The other day I found this amazing thing in the freezer, a stalagmite of ice! I guess it happened because of the way water expands when it freezes, but I don't know why it would make such a distinct formation like this. Any ideas?
16 February 2013
Kitchen Science: Defying Gravity!
The other day I found this amazing thing in the freezer, a stalagmite of ice! I guess it happened because of the way water expands when it freezes, but I don't know why it would make such a distinct formation like this. Any ideas?
14 February 2013
Hazelnut+Chocolate=Love Cookies
I bought hazelnuts recently, with the idea that I would make a nut torte recipe that I've been eyeing for years. But instead I made these cookies, which turned out pretty amazingly considering how experimental and not-following-a-recipe they are. In fact, Lovemuffin said at one point, "These are the best cookies I've ever had." So there you go. I started out using this recipe, but after making a silly mistake and also realizing I didn't have any eggs, I did some math and switched to this recipe from Martha Stewart, but you can see my final recipe is very different then hers.
Hazelnut+Chocolate=Love Cookies (makes about 3 1/2 dozen cookies)
2 cubes butter, softened
1 1/4 cups white sugar
pinch salt
1 1/2 cups hazelnuts, toasted, skins removed* and ground** -- if my math is correct this made about 2 1/2 cups of hazelnut flour
1 7/8 cups all purpose flour
1 cup dark chocolate chips
about 1/4 cup milk
Cream together the butter and sugar until nice and fluffy. Add the salt and ground hazelnuts, mix a little, then add the flour and mix more thoroughly, then add the chocolate chips. I chopped up my chocolate chips even smaller in my nifty spice/coffee grinder because I didn't want big chunks, but I didn't want very fine cocoa powder. After mixing all of these things together, your dough shouldn't look like dough at this point, it should be fluffy and crumbly, but not holding together. Add a little of the milk and mix, continue until the dough turns into regular looking dough and holds together, you might need a little more or a little less milk than 1/4 cup.
At this point you can chill the dough until you need it. In fact, I would recommend chilling it for a few minutes to help the butter harden, since that's the only leavening action these cookies will have, so chilling will help them be fluffy and hopefully they won't spread out like pancakes.
Scoop out spoonfuls of dough and place on a greased cookie sheet, squish gently with the tines of a fork. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. I cooked mine for longer because they seemed really soft still, but then later when completely cool they were very crunchy, so how long you cook it depends on how crunchy you want your cookies. Remove from pan and let cool. I recommend you eat these dunked in milk or your favorite warm beverage.
* A word about hazelnuts: getting the skins off and grinding these suckers was the most time consuming, tedious cooking job I have done for a long, long time. Every recipe that gives directions says to just toast the nuts about 6 minutes, then rub off the skins with a kitchen towel, and voila, that's supposed to do it. But I spent way too much time on this part because most of the skins did not want to come off. I toasted the very stubborn-skinned nuts a second time, and it might have helped, but I gave up on trying to get all the skins off of every nut. And the cookies were still great, so no pressure to do a perfect job at that.
**I ground the nuts in a small smoothie blender thing in batches. It probably helps to have them in a small blender area so they are continually being redirected into the blades, and even then I had to keep shaking the container to try to get it to work better. When a batch of nuts seemed ground up all the way, I would put it through a sieve into a bowl, to catch all the extra large unground pieces, then put those large pieces back into the blender with the next batch.
Hazelnut+Chocolate=Love Cookies (makes about 3 1/2 dozen cookies)
2 cubes butter, softened
1 1/4 cups white sugar
pinch salt
1 1/2 cups hazelnuts, toasted, skins removed* and ground** -- if my math is correct this made about 2 1/2 cups of hazelnut flour
1 7/8 cups all purpose flour
1 cup dark chocolate chips
about 1/4 cup milk
Cream together the butter and sugar until nice and fluffy. Add the salt and ground hazelnuts, mix a little, then add the flour and mix more thoroughly, then add the chocolate chips. I chopped up my chocolate chips even smaller in my nifty spice/coffee grinder because I didn't want big chunks, but I didn't want very fine cocoa powder. After mixing all of these things together, your dough shouldn't look like dough at this point, it should be fluffy and crumbly, but not holding together. Add a little of the milk and mix, continue until the dough turns into regular looking dough and holds together, you might need a little more or a little less milk than 1/4 cup.
At this point you can chill the dough until you need it. In fact, I would recommend chilling it for a few minutes to help the butter harden, since that's the only leavening action these cookies will have, so chilling will help them be fluffy and hopefully they won't spread out like pancakes.
Scoop out spoonfuls of dough and place on a greased cookie sheet, squish gently with the tines of a fork. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. I cooked mine for longer because they seemed really soft still, but then later when completely cool they were very crunchy, so how long you cook it depends on how crunchy you want your cookies. Remove from pan and let cool. I recommend you eat these dunked in milk or your favorite warm beverage.
* A word about hazelnuts: getting the skins off and grinding these suckers was the most time consuming, tedious cooking job I have done for a long, long time. Every recipe that gives directions says to just toast the nuts about 6 minutes, then rub off the skins with a kitchen towel, and voila, that's supposed to do it. But I spent way too much time on this part because most of the skins did not want to come off. I toasted the very stubborn-skinned nuts a second time, and it might have helped, but I gave up on trying to get all the skins off of every nut. And the cookies were still great, so no pressure to do a perfect job at that.
**I ground the nuts in a small smoothie blender thing in batches. It probably helps to have them in a small blender area so they are continually being redirected into the blades, and even then I had to keep shaking the container to try to get it to work better. When a batch of nuts seemed ground up all the way, I would put it through a sieve into a bowl, to catch all the extra large unground pieces, then put those large pieces back into the blender with the next batch.
This is the very first draft of this recipe, and just like all my recipes and pretty much every recipe in the universe (that my be an exaggeration) it is open to modifications, it may be possible to improve it even more.
Some ideas that I had were:
-use an egg, beat it with the butter/sugar, and omit the milk
-add your favorite spices, like cinnamon, cardamom, orange peel, etc.
-use cocoa powder instead of chocolate chips
-decrease the amount of butter and label them "healthy," maybe even use whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose
-leave some of the hazelnuts in larger pieces for some extra crunch
-omit the chocolate chips, and then when the cookies are baked, make them into sandwich cookies with Nutella or chocolate ganache as the filling.
And if you need to make these ahead of time, you could easily form the balls of dough and then freeze them for later.
28 January 2013
Kitchen Science: Delicious!
Even though I poured the honey on top of the oil, it fell to the bottom of the container because honey has more mass than oil; and water would fall exactly in between honey and oil. Amazing! And it makes delicious granola.
07 January 2013
Best Pumpkin Pie
Ellen says it's the best she's had, and pumpkin is her favorite kind of pie. It is based on the recipe on the back of the Libby's can of pumpkin, adjusted for what we had at home and other recipe ideas that we saw around the interwebs and recipe books at home. You can always play with spice amounts and combinations; I usually figure that you can add more spices to almost anything that it calls for in the recipe. I didn't take any pictures, but you can imagine what it looks like because it pretty much looked like any other pumpkin pie.
Best Pumpkin Pie
1 single unbaked pie crust
filling:
1 15 oz can pumpkin puree
1 12 oz can sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 450 F.
Place crust in a pie pan, fold under the edges and crimp. Keep crust cold in the fridge or freezer until until ready to bake pie
Mix together all filling ingredients thoroughly.
Pour filling into pie shell, bake at 450 for 10 minutes, decrease temperature to 350 for an additional 50 minutes, more or less. I could tell it was done but not overdone because the filling still jiggled a little bit, but didn't look at all liquid, it was puffy and developing smallish cracks on the sides next to the crust, and the bottom of the crust was a lovely golden brown as well as the exposed edges.
Let cool completely in the refrigerator before serving with freshly whipped cream. Store remainders in refrigerator if you have any.
Best Pumpkin Pie
1 single unbaked pie crust
filling:
1 15 oz can pumpkin puree
1 12 oz can sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 450 F.
Place crust in a pie pan, fold under the edges and crimp. Keep crust cold in the fridge or freezer until until ready to bake pie
Mix together all filling ingredients thoroughly.
Pour filling into pie shell, bake at 450 for 10 minutes, decrease temperature to 350 for an additional 50 minutes, more or less. I could tell it was done but not overdone because the filling still jiggled a little bit, but didn't look at all liquid, it was puffy and developing smallish cracks on the sides next to the crust, and the bottom of the crust was a lovely golden brown as well as the exposed edges.
Let cool completely in the refrigerator before serving with freshly whipped cream. Store remainders in refrigerator if you have any.
25 December 2012
World's Largest Ham Quesadilla
Honey Baked Ham has directions for serving this ham regular style as well as for making it into individual ham quesadillas, which somehow got confused along the way... Looks delicious! Also, I love brother PJ's New York City platter, which is pretty much not visible under the enormous quesadilla, but trust me, it is awesome.
One more thing: Merry Christmas!
11 December 2012
26 November 2012
Thanksgiving Awesomeness 2012
If only I was so good at blogging that I could post Thanksgiving appropriate recipes before the holiday arrives. Oh well. Here's a quick review of what we ate for our feast. I will try to post any new or altered recipes soon.
Rutabaga (my first time eating rutabaga, it reminds me of something between a radish and a potato, but in reality it is a cross between a turnip and cabbage)
Green Potatoes (with lots of green), Aloe Drink
Spinach Salad with Goat Cheese, Avocado, Tomatoes and Pomegranates
Gherkins, Marinated Mushrooms, Green Olives
Cranberry Sauce with orange and spices (so delicious!)
Cornish Game Hens (for the meat eaters)
Rutabaga (my first time eating rutabaga, it reminds me of something between a radish and a potato, but in reality it is a cross between a turnip and cabbage)
Blueberry Coconut Cream Pie (good with yogurt; adapted from cranberry cream pie), Pecan and Chocolate Pie (amazing--had to make another one), Butternut Squash Pie (not as successful as we were hoping)
All this food and eating reminds me of my new favorite song: "My body tells me 'no,' I won't quit, 'cause I want more... I want more!" But since I jump around the room like a crazy, happy, happy, happy person when the song plays, maybe it balances out the caloric intake.
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