Apple Crumble

I'll be honest, this was not my favorite recipe. After I made it, I read the comments (yes because I don't learn to do that first), and I noticed many people also found it too dry. Basically, probably not the way you want to go. But the apples turned out well, and when I first got it from the oven and ate it with greek yogurt, it was delicious. It has otherwise been nice to reheat and serve with greek yogurt for breakfast. I used my excess topping that I didn't put on the apples to make a granola pie thing by mixing in peanut butter and maple syrup. Take from all that what you will.

Filling
4 large Golden Delicious apples (about 3 pounds) [I used 4 or 5 smaller apples]
1/4 cup sugar
1 lemon, juiced [didn't have this, just sprinkled on some water]
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Topping
1 cup walnuts or pecans, roughly chopped [didn't use this, but probably would be good]
1 cup all-purpose flour [too much! probably use 1/2 cup]
1 1/4 cups rolled oats [maybe start with 1 cup instead]
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch fine salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces
Vanilla ice cream, for serving, optional [or greek yogurt, like I had]

Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

Peel, core, and slice apples into 1/4-inch slices [I didn't peel them because I don't mind having peels involved]. Place apples in a large mixing bowl and toss with sugar, lemon juice, flour, and cinnamon. Pour into a lightly greased 9 by 13-inch baking dish, and spread out into an even layer. Set aside.

In another large bowl, mix together the nuts, flour, oats, sugar, cinnamon, and salt for the topping. Using a pastry cutter or your fingers, gently work in the cold butter until pea-sized lumps are formed.

Top apples evenly with mixture and bake until apples are bubbly and topping is golden brown, about 45 minutes, rotating once halfway through cooking.

Grits!

Guys, I just wanted to let you know I've welcomed grits into my life with open arms. I never ate them much growing up and only realized how incredible they were while carb-loading on spring training trips when they were served with cheese at breakfast (oh, spring training was the life! row, eat, sleep, repeat). Now, I know they're not the healthiest thing, but really, they're not so bad. A serving is 1/3 cup and is 130 calories. Totally doable if it's your starch, and it's a pretty substantial serving. 

There's a fancy pants food cart at work sometimes that serves grits for SEVEN DOLLARS. I got them once, and it was incredible. And then I though, oh hell no. I'm from the south! I will make this myself! And save that shit, I don't make mad money. So I ordered a container of quick grits that probably cost $3 and has about 20 servings, and now I make them for dinner or on weekends to go with a range of eggs, cheese, greens, and more. I make them on the stove, it takes about 5 min longer than eggs, and it really ups the ante and fills me up. Plus if I slip just a smidge bit of butter in the water before it cooks, they have a really great flavor. 

Anyway, that's all. This is just a PSA that grits are good and you should probably have more in your life.

Pumpking Cinnamon Rolls

I'm sticking with my pumpking typo as a thing. What of it?!

Anyway, in our fall cooking festivities, I ventured to try SK's pumpkin cinnamon rolls. It was a little challenging at moments, but teamwork is great help, and they were tasty. I didn't get a strong pumpkin flavor, but it was good. Plus it felt fun and fancy to have made them by hand. Also, I think my yeast wasn't great because it didn't rise as it should have, so I think that explains some discrepancies between her pictures and mine.

Fair warning: this is pretty involved and took me quite a few hours over the course of an afternoon and a morning. Just know what you're getting yourself into.

Dough
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, to be divided
1/2 cup (120 ml) whole milk, warmed (but not over 116 degrees)
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (from 1 .25-ounce or 7 gram envelope yeast)
3 1/2 cups (440 grams) all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling out
1/4 cup (packed) (50 grams) light or dark brown sugar
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon (6 grams) table salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom (optional)
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2/3 cups (160 grams) pumpkin puree, canned or homemade
1 large egg
Oil for coating rising bowl

Filling
3/4 cup (packed, 145 grams) light or dark brown sugar
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon table salt
2 teaspoons (5 grams) ground cinnamon

Glaze
4 ounces (115 grams) cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons (30 ml) milk or buttermilk
2 cups (240 grams) powdered sugar, sifted
Few drops vanilla extract (optional)

Make your dough: 
Melt your butter, and hey, if you’re melting it in a little saucepan, you might as well brown it for extra flavor. Once the butter has melted, keep cooking it over medium heat for a few additional minutes. It will become hissy and sizzle a lot, then take on a nutty flavor as golden bits form at the bottom of the pot. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

Combine your warmed milk and yeast in a small bowl and set aside. After five to seven minutes, it should be a bit foamy. If it’s not, you might have some bad yeast and should start again with a newer packet.

In the bottom of the bowl of an electric mixer combine flour, sugars, salt and spices. Add just 1/4 cup (or two-thirds of; leave the rest for assembly) of your melted/browned butter and stir to combine. Add yeast-milk mixture, pumpkin and egg and mix combined. Switch mixer to a dough hook and run it for 5 minutes on low.

Scrape mixture into a large oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Set aside for 1 hour in a draft-free place; it should just about double.

While it is rising, line the bottom of two 9-inch round cake pans (8-inch round should work too, as does an 8-inch square) with parchment paper and butter the sides of the pan and the paper.

Assemble buns: 
Scoop dough onto a very well floured surface and flour the top of it well. With a rolling pin, roll the dough to an approximately 16×11-inch rectangle. Brush reserved melted/browned butter over dough. Stir together remaining filling ingredients and sprinkle mixture evenly over dough. Starting on a longer side, roll the dough into a tight spiral. It’s going to make a mess because the dough is crazy soft and some stuff spills off the ends; don’t sweat it. It will all be delicious in the end.

Here’s how to cut cinnamon rolls without squishing their pretty spirals: With a sharp serrated knife, using absolutely no pressure whatsoever (only the weight of the blade should land on the dough) gently saw your log with a back-forth motion into approximately 1-inch sections. When a soft dough like this is rolled, it tends to grow longer, which means that you’ll have the option to either make more buns (say, 18 instead of 16) or just cut them a little larger (in generous inches).

Divide buns between two prepared pans. You can sprinkle any sugar that fell off onto the counter over them. Cover each pan with plastic wrap and let rise for another 45 minutes.

If you’re doing this ahead of time, you can now put them in the fridge overnight. In the morning, leave them out for an hour to warm up and finish rising.

15 minutes before you’re ready to bake them, heat the oven to 350°F. Meanwhile, you can make the glaze. Beat your cream cheese until it is light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar and vanilla. Drizzle in milk until you get the consistency you’re looking for, either thick enough to ice or thin enough to drizzle.

Finish your buns: 
Remove the plastic and bake buns for 25 minutes, until puffed and golden and the aroma brings all the boys to your yard is like a snickerdoodle. Transfer pans to wire cooling racks and drizzle/schmear with cream cheese glaze, then have at them.

strawberry banana breakfast cake

This is SO DELICIOUS! I'm super excited about it. I made this recipe several times before - the strawberry summer cake - and I recently made it as cupcakes for my boyfriend and I and added bananas. YES, PLEASE! They caramelized a bit on top and were so incredible that I just had to make it again as soon as we ate the cupcakes. I decided to do it as a cake because the cupcakes didn't quite have the surface area I wanted/needed and the bananas caramelized a bit onto the cupcake pan and that was not as much fun to clean up. So I just used the same strawberry cake recipe as before, wedged the strawberries in first (all over the place), and then put the bananas on top. I think we got about 10 slices of this, but I seriously could eat it all in one sitting, happily.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for pie plate
1 1/2 cups (188 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 cup (200 grams) plus 2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) milk
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 pound (450 grams) strawberries, hulled and halved

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 10-inch pie pan or 9-inch deep-dish pie pan (what I used). This cake would also work in a 9- or 10-inch springform or cake pan. The 10-inch would make a thinner cake than pictured.

Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 1 cup sugar until pale and fluffy with an electric mixer, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg, milk and vanilla until just combined. Add dry mixture gradually, mixing until just smooth.

Pour into prepared pie plate. This time, I wedged the strawberries into it because the cake rises more than you'd think and this way there is fruit throughout. I laid my banana slices on top of the cake and strawberries and then the cake rose around them. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over berries. [I'm not sure whether or not I think the sugar is necessary with the bananas on top - I did it for the cake but not the cupcakes and couldn't tell a difference, so why bother?]

Bake cake for 10 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 325°F and bake cake until golden brown and a tester comes out free of wet batter, about 50 minutes to 60 minutes [significantly less for cupcakes]. (Gooey strawberries on the tester are a given.) Let cool in pan on a rack.

homemade pop tarts

Since I haven't really been cooking much lately, other than attempting to use the odds and ends in my pantry and fridge before I leave (cornbread, couscous, strawberry cake, etc), I thought I would post some recipes and pictures back from before I started the blog. There are only so many that I did in Bulgaria before I started this blog last fall, but I think there are quite a few from Morocco. As you will see from pictures, both the pictures and the food lack a lot of the finesse, if I can be so bold, that they have gained over the past year or so of practice.

A recipe that I made this fall that I really enjoyed making and eating and would like to do again (likely it will be in August or September before I get around to it, though) is one for homemade pop tarts. I really liked the cinnamon filling the best; it looks like it will be dry, but it was really delicious once it was all baked.

Pastry
2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks or 8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into pats
1 large egg
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) milk

1 additional large egg (to brush on pastry)

Cinnamon Filling (enough for 9 tarts)
1/2 cup (3 3/4 ounces) brown sugar
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, to taste
4 teaspoons all-purpose flour
1 large egg, to brush on pastry before filling

Jam Filling
3/4 cup (8 ounces) jam
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water

Alternate fillings: 9 tablespoons chocolate chips, 9 tablespoons Nutella or other chocolate-hazelnut paste or 9 tablespoons of a delight of your choice, such as salted caramel or a nut paste

To make cinnamon filling: Whisk together the sugar, cinnamon, and flour.

To make jam filling: Mix the jam with the cornstarch/water in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, and simmer, stirring, for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, and set aside to cool. Use to fill the pastry tarts.

Make the dough:

Whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. Work in the butter with your fingers, pastry blender or food processor until pea-sized lumps of butter are still visible, and the mixture holds together when you squeeze it. If you’ve used a food processor, transfer the mixture to a large bowl. Whisk the first egg and milk together and stir them into the dough, mixing just until everything is cohesive, kneading briefly on a well-floured counter if necessary.

Divide the dough in half (approximately 8 1/4 ounces each), shape each half into a smooth rectangle, about 3×5 inches. You can roll this out immediately (see Warm Kitchen note below) or wrap each half in plastic and refrigerate for up to 2 days.

Assemble the tarts:

If the dough has been chilled, remove it from the refrigerator and allow it to soften and become workable, about 15 to 30 minutes. Place one piece on a lightly floured work surface, and roll it into a rectangle about 1/8″ thick, large enough that you can trim it to an even 9″ x 12″. [You can use a 9" x 13" pan, laid on top, as guidance.] Repeat with the second piece of dough. Set trimmings aside. Cut each piece of dough into thirds – you’ll form nine 3″ x 4″ rectangles.

Beat the additional egg and brush it over the entire surface of the first dough. This will be the “inside” of the tart; the egg is to help glue the lid on. Place a heaping tablespoon of filling into the center of each rectangle, keeping a bare 1/2-inch perimeter around it. Place a second rectangle of dough atop the first, using your fingertips to press firmly around the pocket of filling, sealing the dough well on all sides. Press the tines of a fork all around the edge of the rectangle. Repeat with remaining tarts.

Gently place the tarts on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Prick the top of each tart multiple times with a fork; you want to make sure steam can escape, or the tarts will become billowy pillows rather than flat toaster pastries. Refrigerate the tarts (they don’t need to be covered) for 30 minutes, while you preheat your oven to 350°F.

Charming tip from King Arthur: Sprinkle the dough trimmings with cinnamon-sugar; these have nothing to do with your toaster pastries, but it’s a shame to discard them, and they make a wonderful snack. While the tarts are chilling, bake these trimmings for 13 to 15 minutes, till they’re golden brown.

Bake the tarts:

Remove the tarts form the fridge, and bake them for 20 to 25 minutes, until they’re a light golden brown. Cool in pan on rack.

Strawberry Summer Cake

Courtney got me back on track with SK the other day by linking her strawberry summer cake to me and telling me that she made it for some students and they loved it. I filed it away in my mind to do later, and then I saw strawberries on sale yesterday and decided to make them. That was before I realized how much I would end up cooking tonight, but once I had the realization, I decided to continue down that path. I made dinner, dessert, and cupcakes for my advisory group's picnic and my committee meeting tomorrow. Three hours of cooking! But they were well worth it.

The cake was very easy to make, and I thought it turned out quite well. It has sort of a breakfasty bread taste and texture, especially with the fruit. I didn't find the cake itself especially sweet, but the warm, tender strawberries meant that it was sweet enough to satisfy my sweet tooth (which, let's be honest, was getting a lot of indulgence tonight with all the batter in the kitchen). If (when) I make this again, I think I will wedge more strawberries in there, maybe even sticking them in more vertically instead of laying them on top. That way, there will be more delicious strawberry goodness in every bite, and I definitely had plenty leftover from the way I did it.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for pie plate
1 1/2 cups (188 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 cup (200 grams) plus 2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) milk
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 pound (450 grams) strawberries, hulled and halved

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 10-inch pie pan or 9-inch deep-dish pie pan (what I used). This cake would also work in a 9- or 10-inch springform or cake pan. The 10-inch would make a thinner cake than pictured.

Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 1 cup sugar until pale and fluffy with an electric mixer, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg, milk and vanilla until just combined. Add dry mixture gradually, mixing until just smooth.

Pour into prepared pie plate. Arrange strawberries, cut side down, on top of batter, as closely as possible in a single layer [I gave up trying to squeeze them all in, though it would have been nice to have more in the end result; I used my leftovers to make chocolate dipped strawberries]. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over berries.

Bake cake for 10 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 325°F and bake cake until golden brown and a tester comes out free of wet batter, about 50 minutes to 60 minutes. (Gooey strawberries on the tester are a given.) Let cool in pan on a rack.

oatmeal pancakes and homemade "syrup"

This Monday night, I was feeling like breakfast. Well, I guess I wasn't feeling like breakfast (would that be squishy?), but I wanted to eat it. Abby had made a delicious make-your-own pizza night on Sunday, so I felt like switching things up for my night. At first I just wanted to go with classic pancakes and fried eggs, but then I realized that without maple syrup (because really, I'm not paying $15 or 20 лева for that), normal pancakes might be a letdown for my roommates. And my old friend, SK, did not let me down. In my recipe search for pancakes (search results included the lemon ricotta ones I made a while ago), I found one for oatmeal pancakes. They sounded healthier and delicious, so I decided to give them a go. I had to do some preparatory work google translating 'oat flour' and then extrapolating, in store, that обесено трици was similar enough to обесено брашно that it wouldn't ruin my recipe (брашно is flour and трици is bran).

I also made a few with bananas because, just like my dad, I love me some banana pancakes. They just make something delicious (pancakes) even better (caramelized heaven). You don't even need syrup if each bite includes that crystallizing sugary goodness! Also, for my Nabokov-Pynchon classmates (or any other Pynchon readers out there), every time I eat anything with bananas, but especially pancakes and breakfast foods, I can't help but think about the banana breakfast in Gravity's Rainbow. Maybe one day I'll get really ambitious (and have a large audience) and attempt a Pynchon/Pirate-esque banana breakfast of my own.

But really, I loved the oatmeal pancakes. They tasted so good and were similar enough to "regular" American pancakes (not the crepe-like палачинки that we have here in Bulgaria) that I didn't feel tricked but also were a bit more hearty and whole grain tasting.

But if you DO need syrup, you can try what I tried. I didn't really know what to expect, but via my browsing on SK, I found a link to a cranberry syrup that she made. I had bought some jarred fruit/jams in Koprivshtitsa in the fall, and I only liked some of them. There is some small berry here that I have never had before, and the flavor is just a bit too strange for me to really get excited about it. I wanted to like that jam, but I just couldn't do it. So I decided to use it in my syrup experiment and wouldn't cry about it if I ended up having to throw it out. It turned out to be not terribly thick but sweet and yummy, and we used it successfully as a syrup substitute for the pancakes.

Dry sugar melting:

 Melted sugar:

 Hardened sugar (after adding water and berries):

 Berry syrup:

 Oatmeal pancake batter:

 Banana pancakes:

Oatmeal Pancakes

3/4 cup oat flour (you can make this by pulsing rolled oats into a food processor or spice grinder until finely ground; 1 cup of oats yielded 3/4 cup oat flour for me) [as mentioned, I used oat bran and it worked]
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon Kosher or coarse salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly (plus extra for the pan)
1 1/4 cups whole milk
1 cup cooked oatmeal*
1 tablespoon unsulphured (not blackstrap) molasses or 1 tablespoon honey [I used honey]
2 large eggs

Whisk the dry ingredients (oat flour, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk the butter, milk, cooked oatmeal, honey and eggs together until thoroughly combined. Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Using a light hand is important for tender pancakes; the batter should be slightly thick with a holey surface.

Heat a 10-inch cast-iron pan or griddle over medium heat until water sizzles when splashed onto the pan. Lower to medium-low. Rub the pan generously with butter; Boyce says this is the key to crisp, buttery edges. Working quickly, dollop 1/4-cup mounds of batter onto the pan, 2 or 3 at a time. Once bubbles have begun to form on the top side of the pancake, flip the pancake and cook until the bottom is dark golden-brown, about 5 minutes total. If you want banana (or other fruit/nuts), place them in after pouring the mounds down and just press lightly into the pancake. Then when you flip them, they caramelize into an almost decadent treat.


Syrup

1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup fresh or thawed frozen cranberries, chopped [I used my rinsed mystery berries from the jar]
1/2 cup water

Cook sugar in a dry 1 1/2-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, undisturbed, until it begins to melt. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally with a fork or flat whisk, until sugar is melted and turns a deep golden caramel. Tilt pan and carefully add cranberries and water (caramel will harden and vigorously steam). Simmer over moderately low heat, stirring, until caramel is completely dissolved, then pour syrup through a very fine sieve into a heatproof bowl, pressing hard on solids. Let cool.

cornmeal pancakes with fruit

Edit: I wrote this entry a few days ago, uploaded pictures from my camera, and returned to add photos and publish the post only to realize that I did not take any food pictures from this dinner. Apocalypse, now? Anyway, hopefully they still entice you sans photo because they were quite yummy. My apologies! I won't let it happen again.

It seems my friends are all conspiring me to broaden my horizons beyond SK, and I am trying to let them. My friend, Andy, and I talk food from time to time, and he gave me the link to the Wednesday Chef blog. I found a recipe for cornmeal cranberry pancakes, and I decided that I wanted a slightly exciting but homey breakfast for my Monday night dinner this week. I was relaxed and cleared out after my spa weekend in Velingrad with the BLBC, so I also wanted something sort of healthy, though I guess most of my Monday dinners are pretty healthy - they are all made from scratch anyway.

Of course, cranberries weren't around and the fruit that was available was not terribly affordable, so I got a bag of frozen mixed berries and decided to risk it. I also couldn't get maple syrup because the only bottle I saw was in the special section and cost 20 leva ($14 USD), which is just too much for me to even splurge on.

This recipe turned out really well, and I would definitely make it again. I let the berries warm up a bit in the fridge before cooking and then rinsed them a few times in a colander and let them sit while I prepped everything else. I also used honey as a topping due to the lack of syrup, and that worked really well. I thought of honey as a substitute not only because of its similar texture but also because my mom and grandpa always eat honey (or applesauce) with cornbread, and I love both of those combinations. I had a couple pancakes left over, and as per the recommendation of my roommate, I heated them up in the toaster, which kept them crispy and warmed them up, and it was really nice for breakfast the next day.

10 tablespoons butter, cut into chunks, plus more for greasing pan [maybe you could use a bit less, I used about 10, but I think it might not be totally necessary]
2 cups milk
4 large eggs
2 cups flour
½ cup yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 ¼ cups chopped fresh cranberries [or a mixed bag of frozen berries, if you live in Bulgaria]
Maple syrup [or honey, see above reasoning]

In a saucepan over medium-low heat, heat the butter and milk until the butter melts. Set aside until lukewarm, about 15 minutes. Beat the eggs in a medium bowl. Slowly stir in ½ cup of the warm milk mixture (it cannot be hot, or it will cook the eggs). Pour in the remaining milk mixture and stir to combine.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture a little at a time, stirring slowly, just until the dry ingredients are well moistened. The batter should be lumpy and will start to bubble.

Heat a griddle or skillet over medium-high heat until a few drops of water sprinkled on it sizzle. Lightly grease the pan with butter, then add 3 to 4 tablespoons batter to make a 4-inch pancake. As soon as the batter sets, sprinkle the top with cranberries. Cook until bubbles break on the surface. Flip and cook for another 30 seconds, or until the bottom is lightly browned. Repeat, buttering the pan and adjusting the heat as needed. Serve with maple syrup/honey.

As mentioned, I had leftovers (after feeding four) and reheated using the toaster, which worked really well.

spice scones!

I had not made scones since I was in Morocco, but I loved them very much and had them in the back of my mind for a while recently as something I needed to make. Lately, Settlers has been, well, completely out of control at our house. The main reason I don't completely hate the game is that some sick part of me loves playing but also that it has made us more social in some ways. In addition to playing a lot among the housemates, we have had way more visitors in the past few weeks coming over to play. This has also encouraged me to cook things because I know it will quickly get eaten up and be appreciated. So, I was commissioned to make the homemade oreos the other weekend, and last Monday I decided to make scones along with my regular dinner. All the house visitors put an end to the scones expeditiously, and I ended up making them a couple days later so that my housemates got more since the influx of visitors reduces our per capita consumption of treats.

When Courtney came to Morocco and taught me how to make the scones, she used cardamom and candied ginger, which is really delicious. We also, evidently, added more of the liquid ingredients than normal, so the scones were a little more moist than normal. I also made them with chocolate chunks instead of ginger in Morocco,  and that tasted nice but obviously different. Here, we don't have candied ginger or, as far as I can find, ground cardamom, so I have changed things up a bit to make the recipe my own. Now it is more of the traditional dry scone and is just a sort of spice flavor, which I really like and smells wonderful as you are mixing the dough.

Whole cardamom pods:

 Dry ingredients with the crushed cardamom seeds on top:

 The dough really takes kneading by hand to come together, but it will. Or, you can just add in more of the wet ingredients and they will be a different consistency but still work.

3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¾ tsp ground cardamom or cinnamon*
dash nutmeg
1 egg
1 cup yogurt/crème fraiche (I have used a wide variety of substitutes and it always seems to work)
½ cup sugar
1 stick butter

Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit.

Mix dry ingredients first. Add stick of butter (cubed into small pieces). Add egg, yogurt, sugar, and ginger. Mix together until thick dough mixture forms. The dough really takes kneading by hand to come together, but it will. Or, you can just add in more of the wet ingredients and they will be a different consistency but still work.

Grease cookie sheet and form scones into balls or triangles. Cook in oven for around 25 minutes until light golden brown.

Notes: *I did not have ground cardamom in Bulgaria (or know where to get it), so I replaced it with cinnamon and then got whole cardamom and crushed a few seeds that I mixed in. They added a lovely and fragrant smell.

Makes about 12 scones

lemon ricotta pancakes

A few Mondays ago for my weekly dinner, I made SK's lemon ricotta pancakes with sauteed apples along with scrambled eggs and cyrene cheese. My roommates liked the pancakes; I found them too different of a texture from normal pancakes to really wrap my brain around them. They are light and fluffy from the whipped egg whites, and the resulting texture is a foamy batter. The taste is also a little different, unsurprisingly, due to the ricotta cheese and lemon zest. All in all, they were good, but I think I will stick to more traditional pancakes. What can I say, my dad made great breakfast food and it's hard for me to break my strong associations with his dishes. The sauteed apples were delicious, though, and I would definitely make them again to go with ice cream or other pancakes or anything you might want to eat sauteed apples with. We kept leftover apples in the fridge and continued to eat them for a couple days.

For the sauteed apples
4 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced - this is a surprising amount of apples, use a large pan
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon - I added more because I really like a solid cinnamon flavor to my apples
fresh lemon juice to taste

For the pancakes
4 large eggs, separated
1 1/3 cups ricotta
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons freshly grated lemon zest
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Melted butter for brushing the griddle

Maple syrup, as an accompaniment - I didn't have any because it isn't available here, but I think it would have been quite delicious, so I recommend it.

Prepare the sauteed apples:
In a large heavy skillet, saute the apples in the butter over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, or until they are softened, sprinkle them with the sugar and the cinnamon, and cook them over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 10 minutes, or until they are tender. My apples took significantly longer to cook, so I alternated having a lid over the middle and stirring them around to get them more moist and tender. Stir in the lemon juice and keep the mixture warm.

Make the pancakes:
In a bowl whisk together the egg yolks, the ricotta, the sugar, and the zest, add the flour, and stir the mixture until it is just combined. In a bowl with an electric mixer, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they hold stiff peaks, whisk about one fourth of them into the ricotta mixture, and fold in the remaining whites gently but thoroughly. Heat a griddle over moderately high heat (Deb firmly believes that pancakes should be cooked medium-low) until it is hot enough to make drops of water scatter over its surface and brush it with some of the melted butter. Working in batches, pour the batter onto the griddle by 1/4-cup measures and cook the pancakes for 1 to 2 minutes on each side, or until they are golden, brushing the griddle with some of the melted butter as necessary. Keep them warm in a preheated oven.

blueberry muffins, cornbread, and vegetarian chili

I have been studying for the GREs lately (which has been a series of ups and down, frustrations, and sobbing calls home to my stepdad and mom), so not cooking too much lately, but I did make blueberry muffins on Friday as a therapeutic release from my workweek. I have been grading like crazy for the past week and a half and I can't seem to recover. I know I am the one assigning the work, but they need to do it, and then, however cursory my grading is, it still takes me an hour or two to grade one assignment so I am constantly handing back work in a timely fashion but accumulating things nonetheless. Anyway, I have had a few things to cook either by necessity or for a few moments of pleasurable focus and attention.

Friday, I made blueberry muffins and Monday, for my dinner, I made vegetarian chili and corn muffins. So here are the recipes and some pictures. Tonight was the first actual book club meeting for our first book, and Lindsay and I hosted, so I will make a new entry for my epic Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake which is definitely cavity causing and so rich it hurts.

***

Like all my recipes, all the ones I used were from SK and I'll go in chronological order. First, her "perfect blueberry muffins" were a nice treat and definitely had a slightly different texture and flavor than most blueberry muffins (thicker, hint of citrus). I really appreciated the various measurements for each thing because I cook largely measuring in grams, living abroad, and am constantly consulting our yellowed conversions page from a cookbook taped inside a cupboard door.

Ingredients:

5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces or 71 grams) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams) sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces or 191 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon (7 grams or 1/4 ounce) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon (2 grams) salt
3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces or 105 grams) blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t bother defrosting)

I pretty much followed her recipe without making too many adjustments and changes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees (or whatever celsius it was that I crank my oven to). Beat butter and sugar with electric mixture until fluffy - for me, this did not seem possible at first, but I kept throwing chunks of butter and sugar around until they did, surprisingly, come together. I added in the egg, beat everything together, and then my yogurt and lemon zest (I didn't measure, just grated it in, eyeing the pile). I use Greek yogurt whenever I cook and since some things aren't available - substitute it for sour cream, creme fraiche, anything of similar dairy texture. The yogurt in this recipe is what facilitates the thickness of the mixture and weight in the muffins, which SK mentions holds the blueberries better in the muffins instead of having them sink to the bottom. After the yogurt is mixed, sift the dry ingredients in slowly (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt), mixing intermittently, until batter absorbs all the flour. Gently add in the blueberries and the batter is somewhat like cookie dough and feels sticky and thick. In a greased muffin tin (I save my butter wrappers, which I quickly accumulate, for rubbing on baking sheets and such and find it a useful replacement for a cooking spray and satisfies my Irish need to use everything to the last drop, so to speak), pour/glob in the batter. I filled a standard 12 muffin tin with the recipe and I think just over half full tins led to full, standard size muffins, so don't worry if it looks a little scant - they rise well. They bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. I really enjoyed mine warm with some nice lightly salted butter. They were also good reheated later in the microwave with, of course, some more butter. They lasted less than 24 hours, but I did take them to a dinner party and pawn off 7 or 8 there.

***

My Monday night dinner, as mentioned, was cornbread and vegetarian chili. Lindsay had made meat chili on Sunday night and I figured we would have leftovers of meat chili and I would make a vegetarian version for the vegetarian housemate (clever, aren't I?). For the cornbread, I followed the recipe pretty closely. I actually didn't love it as much as the classic and simple Jiffy cornbread, but they were good and were eaten within a day, so still met my standards for cooking.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
1 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 tablespoons corn oil (sunflower oil was what I had in my kitchen)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup corn kernels (I used canned, rinsed)

Preheat over to 400 degrees. Whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Separately, mix the buttermilk (I just used full fat milk), melted butter, oil (I used sunflower oil because that is a Bulgarian product and readily available), egg and extra yolk. Pour liquid over dry ingredients and mix together quickly but gently. Stir in the rinsed corn kernels (SK says you can use fresh, but I didn't, so I don't know how that would affect the recipe), and your lumpy batter is ready to go. I greased up my muffin tin again and poured them in. Bake for 15 - 18 minutes until golden brown. I served them with chili, but also had out butter and honey because that is how my mom usually tops them, though we also regularly had cornbread with applesauce. Apparently, this isn't common practice, but I have always found it really delicious and comforting.

***

For the vegetarian chili, I used SK's recipe as a guideline, but definitely improvised with what was available and didn't really measure my spices and just sprinkled them on throughout the process. I went ahead and adjusted the ingredients to what I used, but go to her site if you are interested in her recipe, which has a few more ingredients and specific measurements.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, diced
1 15-ounce can of white beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-ounce can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup corn (canned, rinsed)
1 15-ounce can whole tomatoes
1 cup water with bouillon cube
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa

I sauteed the onions in the vegetable oil first, not until completely transparent and soft, but so that they developed some flavor and caramelization on their own first. Then I added in the garlic briefly, so as not to burn (done that a few times), and then poured in the water and bouillon cube to get it to dissolve first. Then I added the drained beans and tomatoes with their sauce, and jabbed the tomatoes a bit to break them up. Our bean selection here is limited, so I only had kidney and white beans, in her recipe she calls for black, pinto, and kidney, which I would have used given availability. My chili turned out well, though, and didn't feel lacking with just the two varieties. I measured out the cocoa and then just added chili powder, cumin, and coriander as I felt appropriate (mostly just continued shaking them in intermittently throughout cooking because I wanted to make sure it wasn't boring and had a kick because my roommate likes spicy food). I also added some of the corn left over from my cornbread muffins as well as some salt and ground pepper. I let it cook for about 30-45 minutes on medium heat, stirring occasionally. I thought it turned out really well and the great thing about chili is that it just gets better with time, so it is one of the few foods I enjoy having leftovers with because the flavors just continue to develop and intensify in the fridge or freezer.

I generally make my dad's non-vegetarian chili and I will have to cook that sometime and post it. He usually serves his chili with rice and I like that, but I sort of ditzed out and forgot to make it with this recipe, so we just had it topped with cheese (necessary) and served with cornbread muffins. I think everyone felt pretty satisfied with that.

I didn't take too many pictures of the chili (read: one) because it just doesn't photograph that well. Much more delicious than visually appearing, and one of my favorite fall/winter comfort foods.