Sweet Potato Hummus

Mom wanted an interesting hummus recipe so I found this one on taste spotting. Original recipe found here.

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes- peeled, diced, and microwaved til they are smashable
1 can garbanzo beans (15.5 oz), rinsed
1/4 C fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 C tahini sauce
1/4 or more extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling on top of hummus
2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 clove minced garlic
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1/2 tsp. paprika garnish (optional)

Method:

Cook your sweet potatoes (I microwaved mine for around 8 mins)
Combine cooked potatoes and all other ingredients except paprika garnish in a cuisinart or blender.
Add olive oil a few tbsp at a time until you get the consistency you want.
You can also use water to thin it.
Garnish with paprika and a tbsp of olive oil.

Caesar Dressing

I like this recipe for classic caesar dressing. It's not one of those creamy ones, more an intensely garlicy olive oily one. It's also really easy and besides the anchovies I had all of the ingredients laying around. Of course, it's a Martha. Original recipe can be found here. The only change I made was to add a little parmesan cheese.

Ingredients:

2 garlic cloves
4 anchovy fillets
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons parmesan cheese

Method:

Combine all ingredients in your cuisinart or a blender and enjoy!

Lauren's Birthday Cake

This cake is a standard at our house. When you just feel like making something easy and delish this is the cake for you. It's always a big hit and it has so many possibilities. Sometimes we do layers of ganache, this time I did ganache and raspberry jam. You can definitely do lemon curd layers, whipped cream and fruit, a mousse, yadda yadda...

Here's the recipe for the cake and ganache, and here is the lemon curd recipe should you choose to go that route.

Twisted Sisters

This was a 4 hour undertaking but totally worth it. Basically you make the dough and go do other stuff for 3 hours and then form them and bake them for a half hour. While mine was rising I made muffins and a birthday cake. I used amy stand mixer with a dough hook to make my dough even though they used a whisk.

To see how to put this pastry together check out the original recipe at Ask Chef Dennis. Really good pics and explanations.

Ingredients:

Dough

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 eggs at room temperature
1/4 cup honey
3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons lukewarm water
3/4 Tbsp. granulated yeast
3/4 Tbsp. kosher salt
3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Filling

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

6 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
fresh vanilla beans from a 2 inch pod
12 Tablespoons brown sugar
zest of one lemon

Instructions:

Dough

Melt the butter and set aside to cool slightly.
Lightly beat the eggs in a small bowl.
Add honey, salt, and melted butter to beaten eggs. Gently and briefly mix together then set aside.
Combine lukewarm water, yeast and a dash of honey together in a big bowl using a sturdy fork or whisk. Add eggs mixture. Mix together briefly.
Add half the flour. Mix it in with a fork or sturdy whisk. Add the remaining flour and mix. Use damp hands once your fork or whisk becomes overburdened. The dough will be damp and sticky. This is a no knead dough so just get all the flour mixed in and you’re done.
Place dough in a warm spot, covered with a towel for three hours. The dough will rise and be full of air pockets. Perfect!

Filling

Melt the butter, set aside.
In another bowl combine all the rest of the filling ingredients and mix, then set aside.

Assembling the twisted sister:

Preheat oven to 350.
Dust top of dough with flour. Dust hands with flour. Covering your work surface generously with flour and some more standing by for sticky moments. Flour!
Cut dough into about 6 to 8 pieces, grab one piece and plop it onto your floured surface.
Roll the dough into a long rectange, turning and keeping the dough well-floured the whole time.
Spread top with melted butter.
Sprinkle filling evenly across entire rectangle.
Fold one long edge to start roll.
Roll the dough into a long log.
Cut the dough log in half lengthwise.
Turn the two halves so that the cut sides face up and you see all the layers of dough and cinnamon and such. Admire your artistry thus far.
Pinch ends of the two halves together on one side and coil them a bit to get the two halves joined lightly at one end.
Gently cross the ends over each other taking care to arrange the cut sides together as much as possible. Don’t stress. It’s gonna be pretty. Twist the two halves together till you use up the lengths and have one pretty twist.
Coil the twist into a nest.
Lift the coil up and tuck the final end under the center of the coil then gently let the coil fall into place. You don’t have to do any excessive pinching or sealing. Just arrange it nicely. Think Zen.
Use the little bit of melted butter you saved earlier to drizzle over the center of the twisted sister.
Bake on center rack at 350 degrees for 22-27 minutes. Pastry should be golden on top and feel firm to the touch in the center. Poke the center with your finger and you should feel some resistance.
Allow to cool a few minutes and enjoy. It pulls apart or you can slice it into servings.

After making these we decided it needed a danish drizzle, so put about a cup of powdered sugar in a bowl and add some milk, whisk it and add more milk until it's drippy, then drizzle that over the pastry and let it harden.

If you are eating these left-over, toast them up first!!

Muffin Thursday: Olive Oil Blueberry Muffins

This recipe comes to us from Giada De Laurentiis via Food Librarian.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup oats

1/4 cup sugar
4 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons 2% milk
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

Method:

Preheat oven to 400.
Mix dry ingredients (1st paragraph) in small bowl.
Mix wet ingredients (2nd paragraph) in another bowl.
Mix dry into wet just until combined.
Fold in blueberries.
Put batter into muffin cups and bake about 25 minutes or until they bounce back to the touch and knife comes out clean.

Ice Cream Sandwich a la Elias Grim

This is what happens when Elias and Jenn come over for dinner and we have ice cream and these whole wheat chocolate chip walnut cookies on the table. Elias- dessert slut that he is- made this beautiful sandwich with softened vanilla ice cream and proclaimed it to be delicious. Good thing Nan and I softened the ice cream for him in the sun on the walk home from Pathmark.

Enjoy Li Li!!

Baked Mac n Cheese

This is the other dish I made my Aunt Nan while she visits for my graduation. I liked the brown butter aspect of it. The recipe comes from The Family Kitchen.

My picture shows the mac n cheese ready to go into the fridge to wait until tomorrow when it will get breadcrumbs on top and stuck in the broiler.

I changed the cheeses a little from the original recipe, I added feta, and I accidentally added too much flour so I had to add additional milk. But if you follow the directions you shouldn't have that problem.

Ingredients:

12 ounces macaroni
6 Tablespoons butter
2 T. flour
2/3 c. milk
1/4 c. shredded parmesan cheese
3/4 c. white cheddar, grated

1/2 c. butter crackers, crushed
3 Tablespoons butter, melted

Method:

In a large pot, cook pasta according to package directions. Drain. While the pasta is cooking, prepare the cheese sauce: In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and whisk it constantly until it foams and then begins turning a light brown color. Immediately whisk in the flour until smooth, then add milk and whisk it over medium heat until smooth and slightly thickened. Whisk in cheeses and continue to stir over medium heat until the cheese is smooth and not at all clumpy. Pour over cooked macaroni, then transfer to a large baking dish. In a small bowl, stir together cracker crumbs and melted butter, then sprinkle over the top of the macaroni and cheese. Bake on the middle rack in an oven preheated to “BROIL,” just until the top of the crackers is slightly browned, about 5-8 minutes.

Veranda Bread with Pepperoni

More adventures in bread... I finished my final test today and I am officially a nursing school graduate as of Friday at 10 am. That being said my aunt Nan is coming in tomorrow from the big apple to see me graduate. So I asked her what she wanted me to make for her and she said pepperoni bread. Apparently my mom used to make veranda bread with pepperoni in it at the Night Kitchen and that's what Nan was referring to. She likes food memories too.

Now this recipe takes a little time and it makes a lot of bread. I actually ended up with two fat loaves when I should have rolled them longer and thinner and made a lot of skinny rolls. Oh well next time... While this was rising I actually made the Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies I blogged a few minutes ago.

Ingredients:

5 C warm water
1/4 C honey or maple syrup
3 tbsp yeast

4 1/2 C ap flour plus

2 tbsp salt
2 1/2 C whole wheat flour
more ap flour

Stick of pepperoni
Parmesan cheese- or other cheese of your choice
1 egg yolk plus a splash of water for the egg wash

Method:

First combine warm water, honey or maple syrup, and yeast and let sit for about 5 mins until it is foamy and bubbly.

Then put the yeast mixture into the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Beat in the ap flour until combined and then let that sit in a warm place for 30 mins.

Now add the salt and whole wheat flour and let it combine in the mixer.
At this point you are going to add more ap flour by the 1/2 cup until the dough comes together and pretty much holds a shape. It shouldn't stick terribly to your hands. I added a decent amount of flour at this point. Probably several cups, but I wasn't counting. It should be kneadable.
Put some flour down on your counter and turn out the dough, knead it a little and add more flour and knead it in if the dough is sticking everywhere. I kneaded more flour in here too.
Once you've got a good dough break it into 2 pieces and make a rectangle out of one with your hands- no need to use the rolling pin, you should be able to just press it and flip it with your hands.
Once you've got your rectangle add your pepperoni and a decent amount of parmesan cheese to the middle of the dough- like you were making cinnamon buns. Now roll up the dough starting with the longer side and tuck each of the loose ends under to keep in your meat and cheese.
Do the same thing to the other hunk of dough.
Now take one egg yolk and mix it with a little water to make your egg wash. Brush the top of your loaves.
Take a knife and make slits across the top of the loaves- this just looks pretty.
You might have to cut your loaves in half to make them fit on the sheet, I did, and thank god I did because they at least doubled in the oven.

Preheat the oven to 400 and let the loaves rise again while the oven is preheating. Once the oven is ready and the loaves have puffed up again throw them in for about 35 mins or until they sound hollow when you hit the bottoms.

This recipe is good for rolls too, or boules, or the crust of a pizza, that was another Night Kitchen fave of mine- this dough pressed into a baking sheet with a little corn meal on the bottom then coated with marinara and a cheddar/mozzarella combo. Mmmmm.....

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

Today I bring you one of my favorite Night Kitchen (my mom's bakery) faves. Actually I think that this was my favorite cookie that they made. What sets this whole wheat cookie apart is definitely the powdered milk. It gives it a distinctive flavor that you can't really describe. But it brings back memories....

Ingredients:

1 stick margarine
i stick butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp b soda
1/3 cup powdered milk
2 1/5 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup walnuts
2 cups chocolate chips

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350
Beat the butter and marg with the brown sug and add the vanilla. Then add the eggs and beat again. In a separate small bowl combine all the dry ingredients. Add the dry to the butter and beat until combined. Add the walnuts and chocolate and beat again. These guys should fit on two baking sheets covered with foil and bake about 12 to 15 minutes depending on how hard or soft you like. Honestly these guys can stay in for a while it's hard to overcook them. We actually like them a little on the burnt side.

And while I was making the cookies these guys were taking a nap...

Crispy Coconut Cookies

I thought these cookies looked really pretty so I decided to try them out. Here is the original recipe. I made a few big mistakes when making these cookies. First, my batter should have gone into the fridge or freezer to firm up before baking because they spread like craaaaaazy. Second, I made my cookies too big and crowded the hell out of them on the baking sheet because I was too lazy to spread them between two sheets. I know. Laaaaazy! Thirdly, they came out a little under-done, these are supposed to be crispy cookies, not soft and falling apart cookies. But I really wanted to go to BJ's to get bulk chicken for our Mother's Day party so I pulled them out of the oven before they were completely done.

So I rushed it- as I often do- and they came out a little funky. Still good, but basically I made one big soft cookie. Oh well... They were supposed to look like this-

Ingredients:

10.5 tbsp butter
11 tbsp sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 tbsp wheat bran
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 cups dried coconut flakes
10 tbsp flour

Method:

Preheat oven to 375.
Line 2 baking sheets with tin foil- two sheets, not one!!!!
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until well mixed.
Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
Stir dry ingredients together: flour, wheat bran, baking soda, baking powder and coconut flakes.
Gradually add into butter mixture.
At this point if your batter is on the warm melty side like mine was, throw it in the freezer for 10 mins.
Create small balls and place on prepared baking sheets with distance between them.
Bake 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove from sheet to a cooling rack. Cool completely.

This picture is when I opened the oven and realized that the cookies had turned into one large cookie mass. Then I cursed and laughed and said oh well...

Photo Credit: Home Cooking Adventure