it in a buttered 8-inch by 8-inch pan at 375 for about 30 minutes (until the top was golden brown in places and the cheese was all melted).

The next night, I took half a head of savoy cabbage (it was a large head), sliced it into 1/2 inch thick slices, then sliced those slices across into 2-inch lengths.  I also took a whole onion, cut it in half length-wise, then sliced across in thin (1/4 inch) slices.  I tossed the cabbage and onions with salt, pepper, and some olive oil and roasted it on two large baking sheets in the oven at 400 degrees for 12 minutes (some of the cabbage might get dark brown, and that's okay), tossing the veggies once about halfway through.

With one pan of the cabbage, I tossed it with a little soy sauce and sesame seeds and put it away for a snack, some lunch or for a side with another dinner later in the week.

With the other pan of cabbage, I added that to a 4-quart pot, which was already simmering with 32 oz. of chicken broth and the rest of the sausage mixture that I made the day before, with a little bit of dried coriander (about 1/4 teaspoon) and dried marjoram (1/2 teaspoon).  After I added the cabbage to the pot with the other ingredients, I let them simmer together for about 10 minutes, just to let the flavors unite.

And there you have it!  Actually, the original recipe I was using was supposed to have some sweet potato in it, but I forgot.  It was okay, though, because it was still really tasty and even my picky eater liked it!