Baked Apple Skillet Pancake

3 Tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2/3 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 small eggs
2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons butter
3 small apples (peeled and sliced)
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 450
Whisk together sugar and lemon zest, add flour and salt
In a sperate bowl whisk eggs, then add milk, vanilla and 1 tablespoon melted butter
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and whisk together

In a cast iron skillet heat 1 tablespoon butter, add apples, brown sugar and cinnamon and cook until apples are tender. Add lemon juice.

Pour the batter around the edges and over the top of the apples and put it in the oven
Turn oven down to 425 and bake for 20 minutes.

Serves about 4

So much Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving! When we remember to approach everything from a place of love and gratitude we create change. I am thankful for each moment, especially the difficult ones (even if that's hard to remember in the moment) because it is in those moments that there is the most to learn and to gain.

Spring Peep Cocktails

Trying to think of more things to do with Peeps, I tried out some cocktails. I used the sugar from the packages to sugar the rims of the glasses.

For this spring chick I used
a large ice cube
1 shot of tequila
splash of rose water
and filled the rest of the glass with Izze grapefruit soda

These pink bunnies got a concoction of
Vodka
St Germain
fresh squeezed lemon juice
shaken with ice and then poured into the glasses

Peeps s'mores 3 ways

People seem to have strong feelings about Peeps - love them or hate them. I'm kind of on the fence about them. They aren't something I remember being part of my childhood easters, so I don't have a nostalgic connection to them. I have however found myself drawn to the fun colors and cute shapes in the last few years. I'm not interested in these new flavored ones,  I want my peeps to taste like marshmallow.

After the long cold winter we've had in the Boston area this year I feel particularly drawn to their bright colors and to anything that helps it feel like spring and summer are on the way so trying to make these cute festive Peeps into a favorite summer treat seemed like a good idea to me.

First I tried the basic indoor s'more, just heat the Peeps over the flame on the gas stove

I had seen some twists on the classic s'more for easier portability and cuteness
melt chocolate chips, spread onto graham crackers and stick on the Peeps


Lastly I had seem a few different versions of peeps in mini chocolate pies and decided to try a version from Something Swanky.

Whoopie Pies

I enjoy a good whoopie pie, so I decided to try making my own. I find the ones you buy at a bakery are often too big so I wanted to scale them down and I feel like the secret to a good whoopie pie is in the filling so I looked for a filling recipe that sounded tasty. I started with Martha Stewart's Mini Chocolate Whoopie Pie recipe for the cake part of the pies. And I used a food network recipe for the filling. I made slight adjustments to both recipes.

For the pies:
Preheat the oven to 375
Mix together dry ingredients and set aside
           1 3/4 cups flour
           3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
           1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
           1/2 teaspoon salt

Using mixer cream together
           1/4 cup + 1 Tablespoon butter
           1/2 cup granulated sugar
           1/2 cup brown sugar
When that is smooth add
           1 egg
beat until well mixed, and looks pale and fluffy

Combine and set aside
           1 cup milk
           1 teaspoon vanilla

Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture
Once combined add the milk & vanilla
Add the rest of the flour mixture

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper and drop mounds of dough, trying to keep the sizes uniform, onto the prepared cookie sheets.
Bake for about 12 minutes.

For the filling:
Using a mixer combine
           1 1/2 cups butter
           3 cups of powdered sugar
           1 1/3 cups marshmallow Fluff
           dash of salt
           1 teaspoon vanilla
Once well combined slowly, a little at a time add milk (you may need up to 1/2 cup) to get a nice spreadable consistency.

The final step is to combine the pies with the filling. Spread filling one on cooled pie and top with another pie of equal size.
Enjoy!

Juniper Berries, a taste of the forest.

I enjoy the flavor of these gingerbread cookies with juniper berry glaze and their festive winter look. I use a recipe from Epicurious for the cookies and glaze but if you have a favorite gingerbread recipe you could use that and just add this glaze. 

For the glaze:

3/4 cup half and half

1/3 cup juniper berries

1 pound powdered sugar

* If you want to color the glaze, you'll need food coloring and if you want to decorate your cookies then you'll also need whatever colored sugar or candies etc. you want to use to decorate, since the juniper flavor lends itself well to gingerbread trees I chose to add green food coloring and use green decorating sugar. 

Lightly crush the berries and add to half and half in a pot on the stove, bring to a simmer, remove from heat and chill for 5 hours. Strain. Add the flavored half and half to the powdered sugar a bit at a time and whisk until the glaze is smooth and spreadable. Frost and decorate cookies then allow to sit out until glaze sets before storing. 

If you're looking for a festive mocktail try making virgin gin. I found a recipe for it from the Seattle Times that I tried.  

4 cups of water

1 Tablespoon juniper berries

zest from 1 orange

zest from 1 lemon (you'll also use the juice)

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

12 cardamom pods

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

Put the water in a pan, cover and bring to a boil. Add all the ingredients except the sugar and lemon juice. Simmer for 10 minutes. Strain. 

Whisk in sugar and lemon juice. When sugar is dissolved, you can put the "gin" in a jar and keep refrigerated. 

If you prefer some alcohol with your juniper you can try out a tincture or the recipe I tried can also be used to make a simple syrup.

3/4 ounce crushed juniper berries
1 teaspoon lavender flowers
1/2 cup neutral grain spirit, I had schoharie shine on hand which I wasn't a huge fan of on it's own so I used it for this tincture

Put all 3 ingredients in a mason jar, screw the lid on tightly and shake. Store in a dark place in your kitchen and shake daily for a week. Then strain. Add tincture by the drop to your drinks for added flavor.

Kale and Squash Risotto

Tonight's dinner came via a food network recipe with a few of my own adjustments and additions

butternut squash cut into small cubes

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper

6 cups chicken stock

6 tablespoons butter

2 shallots

1 1/2 cups arborio rice

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 teaspoon saffron

1 cup grated parmesan 

I added:

kale

fennel

pomegranate seeds 

Preheat the oven to 400

Toss the squash with the olive oil, salt and pepper and roast about 30 minutes until tender. 

Heat the chicken stock in a covered pan and then leave on low. 

To start cooking the risotto, melt the butter and sauté shallots and fennel until tender.

Add the rice and stir for about two minutes. Add the wine, stir, once absorbed begin to add chick stock a bit at a time as it is absorbed add more. After about 20 minutes add chopped kale and continue to cook another 10 minutes or so until rice is cooked through and liquid is mostly absorbed. Add the roasted squash, cheese and pomegranate seeds. 

brussels sprouts

Today I tried out a new brussels sprouts recipe from Martha Stewart.

1 pound of sprouts
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1/4 cup walnuts
salt & pepper
pomegranate seeds (not part of the original recipe)
grated pecorino cheese

Preheat the oven to 375.
Toss the sprouts with all the ingredients except pomegranate seeds and cheese, place on rimmed baking sheet and cook for 10-15 minutes.
Sprinkle with cheese then add pomegranate seeds.

Pumpkin Butter

I get really drawn to the idea of pumpkins around Thanksgiving but this year have been going a bit pumpkin crazy. To drag Thanksgiving out over the weekend I decided to make pumpkin butter and use the turkey dishes I inherited from my grandparents. Since I've never made any kind of 'butter' first I had to find a recipe to guide this experiment.

Ingredients:
sugar pumpkin
1/4 cup apple cider or juice
1 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon juice
pinch of salt

Roast the sugar pumpkin until it becomes super tender and easily falls apart with a fork.
Put the pumpkin flesh in a food processor with all the ingredients except the last 2 (lemon, salt) and blend until smooth.
Put the puree in a pot on the stove with the lid slightly ajar and bring to just a boil then reduce heat and cook for 10 minutes to thicken up a bit.
Let it cool then add the lemon juice and salt and put in a glass jar with tight fitting lid to store in fridge.

Pumpkin butter on toast made a nice breakfast.

Pickled Green Tomatoes

As the weather has gotten cold I had to bring in tomatoes from the garden that didn't have a chance to ripen on the vine. My go to with green tomatoes is always frying them but we had a LOT of tomatoes and I needed a new strategy. My husband brought home pickled green tomatoes to give me a little inspiration so I decided to give my own a try. I did some looking on the web and came across some recipes from Garden Betty. I gave her curried pickled tomatoes a try.


1 cup vinegar
1 cup water
1 Tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon whole allspice
1/8 cup sliced fresh ginger root

Bring ingredients to boil to make brine.
Fill a jar with sliced green tomatoes then pour hot brine over.

Fall Leaf Roses

I've been seeing a lot of these roses made from fall leaves and decided to give it a try myself. Most of the instructions I came across were more image based than text so I'm going to try to include some photos and some description of what I did.

First, I went out and collected some fall leaves. It is important that they are not yet dry because once they are dry they are too brittle to work with.

To make the roses start with the center first and then work your way out. I folded the leaf to have a fairly flat edge and then rolled the leaf up

then I repeated the process of folding the leaf and rolled the next leaf around the first but a little lower down, I did this with about three leaves

once I had the center of the rose done it was time to add some petals

 I loosely folded leaves into rectangles and put those around the center overlapping them slightly 

lastly I added some small leaves with no folds for the outside petals 

then I used a rubber band to hold all the leaves together 

and I happened to have some floral tape so I used that to wrap all the leaf stems to a stick so I could put the roses in a vase 

It was a fun project. I don't plan on doing anything to try to preserve these roses for use as a decoration again next year but I may attempt this craft again next year for festive table decoration. 

Cooking with Sugar Pumpkins - tamales, ravioli and pie

I love eating squash in the fall but I've never tried to do much with pumpkin until this week. After these few attempts I'm excited to try doing more with it.



As has become our tradition we made tamales for the Day of the Dead this year. I used this recipe as a guide.
First soak the corn husks in warm water. Then I started by making the filling, roasted pumpkin mixed with small pieces of queso blanco, cilantro, two jalapeños, a little garlic powder, salt and pepper.
Then I made the masa dough. I mixed 2 cups masa with two cups boiling water. In the bowl of a stand mixer I put  1/2 cup hot water with 1/3 cup of butter, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of baking soda, after that mixed I began to add in the masa and let it mix until everything was combined. Then assemble the tamales and steam them to cook. This made more than two of us can eat so we put the leftovers in the freezer.

I also made my first attempt at homemade ravioli, Pumpkin Ravioli with Brown Butter Sage Sauce.

I began by making the filling. I used this recipe  as a guide for the filling.
I combined some roasted pumpkin, fresh ricotta, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, salt and pepper, and 1/4 cup grated parmigiana.

And this recipe for the pasta, which I ended up doubling because I had so much filling. I was partly drawn to this recipe because I was able to do it all with a mixer.
In a stand mixer with a dough hook I combined 2 cups all purpose flour, 3 eggs 1 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon olive oil (this makes one batch of pasta). After it all combined well then I coated it in oil and wrapped it in saran wrap and let it sit for half an hour.

Once the dough was ready I put it through the pasta maker to make sheets. I put the sheets onto a mat dusted with semolina.

I made fairly small ravioli, I put a small spoonful of filling in the dough and then folded it over and cut the dough then used a fork to press around the edges and seal them. Once the ravioli were made I put water on to boil and started on the brown butter sauce - 4 tablespoons of butter with roughly chopped sage, and chopped walnuts. The ravioli only cook for 2-3 minutes. Once they were cooked I added them to the frying pan with the sauce and tossed them together. 

I served the ravioli on a bed of spinach with a little grated parmesan underneath and a little gorgonzola on top.

And lastly I made pumpkin pie with a fresh sugar pumpkin from this recipe. Except I did not make my own crust.

For the pie filling I combined 2 cups of roasted sugar pumpkin, a 12 oz can of evaporated milk, 2 eggs, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon salt with an immersion blender until smooth.

I decided to do small pies and used store bought dough. I filled up 12 muffin tins and two small 5 inch pie pans.

It baked at 400 for about 40 minutes, until a knife comes out clean.

• 

and I served it with whipped cream that I whipped with a little maple syrup for some extra festive fall flavor. 

Happy Halloween

I was off to a late start this year. We went to a farm to pick our pumpkins two weekends ago but it wasn't until last night that I gutted them and it wasn't until this morning that I cooked the seeds and carved the pumpkins. 

 

I usually just rinse and roast the seeds in the oven with a little olive oil and salt. This year I tried a different approach I found on Simply Recipes where you simmer the seeds in salted water (1 Tablespoon salt and 2 cups water for every 1/2 cup of seeds) for 10 minutes and then bake them at 400 on an oiled cookie sheet for about 20 minutes. I had enough seeds for 2 cookie sheets so after I took them out of the oven I tossed half the seeds with salt and the other half with cinnamon and sugar. 

Then it was time to carve the pumpkins. 

I usually really enjoy looking at the pumpkin and deciding what it "wants" to be but this year I felt a time crunch and decided I would try using some tools to create simple patterns and speed up the process. I used a large chisel and a drill with a variety of bits. 

Now we just need some trick-or-treaters!

Oktoberfest Foods

Hello October! We planned to have some friends over and since it's October I decided to try out some Oktoberfest foods. The links are included below for the recipes I tried. 

Most importantly, beer in an authentic German stein


We made spent grain pretzels with a traditional German cheese dip called obazta.
And also had mustard to go with them.


Potato pancake with homemade applesauce and sour cream. To make the apple sauce I peeled a few apples and chopped them in cubes then put them in a pot on the stove with some cinnamon and a little maple syrup and let it cook down. I cut the apple in varying sizes so some would cook and be very mush and some would stay a bit chunky.


German potato salad 


Braised Red Cabbage although I used some green cabbage as well because I used the cabbage I had growing in the garden. 


A German inspired corn dog. My first attempt at a corn dog.



Grilled ham and cheese. I did not find the recommended Cambozola cheese but I read that it was similar to a camembert or brie with blue cheese in it and I found d'affiniod brie at my local grocer so I used that instead and it was lovely.

I also tried a cheese soup which got mixed reviews. It seemed to be a bit of an acquired taste and seemed much better the second day than on the day I made it.

And of course beer boiled bratwurst with sauerkraut and mustard.

Then I tried a few recipes to satisfy every sweet tooth.


Pfeffernusse cookies which had the flavors you'd expect from a Christmas cookie or gingerbread. They were quite tasty.


A German rum ball with chocolate and hazelnuts.

And of course an apple strudel . The fillo I had was about half the sheet size as that in the recipe so I made two strudels instead of cutting the filling recipe in half. 

Meatless Chili

As fall approaches and the weather starts to cool off I start to think chili. I tried this recipe from epicurious with a few adjustments.

In a pot on the stove heat
1 tablespoon olive oil
Add
1 diced onion
1 carrot
2 jalapeño
until onion is soft then add
3 cloves garlic
saute about one minute then add
1/2 cup couscous
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
until combined

Stir in
2 cups chopped tomatoes
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce
1/2 a beer
1 can of black beans (drained)
1 can of pinto beans (drained) because I did not have kidney beans
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper

let simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally

I served it with sliced avocado on top and a little cheddar cheese is always nice too.

Citrus Basil Cookies

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of these but they were a lovely bright tasting cookie I'll be making again!

For the cookies
1 cup flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup butter, chilled
2 tablespoons sliced fresh basil
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon grated lime peel
1/4 teaspoon salt

put everything in a food processor and plus until large clumps, remove from food processor and make a large ball then from that form small balls and press with the bottom of a glass into thin rounds
bake at 375 for 15- 20 minutes

for the Lime Glaze
3 1/4 cup powdered sugar
8 T lime juice

mix until smooth and spoon over the cookies

Quinoa Cookies with chocolate almond and espresso

I came across this cookie recipe, made a few adjustments based on my pantry and gave it a try.

in a bowl combine:
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 cup coconut sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

in another bowl mix together the dry ingredients:
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup spent grain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon espresso powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

mix together both bowls of ingredients
then fold in
1 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup sliced almonds
3/4 cup quinoa

and
Bake on lined baking sheet at 350 for 10 minutes

5 for the Fourth - festive cookies

Getting ready for a party on the 4th and decided to try out some new festive cookie recipes to bring to the potluck.

Hot Dog Cookies
recipe from serious eats
These were too cute not to try! I made them much smaller than recommended which seems to have worked out well. Hot dogs are only about 1" long. For the 'mustard' I did a simple powdered sugar, water frosting with yellow food coloring.

Red White &Blue Cake Balls
I used the same cake recipe I used for rainbow cake balls  to make these but I decided not to wrap the cake in brownies and I coated them in semi sweet chocolate chips.

Carmel Brownie Bites
I used this brownie recipe 
Then to make them look festive I found inspiration here. I cut them in to bites and coated them with candy melts.

Pinwheel Cookies 
I came across these on Just A Taste. I should have followed some of the instructions a little more closely… instead of rolling the dough between wax paper I used flour which then made it hard to roll the dough and get it to stick together as a pinwheel. I also found that they needed to cook for about 20 minutes, twice the recommended time.

s'mores
Nothing beats roasting marshmallows over the campfire but these are a close second! I came across this recipe and put my own twist on it, partly because the recipe requires a microwave which I do not have.
Ingredients: graham crackers, marshmallow fluff, nutella, milk chocolate chips, red candy melts
I split the graham crackers into quarters along their existing lines, I put fluff on one side and nutella on the other then coated half of it in milk chocolate and half in candy melts

 Fireworks Cookies
These are a Martha Stewart recipe 

These were a lot of fun to decorate but it was time consuming. 

For the icing I used powdered sugar and water. I tried store bought gel frosting which looked cool but was sticky and made it hard to stack and store the cookies. The above cookies were decorated with gel icing. I also tried decorating some with food colored powder sugar icing, pictured below.