A new year...bright, shiny and full of possibilities. I am happy that 2011 is behind us. For me, personally, it was an unsatisfactory year. I know I'm responsible for what did and didn't happen and I was thinking about that a lot in the last days of December. I'm going to finally get out of my own way. No more holding myself back and selling myself short.
So here we are...5 days in and the wheels in my head are spinning. I have to make things change this year because no one else is going to do it for me, and it's time to stop exerting energy on what doesn't move me forward. It's time to take Kat Cooks Bakes Eats and Semplice Gourmet to new levels.
Here's to a new year...of success, happiness, and good food.
I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas...Happy Holidays...Happy Hanukkah...Fabulous Festivus or whatever it is that you happen to celebrate at this time of year.
Enjoy the time you spend with your family or if you can't be with your family, then the friends who have become your family.
May it be filled with joy, love, lots of laughter, and of course, good food with even better company.
And because I like it old school...it doesn't get much better than this...
...and the oven is getting a wee bit of a break...well, not so much, I'm roasting peppers in it at the moment. Since the month started, it's been a pretty non-stop whirlwind of sugar, flour, butter and baking powder in the kitchen. This year I've also been a little obsessed with baking savouries....we're talking crackers. I'll be honest...I've been pretty selfish with those. Oh sure...wine biscuits have found there way into goodie baskets for the family and my Girls...but the crackers don't get much further than me. They're so easy to make and you can add pretty much anything to the basic dough.
I originally made Olive and Rosemary crackers from The Purple Foodie last year and loved them. I made more yesterday. But it was a couple of weeks ago when I was looking through my King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion book and found the recipe for Sesame Thins. It doesn't get much easier than flour, water, oil, salt and sesame seeds. I'll tell you one reason I love this recipe. It's yeast-less. I'm still working on the yeast-baking skills and it's going all right. I made grissini the other day and they turned out wonderfully. Though I'm the only one that knows it. (Selfish again...I'm not afraid to admit it!)
I played with that Sesame Thins recipe. I have a jar of blue cheese stuffed olives in the fridge and after a Friday night dirty martini I thought how cool would that be in a cracker? Whether the people at Ketel One vodka thought that's where their product would wind up, I don't know...but it's a winner with me. Of course, you can make them without the alcohol as it only gives it a slight punch in taste to the cracker, but if you're so inclined to make a little something fun for your holiday cocktail party...try it. Or be totally selfish, buy a nice wedge of aged provolone from the neighbourhood Italian deli and make a dinner out of cheese and crackers.
Dirty Martini Crackers (Adapted from King Arthur Flour's Sesame Thins) 1/2 cup chopped green olives (stuffed or not) 1 teaspoon minced garlic 4 tablespoons vodka (optional) 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup olive oil 1/2 to 3/4 cup water Add 2 tablespoons of vodka to the chopped olives and let marinate for about an hour. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix flour, salt, and oil in a bowl and combine with fingers until you have a crumbly dough. Add olives, garlic and the last 2 tablespoons of vodka. Work with fingers to combine. Start with a half cup of water to bring all the ingredients together to make a more cohesive dough. If still dry, add more water slowly. Knead for a couple of minutes, then turn dough onto a flour-covered board. Roll dough out to 1/4 inch thickness or less. Cut into whatever shapes you like. I used a small (1.5 inch) biscuit cutter with the fluted edges. You can also just lay the rolled dough onto a baking sheet and cut with a pizza cutter. Bake for 25-30 minutes until bottoms are golden brown. Definitely begin to check on them at the 25-minute mark depending upon how hot your oven runs.
I turned the oven on this morning at 10:30 a.m. and finally turned it off a little after 9 p.m. It certainly was a baking day. Three kinds of biscotti and two kinds of crackers. I like finding a 'basic' recipe that can be well adapted to additions or simplification. Today it happened twice!
Today I made Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti, Cranberry Pecan Biscotti, and what I think is now my favourite biscotti, Alice Waters' Anise Almond Biscotti. I'm going to go out on a limb and proclaim that biscotti have to be my favourite cookie. You can pretty much add anything you want to it and I love how it can be part of an enjoyable ritual. While you can just munch away at it, the preferred method of sitting down with a biscotti or two and an espresso or cup of tea to dip your cookie in and taking your time to savour the flavours is so appealing.
The 'To Bake' list keeps changing slightly because I keep coming across various posts from magazines or other blogs and thinking how great it would be to make something else. We'll see where it all ends up. I managed to get photos of the biscotti today, but the crackers will have to wait. I love the shorter days, though I don't love missing out on a couple of extra hours to take photos.
I also have Cinnamon Shortbread on the brain and may just get the dough ready tonight and bake them up tomorrow.
Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti (Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis' Citrus Biscotti in Everyday Italian)
2 cups all purpose flour 1/2 cup cocoa powder 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon espresso powder (optional) 1 cup sugar 3 eggs 1 teaspoon almond extract 3/4 cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped
Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees and place hazelnuts on a baking sheet. Toast nuts for 10-15 minutes, transfer to dishtowel to remove skins and chop roughly. In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa, and espresso powder. Mix well and set aside. In another bowl, combine sugar, eggs, and almond extract. Whisk until well combined. Add flour mixture gradually to make dough. Stir in hazelnuts and mix to combine. Dough will be soft and sticky. Allow to sit for 5 minutes.
On a floured board, split dough in two equal pieces and form logs about 14 inches long and 3 inches across. Transfer to parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes. On cutting board, cut logs in half-inch slices and place face down on baking sheet. Bake for another 10 minutes, then turn cookies over and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
While you're waiting for the biscotti to finish baking, you can always make yourself that cup of espresso...
Thanksgiving is once again behind us, it's December and Christmas is a mere 2 days shy of 3 weeks away. Do you ever wonder where the time goes? Or just how quickly the months go by now? I hope your Thanksgiving (for those that celebrated) was full of love, family, and lots of good food. I skype'd with the family, then spent mine with Jill and her family and brought homemade Oreos. (Yes, they have made it to this year's Christmas Baking List).
I think I've been in a little funk lately. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure this happened last year too. Time to shake myself out of it, because I've got a lot of cooking and baking to do over these next three weeks! The past week was also memorable because I was asked to make appetizers for seventeen...and GOT PAID to do it! I think it officially counts as my first paid job to cook! Woo! It wasn't anything too too fancy, as it had to be ready and delivered the day before Thanksgiving, but I think it all turned out great. Baby steps, right? I also had one of my co-workers ask if I would do the same thing for her. You bet I would! This may be the start that I'm looking for.
The next couple of weeks are going to be filled with lots of flour, sugar, and eggs. Think homemade Oreos, Italian Polenta Cookies, biscotti, shortbread, and a few new additions both sweet and savoury. I'm just hoping I haven't picked too many to accomplish...though somehow I seem to get it all together and sent off in time.
But let me tell you about what I found last night. I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple of items and in the produce section, I was looking at the apples. At first, I decided that I didn't need any, knowing I still had a couple Golden Delicious and a few Granny Smiths in the fruit bowl at home. Then...I saw them. Deep red...but not the shiny red-red Red Delicous...nor the mottled red and greenish gold of Fujis, Galas, Jonagolds, or Honeycrisps. No...these were darker and decidedly more intriguing. The skin is closer to burgundy. The handwritten sign above them read 'Arkansas Black.' Is it wrong to think of an apple as 'sexy?' The Arkansas Black is sultry. Like a beautiful girl with full, pouty lips, and long hair worn with a Veronica Lake sweep. I googled and this is what I found out through the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture site
The Arkansas Black Apple is recognized by early sources as having been first produced in 1870 in the orchard of a Mr. Brathwaite, which was then about one and a half miles northwest of Bentonville (Benton County). The fruit, a variety of Winesap, is usually round and of medium size. The flesh is yellow, fine grained, crisp, juicy, and aromatic, while the skin is dark red to black, hence its name. It ripens in October or November, and the fruit keeps well though the storage season of two to four months. Originally, the tree was thought to be a seedling of the Winesap Apple. It is a true native apple grown in the Ozarks of both Arkansas and Missouri.
I haven't eaten one yet, but they smell amazing. I'm thinking of baking one for breakfast tomorrow with a big bowl of oatmeal. That is, if I can stop looking at them long enough to actually eat one.
I am a creature of habit. I love making lists. It's comforting...some may say I have control issues. ;) It's how I convince myself that I'm organised. Well...not totally disorganised. I went grocery shopping today--with my list. Separated by store, with their respective bargains, the top right corner of every grocery list with what I must buy. After my first stop, my list disappeared. I don't know what happened to it. It wasn't in my wallet. It wasn't in my handbag or in one of the grocery bags. DAMN! I was feeling a little lost at my second stop, trying to remember what I had written down. But I'm happy to report, I survived. I may have veered off course a wee bit--a wedge of Black River Gorgonzola and a pound package of lady fingers--but I'm okay. Look Ma, I don't need a list in my hand (pocket, handbag, glove box) all the time.
The kitchen has been its usual busy self. My mind is beginning to race with what to bake and make for the holidays (both eating and giving). I made mini cinnamon scones and cream cheese cookies (aka 'crack cookies') for a work meeting, and I baked a second round of Oreos today. One of the problems I have (if you want to call it that), is once I make something, and it's really good, I'll make it again...and again...and again. Case in point...applesauce. My first go-round was Asian pear sauce; since then I've made apple-pear sauce, persimmon-peach sauce and plain old applesauce. The same has happened this week with chicken. I cooked four large breasts the other night because I had an idea to make a variation on golumpki. It involved steamed cabbage leaves, shredded chicken, sauted carrots and onions, and basmati rice with lots of curry powder and sesame oil. The results were good...the execution needs improvement. So now I have a lot of leftover chicken. It's been 3 days of chicken salad (again...and again...and again), but let me tell you...the cats are thrilled. It's not every week where they get a daily dose of chicken. They can smell it a mile away and are all sitting pretty while I get their bits ready.
Here are some photos from the last week. It may be a bit of the same old, same old....but it's still delicious.
Mini Cinnamon Scones
What can I say? The price was right! Now I have to decide to what do with them.
Jill's Fabulous Onion Tart
Oreos Round 2: Softer Cookies, Better Filling
Persimmon-Peach Quick Bread
Persimmon-Peach Sauce, aka The Obsession
Chicken Stuffed Cabbage...Thai Golumpki?
A song to start the week....just as relevant today as it was in 1971...
...I started this blog. That's right...it's the one-year anniversary of Kat Cooks Bakes Eats! When I started writing, I figured if I was lucky, I'd have some friends and family read a post or two and indulge me. I look at that traffic widget and I still cannot believe the locations that check in here. I am floored, flabbergasted, grateful, and humble that so many people find their way and actually read this. The internet is a BIG place and I have a very, VERY small space in it. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Now, if I didn't talk about food, I'd be doing you a disservice. Last week, three of my best friends (affectionately known as The Girls) and I met for lunch at Breadbar in Century City. It was my first time there and I really enjoyed it. I had the Cauliflower Soup and finished every last spoonful. It was amazing. Served with homemade croutons and drizzled with a curry infused oil. Like I said...AMAZING. I came home, determined to make it myself. I don't think I was home half an hour before I poured olive oil in a jar and added a liberal amount of curry powder to the oil. Over the past week, I'd shake the jar, turning it over and over to mix the spice and oil together. I bought a head of cauliflower over the weekend, already had cream in the fridge, made croutons late last week and had vegetable stock in the freezer. All the ingredients at the ready. Last night was the night. The air was turning cooler and the clouds started rolling in (Yes!...we're going to get a bigger taste of Autumn here...rain and cold weather for longer than a day).
I changed the soup up a bit, turning it into roasted cauliflower and carrot soup. It was absolutely delicious. I still topped it with the curry oil and homemade croutons. Just right for a cool evening and definitely would have been better with a grilled cheese sandwich accompanying it, but I was feeling a tad lazy and didn't want to wait to have my soup.
Roasted Cauliflower and Carrot Soup (by me)
1 medium head of cauliflower, cut into small florets 2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces 6 cloves garlic 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan-Reggiano cheese 3 cups vegetable stock 1/4 cup heavy cream salt and pepper to taste
Optional: curry oil, croutons
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss cauliflower, carrots, and garlic with olive oil in oven-proof dish. Sprinkle Parmesan and a bit of salt and pepper before popping it into the oven.Roast vegetables until soft (not too soft, not too hard, but just right), about 40 minutes. In saucepan, heat stock and add vegetables. Bring to high simmer for 5-7 minutes. Remove pan from heat, and with immersion blender or regular blender, puree vegetables and stock. Add cream and mix to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste.
You don't need to drizzle it with curry oil or top with the croutons, but I highly recommend it. I love how the curry flavour mixes with the cauliflower.
