Failure...And Coming Back

I'm going to confess that I don't always hit home runs in the kitchen.  As a matter of fact, I pretty much suck at making any kind of candy that requires more than just melting some chocolate and spreading it on a slab (i.e., chocolate bark).  Chocolate bark, I can do.  But when I have to boil stuff to a specific temperature, I fail. Every. Single. Time.  But, as an optimist (or crazy person), I keep trying, thinking I will finally "get it."  But then I don't.  Again.

This week's debacle comes from the latest issue of Bon Appétit magazine in the form of  Pecan Buttermilk Fudge:



Seriously, how could you not want to try and make that?  I also happened to have some extra buttermilk to use up. So there was that. Plus my eternal optimism.  I tend to ignore that niggling voice that says, "But Marna, you suck at making fudge from scratch." Should have listened to that voice.  I think I overcooked the fudge, because it set harder than a two-day-old baguette.  I had to literally chisel pieces using a steak knife and a meat tenderizer.  Not lying. I was too embarrassed to take a photo of that mess.

But. But. The reason I didn't throw it all in the trash is because the crumbly shards I was able to scrape off tasted really good, the texture notwithstanding. So, I broke the slab in half and put it away for a couple of days until I figured out what to do with it.

Then I figured it out. Not how to make fudge. No, that still eludes me.  I figured out what to do with this impossible-to-eat (seriously jaw-breaker hard) slab of overcooked sugar.  Here's the problem: since the recipe is based on a mistake and I'm not sure exactly what I did wrong, there's no way to replicate this.  Besides, who wants purposely screw up a batch of fudge, then use the results to make something else? That's just crazy.

Besides, the recipe would go like this:

Crust: 4 whole graham crackers
3 Wasa whole grain crackers
1/8 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbsp melted butter

Crush crackers in food processor into fine crumbs.  Stir in sugar and melted butter.  Pat into 8x8 inch pan.

Filling: 1 batch of jacked up Pecan Buttermilk Fudge
approx. 1/3 cup caramel sauce (I used Smuckers brand)

Melt the jacked up fudge on low power (I used level 4 for 7 minutes) until softened. Stir until smooth, then add the caramel sauce. Combine thoroughly, then pour over crumb crust. Bake in an oven that you set to preheat to 425 (because you're making a quiche crust so the oven was preheating for that anyway). Take the bars out when the topping is slightly bubbling around the edges.  I think it took about 5-7 minutes.

Topping: approx. 1 c. chocolate chips

Sprinkle chocolate chips over the bars, then let them melt.  Carefully spread the chocolate chips smooth over the bars.

Like I said, this can not be replicated. So, sorry about that. But if you want to try this out, go for it!

Here's the good news.  The crumb crust I made was really good.  Combining the Wasa crackers with the graham crackers gave it great texture and not too sweet. Plus it held up when I poured the melted fudge/caramel sauce mixture. I think I'll substitute Wasa crackers for some graham crackers every time I make a graham cracker crust.

But I guess the point of this post is not to share a recipe, but to show all of you that it's okay to make mistakes.  And to experiment. And be willing to keep trying, even though you've failed many times before. Honestly guys, it's just food. Get in that kitchen and start cooking!

Let's Hear It For Leftovers! Corned Beef, Take 2.

Sometimes leftovers are even better than the original meal. I'm think especially of Thanksgiving, but you could also group St. Patrick's Day in there, too.  Even though, as we learned in my last post, corned beef isn't the traditional St. Patrick's meal I thought it was, I still like it and will continue to make it on St. Patrick's Day.  What I like even better is the corned beef hash that I make the day (or two...or three) after.  Not to dis my mom, who is a fabulous cook, but I seem to recall eating the canned stuff, which isn't nearly as good.  I think my favorite part was the soft-cooked egg on top that you smooshed around in the hash to make it gooey and creamy.  :-)

But when I made it from scratch, I always had a hard time getting everything with that yummy crispy crust that provides the textural counterpoint to the egg.  So, I thought I would try to roast everything, rather than try again on the stove top.  Guys, it turned out so well, my youngest kid (you know, the picky one) at it all up, even though he didn't like the first corned beef meal I served earlier that same week! Go figure.  I wanted to share with you, too, because I thought it was easier than the "traditional" way and had a better flavor.  It might take longer, but since it's just sitting in the oven, you can get other stuff done while it's cooking.  I count that as a win all around!

Roasted Corned Beef Hash

12 small Yukon Gold potatoes 

1 onion, chopped into 1/4 inch dice

1/4 head of green cabbage (I used the leftover cabbage I made with the corned beef, but you could use fresh), cut in 1/4 inch dice

4 slices leftover corned beef (approx. 1.5 cups - mine were thick slices)
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

salt and pepper to taste


Turn on the oven to preheat to 425 degrees (F).  Put potatoes in a 3 qt. saucepan, then fill the pan with water until it covers the potatoes by an inch or so.  Set the pot with the potatoes in it on the stove and bring the water to a boil.  While that's going on, chop up your cabbage:

When the water comes to a boil, turn the heat down so that the water simmers and cook potatoes until they're parboiled (they'll still be hard in the middle), about 4 minutes (you can chop up the onion while the potatoes cook).  Turn off the burner,  drain the water out of the saucepan, but return the potatoes to the pan to cool.

Once the potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel then cut the potatoes into a 1/4 inch dice.  Cut up the corned beef.  Toss everything on a large rimmed baking sheet with 2 Tbsp. of vegetable oil, salt and pepper.  Put it in the oven for about 40 minutes, turning and stirring the mixture about halfway (20 minutes).

After 40 minutes, there should be some dark brown, crusty parts on the corned beef hash (that's the best part).  Pull the sheet out of the oven.

Make some wells in the hash, then crack one egg into each well, like this:

Return to the oven for about 7-8 minutes, until the white is set, but the yolk is still jiggly:

Serve with toast (I made another batch of that soda bread from my previous post - so easy I didn't even need to read the recipe).  You might also like to add a little hot sauce on the top or (what I do) ketchup.  Seriously. It's good. Great, even.  :-)

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.