Trying something new

This recipe ran in last week's Ottawa Citizen and since I have scads of chard in the garden, I figured I'd give it a try. Yummy! Click HERE for the link to the recipe if you want to try this at home.

Step-by-step: Madeleines

 I found this Madeleine mould at a thrift shop the other day and figured I'd have to give it a try. It cost me all of fifty cents and I was pretty curious to give it a go.
I found this recipe in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. Great book!

Melt one stick of unsalted butter and set aside to cool.

Grate enough lemon and orange peel to make about 2 tablespoons. Add this and a 1/4 teaspoon orange or lemon extract to the cooled butter. (If you want to omit this, just add vanilla extract.)

Stir together 3/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup ground almonds and 1/2 cup sugar + 2 tablespoons. Set aside.

Whip 3 whole eggs plus 1/2 teaspoon salt till frothy.

Whisk dry ingredients into egg mixture, then add the cooled butter and extract. Stir until combined and cover with plastic and put in fridge for at least two hours.

 Grease and flour Madeleine pans and fill moulds about half full. Bake at 350F for 12-14 minutes. Should make 24 Madeleines.

Done! Now, to get to the rest of my Baking Bucket List. What's on yours?

Step-by-Step Melting Snowmen Cookies

 Kicking around the Internet, I found cookies that looked like melting snowmen. The amazingly creative Meaghan Mountford who invented it has a blog called
The Decorated Cookie.
Here's the link to her Mr. Melty snowman cookie:
 thedecoratedcookie.com/2010/12/the-journey-of-mr-melty-and-a-very-small-me/

Then I found another site that claims to be the originator of this cookie using a marshmallow at Truly Custom Cakery: http://www.trulycustomcakery.com/tutorials/25.html

Thanks to them for the inspiration!

Okay, so I have a cookie exchange this weekend and thought these cookies would be the perfect thing to make. But since I need to bring six dozen cookies with me, I decided to make them smaller than the ones I've seen on the web, and use mini-marshmallows.

I baked a bunch of sugar cookies, sort of oval, but not really necessarily oval. Just imperfectly shaped cookies, about 2" x 3" (or smaller). You can use any standard sugar cookie recipe. I pulled one off the Internet.

 I made some royal icing (another Internet recipe) and made it kinda runny and spread  it around...

 ...trying to keep it a bit messy to look like it's melted.

 Then I squished a mini-marshmallow between my fingers and stuck it into the wet icing.

 I had saved some of the royal icing and didn't water it down, then tinted it black with food colouring so that I could faces, buttons and stick arms. I especially like the "Oh no, Mr. Bill!" faces

I also added orange noses (I tinted some leftover royal icing orange) to look kinda like carrots.

Lots of fun but very time consuming. I spent about 3 hours just icing them! But in the end, I think they came out great.

Butterscotch Pie Lessons

My friend and neighbour Flora makes the best butterscotch pies in all the land. 

So my friend Peggi and I asked her to give us a lesson.

First we started with pie crusts.

We got step-by-step lessons on crimping edges.

Peggi wrote everything down as Flora demonstrated.

 Flora got busy at the stove, cooking up the butterscotch ambrosia 

that will end up being the centre of the pie..

She popped it into the pie...

 ...and topped it with luscious meringue.

And voila! An amazing butterscotch pie.

Then Peggi and I had a turn at making the pie under a watchful eye.

 While Peggi was busy at the stove....

I got busy on meringue detail. Our pie came our well and at the time I was sure I could make one myself. Time will tell. I'll keep ya posted.

Flora’s Butterscotch Pie

In a saucepan put 1 cup brown sugar, 2 large tablespoons flour, ½ tsp. salt.

Combine and add ¼ cup butter.

Put on stove on high stirring constantly.

Lower heat and stir till caramelized. Turn off heat and leave on burner.

Add 1 cup milk stirring well.

Separate 2 eggs (set aside whites), beat yolks and add to filling. Then add additional ¾ cup of milk.

Turn burner back on and stir. Will be very stiff at first. Stir till creamy and thick.

Pour into baked 9” pie crust.

Beat egg whites till stiff; add 1 T. sugar and continue beating till soft peaks form.

Top pie with meringue and bake 5-10 min. in 400F oven till edges are browned.

Egg and Couscous Salad

While Richard was covering a St. Jean Batiste parade some weeks back, the Egg Farmers of Ontario were throwing these recipe cards from their float to the crowd. Attached to the card was a little packet of herbs.

The other night we decided to give the recipe a try. If you want to try it and see the recipe, click to enlarge. 

Many of the veggies came from my garden. I replaced chick peas (which I don't eat) with pea pods because I had a ton of 'em!

You add beaten egg to a hot chicken broth and swirl it around and then add the couscous and cover for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, you take the packet of herbs (its ingredients are listed with the recipe so you can make it again) and add olive oil and lemon juice to make a tangy dressing.

 And after the couscous has been fluffed up, you add the vinaigrette and all the veggies.

It even turned out almost exactly as the photo on the recipe card.

Nutella Rice Krispy Squares

I was looking around at Pinterest and noticed this recipe and thought, "Hey, I have most of those ingredients, in varying amounts." The recipe is from the blog "chef-in-training" (click here for her link). Her squares came out much better than mine did -- and she even iced hers. But this will give you an idea of what mine looked like and yes, they were yummy!!

5 to 6 cups of Rice Krispies cereal (I had about 5 or so)

1 (10.5 oz) bag of mini marshmallows (mine had some taken out for cocoa!)

1/4 cup butter

1 heaping cup of Nutella spread -- (I had half a small jar left; the other half went into some butter cream icing!!)

Melt butter and marshmallows together over medium heat until melted and smooth. 

Once the marshmallows and butter have melted, add the Nutella and stir until well combined.

Pour chocolate mixture over the Rice Krispies. Stir to coat (this is where I figured I needed MORE melty stuff and less dry stuff because it didn't completely cover the cereal).

Press into a greased 9" x 13" pan. Refrigerate until set and YUM! I took these to work and they were gobbled up quickly. Pretty delicious. My mother used to make Rice Krispy squares for us when we were little and she always added a square of unsweetened chocolate to cut the sweetness. These reminded me of those but much sweeter.

Five Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

 

I found the most amazing recipe the other day and I thought I'd try it.

You'll need:

1 cup peanut butter (it called for smooth but I used crunchy)

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp baking soda
½ cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all ingredients except chocolate chips. When blended, mix in the chocolate chips. 

Using your fingers (or a small ice cream scoop), form 1 1/2 inch balls (dough will be very wet and sticky) and place onto an ungreased parchment-lined cookie sheet. (I used my Silpat sheets.)

You don't want to make them too big because they do spread. Bake for 9-12 minutes. Let the cookies sit on the cookies sheet for about a minute or two before letting cool on a wire rack. Makes around a dozen and a half cookies.

They're really, really yummy and incredibly easy to make. And for those who are gluten intolerant, these fit the bill. And speaking of cookies...here's my Cookie!

Mini-Cinnamon Buns

I saw this recipe for mini-cinnamon buns and it looks so easy that I had to try it. To see her fabulous step-by-step instructions click here: Iowa Girl Eats

You start with a package of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. I took 4 of the triangles and pushed them together to make one square-ish piece of pastry. Then I repeated and did the same with the other 4 triangles. (Iowa Girl is much neater than I am!!) After I brushed them with melted butter, I sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar. (On one of them I added raisins too.)

Then I rolled them up...

...and sliced them into 16 cinnamon rolls, 8 per roll.

I placed them in a greased mini-muffin tin and baked 'em for 10 minutes or so.

And this is how they looked when I took 'em outta the oven. Yum or what?

Iowa Girl suggested a glaze of maple syrup, milk and icing sugar so I gave it a whirl. Thanks Iowa Girl. These mini-cinnamon buns rock!

The Devil Made Me Do It Cake

My sister gave me a cookbook of gathered recipes she found for sale online at the Saint John Jewish Historical Society dating back from 1947; it's photocopied pages are stapled together. I decided to give one of the recipes a try. It's called Black Devil's Food Cake and the cake itself is very dark, moist and delicious.
The recipe is attributed to Goldie Rozovsky. Thanks Goldie. Your cake was yummy!

1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup cocoa
1 cup hot coffee
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda

Combine cocoa and hot coffee. Mix sugar, butter, eggs and coffee and dry ingredients. Pour into a 9" square pan and bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes.
(I dusted with icing sugar.)

My Favourite Risotto

Back in the '80s, my favourite cookbook was called "The New Basics" and still my go to reference for making risotto, a dish also very popular back then. I kind of wing it when making risotto depending on what I have in my cupboard. You can add frozen peas at the end or shrimp. My sister makes a mean pumpkin risotto! Be creative.

I decided to use some dried morel mushrooms I had picked in the woods a few years back.

I reconstituted a handful of mushrooms in a cup of boiling water and let them soak about 15 minutes. (The broth is very dark and flavourful!) Set it aside.

In a heavy bottomed pot on medium heat, soften (about) a cup of chopped onion in 3 tablespoons of olive oil till they're soft.

Then add 2 cups of uncooked Arborio rice and stir it around for a few minutes. Add hot chicken stock (simmering in another pot) by the cup into the rice and stir until absorbed. Keep doing this in steps, cup by cup. You should start with about 5-6 cups of liquid and add it until it's all gone.

 Meanwhile, grate 1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese and set aside.

Once all the chicken stock is absorbed, add the mushroom liquid and mushrooms to the risotto and stir until it's nearly all absorbed. Stir in the Parmesan, add salt and pepper. I sometimes add a shot of white wine near the end as well.

It's incredibly yummy and a great dinner on a winter's eve. I was once told by an Italian that the best way to eat risotto is to eat around the edges first, so that when you get to the middle, it's still warm.