Almond Cranberry Cookies

Happy MLK day! As a total aside to what this post is really about (cookies) I just wanted to wish you a happy holiday. I took an hour today and went in to Cambridge and participated in a service project at City Hall. They had a variety of activities going on (blanket/scarf making, emergency room kits for children, valentine's day cards for shut-ins, etc.) I met up with some other people in the ward and we made a good stack of valentine's day cards for elderly people in the community. It was a lot of fun. There is something exciting not only about serving, but especially about serving in your own community. It's a lot of fun, and I feel good for having served today.

Now, on to the cookies.

One day last week I was trying to come up with a dessert to take to a dinner. I wanted something fairly light and relatively healthy. Recently Janssen had posted this about her favorite healthy cookie and so while I was at the store I picked up some almond meal and decided to give these a shot. For whatever reason I really struggled to make these right and to follow the directions. First I miss read how much vanilla to put in, so I put in three times as much as I should have, luckily there weren't too many ingredients in there already and so I could dump out some of the vanilla. But then I had to add more water, since some of that dumped out too. And then I miss measured about three other ingredients, necessitating that I increase the whole recipe by about 50%. All told, I really am not sure how much of any ingredient ended up in my cookie dough. But, it turned out ok. The cookies were really quite delicious. They were sweet, but not overly so, and they tasted good, while also feeling healthy. I definitely will have to make these again. And next time I think I will make each cookie a little bigger, because I made them a little too small this time.

Dinner for one (or two)

Back in November my ward hosted a Service Auction. Several of the committees in the ward banded together and put together a lovely dinner and silent auction. And many people in the ward (and the two other invited wards) contributed service items for the auction, myself included. I volunteered to cook dinner for someone--the catch was that it had to be on a weekend, since I work weeknights. At length, today I finally prepared this dinner for one of my good friends who won my service item. And since we're pretty good friends her dinner for one really turned into dinner for two, since she came over to the house and enjoyed a pleasant evening with me.

I spent quite a while trying to work out the menu and waffling back and forth on what to serve. They all happened to be new recipes (yeah, I know you're not supposed to use guests--and paying ones at that--as guinea pigs, but what can I say?). I got a couple marvelous vegetarian cookbooks over Christmas and I was just dying to try out some new recipes. More on those later.

So I got this far in writing this post last Friday. My plan had been to take a couple pictures and then post it that night. But you know how good I am at taking pictures. Despite the lack of photo-documentation my dinner was a success. I ended up making a frittata from my Vegetarian Kids' Cookbook, and an apple dessert pizza. They were both pretty delicious. In fact, I'm looking forward to making the frittata again this week. It featured potatoes, peas, and broccoli--three of my favorite vegetables. mmmm, broccoli.

Pretzel Bites

 A few weeks ago (before I left for Christmas), I happened across a recipe for "Pretzel Bites."  They looked pretty delicious and incredibly easy. I admit that while this recipe is a gluten-free recipe, I actually just bought regular gluten-laden pretzels so mine would have not been nearly as enjoyable for any of my gluten-free friends. Nevertheless, they are fantastic. I mean who doesn't love chocolate covered pretzels? I made these for a small movie night I had back in December and they went over so well that I connived my mother into buying the ingredients while I was home so I could make some more. My youngest brother (who is 10 years old and a rather picky eater) was a bit skeptical of them at first, but was sold after eating a couple and he really enjoyed helping me make them too. They are an excellent treat for kids to help with.

Gum Drops

Hello all,

I hope all of you have had fabulous holidays. I was lucky enough to spend a couple of weeks with my family out west, and so took a little hiatus from writing. But, now I have some (hopefully) interesting things to share.

Not long before I headed home I found a recipe for homemade gum drops floating around my Google reader. Not only did they look delicious, but they looked incredibly easy too (i.e. no candy thermometer needed). Unfortunately they required things like flavorings, and since I don't have a huge variety of those I decided to wait till I went home to make them.

My recommendation would be to use more flavoring than you think you need because my flavors ended up being much more subtle than I'd hoped. Also, I actually managed to make something red, using food coloring (you can maybe see the difference between round 1--on the back right and round 2--on the back left). The candy went over well with my family, though I found that longer I let them sit out the more gum drop-y the consistency was.

I hope you all are gearing up for a fabulous New Year!

Modern's vs. Mike's

As you may or may not remember, my class I took this summer was in the North End. And one of the many things that the North End is known for is pastry. There is a lot of discussion too among people where to get the best pastry, and more specifically the best cannolis.

Mike's Pastry seems to be the place that you hear about the most. it's a big store, with good branding and is always packed with people. But you know what? They're cannolis aren't my favorite. Sure, they're big, and they come in basically any flavor you want, but if you're getting something fancy then they aren't stuffed fresh (which is the mark of a truly great cannoli) and so they're a little soggy. And yeah they're big, but they are actually a little too big (unless you're going for something you'd have to split with someone), and they are more expensive. My personal favorite are the cannolis from Modern Pastry. It's right down the street from Mike's, it is a smaller store, and I think they only do two flavors (and really, somehow if it isn't filled with ricotta I'm not sure it's really a cannoli), but their cannolis are a little cheaper and they're also a better size for a single serving. And they are always stuffed fresh, which means that your cream is cool and creamy and the shell is always crispy.

There are lots of other places you can get cannolis too, but Modern's are my favorite. And you can get all kinds of really good other pastries at just about anywhere. I may have to head back to the North End one of these days and get some more pastry...

Jam

I think I've talked about the awesomeness that is Haymarket. So a couple of weeks ago I bought 3 lbs of strawberries for $2. That's a pretty amazing deal, that I just couldn't pass up. On my way home that day I stopped at the grocery store and bought pectin and then proceeded to make jam. I love strawberry jam, but only if it's homemade. I have been ruined to store bought strawberry for the rest of my life. And freezer jam is so incredibly easy. It took me an hour and I made three tubs of jam. By far the "hardest" part was crushing the strawberries. It was also the part that took the majority of the hour.

There are two more just like this in my freezer, yum!

Frozen yogurt is just so delicious

Last Saturday I spent an evening with friends in Jamaica Plain and we went on an adventure to the JP Licks that is down the street from their house. I walk past the JP Licks in Harvard square all the time but had never been inside. I learned that the JP Licks we went to is the original one. Yeah, the light bulb went on and I felt mildly foolish that I hadn't associated JP Licks with being from JP before. They have so many flavors, I wasn't even sure how to begin to choose something. They serve frozen yogurt there, which I kind of like better than ice cream (I know, I know, I still love ice cream, I just like frozen yogurt better) and they had black currant (!) flavored frozen yogurt. Normally, I just go for plain fro-yo and have them put some strawberries or kiwi on it. But the black currant was amazing! and for a treat I had them put on white chocolate chips which was even better. I do love me some black currants.

NECCO

When I was a kid one of the candies that was always a treat to get and one that we didn't get very often was NECCOs. Those delightful little sugary wafer candies. I always remember liking the black ones the best. Mmm, black licorice (almost as good as black jelly beans). Since moving to Massachusetts I've learned that NECCO stands for New England Confectionery COmpany. And that their factory is in Cambridge. Unfortunately they don't give factory tours, nor do they have an outlet store. Which is a shame. Yesterday one of  my patrons came up and gave me a little mini sized tube of NECCOs. It made me so happy. And the black ones are still my favorite.

Cinnamon Rolls

I've been rather remiss in posting about the food I've been eating. Not to worry, I have been eating, and I've even been cooking newish things once in a while. And (you'll never believe this) I've even taken a few pictures. Unfortunately, the taking the time to upload them onto my computer has not been high on my priority list. When it comes to uploading pictures of food to my computer or eating food, I have to admit I choose the eating. But you're in luck, I have a picture for you today.

A few weeks ago, around the time my bookbinding class started I made a batch of cinnamon rolls because I figured they'd freeze well and I would have instant breakfasts for a few days (or even a week or so). The cinnamon rolls turned out pretty well. I've been substituting whole wheat flour for half of the regular flour in several of my recipes lately and I'm a fan.


On a totally different note. Today in class we learned about gold tooling. It's pretty awesome.

Biscotti

The class that I'm taking right now meets at North Bennet Street School in the North End. The North End is a pretty awesome place. It's filled with Italian restaurants, little bakeries, tiny winding streets, and more tourists than can possibly be healthy. There is one delightful little bakery right across the street from school that sells the best biscotti I've ever had. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I know nothing about biscotti, and have probably only had it once or twice in my life before this week. So I'm not sure if the biscotti I'd had previously were just really bad examples of biscotti or what, but this biscotti has opened my eyes to what biscotti can be. (How many times can you use the word biscotti in a sentence?) This biscotti is hard, but not crunchy; soft, but still firm; chewable, but still hard; dry, but not too crumbly; it's really quite amazing. And it's just so delicious. And it's cheap too. I got two pieces today and a cookie for a dollar. I have a feeling that too many of my dollars will be going to this bakery's coffers this summer.

Brigadeiros

I mentioned in my last post that I was preparing for a new adventure while using up all my food. I guess I'll tell you a little about my new adventure before I talk about how I finished up my canned goods. I am once again packing up all my junk (which never fails to amaze me at how much of it there is) and moving. (no surprise there, huh?--when am I not about to move?) And since moving within the same city or the same state gets boring after a while (though I'm not actually bored of Maryland, I love it here) I've opted for a new state. Massachusetts here I come!

Now, on to canned goods. So what are Brigadeiros you ask? They are a phenomenally delicious Brazilian treat that I learned to make while living in England two summers ago.  Basically they are sweetened condensed milk and chocolate powder. You boil them together until it's thick enough to more or less hold its shape and then you make little balls. (I let it cool enough so it didn't burn my hands and that helped it to thicken even more.) You can roll the balls in something if you like, but you don't have to. I rolled some in cocoa powder and some in plain sugar just because I could. Or if you feel like rolling things into balls is too much work you don't have to cook the milk as long and it makes a pretty awesome sauce on things like ice cream (which is how I had it the first time). 

Brigadeiros

As you may remember (or maybe not) I went to England two summers ago for a couple months (unfortunately I think there was only one post about it, sorry.) Anyways, while I was there I was assigned to attend the Portuguese branch for church. I don't really understand why since I don't actually speak Portuguese, but I'll serve where ever I'm asked to. So one Sunday one of the Brazilian families in the branch invited us (there were 5 of us from my program that attended that branch) over for dinner. Oh man, think traditional Brazilian barbecue, only better. The food was so good. And they made us the best dessert ever.

In Brazil, they have this kind of bon-bon called brigadeiros. They're made from sweetened condensed milk and nesquick, boiled till it's thick enough to make into balls. But before it's that thick it can be used as a sauce. Which is how it was served to me the first time I had it. It was a sauce over ice cream with little bits of kit-kat bars mixed in. Heaven in a glass.

One of the girls assigned to the Portuguese branch actually spoke Portuguese and had served her mission in Brazil. So she taught me how to make these brigadeiros. I've made it as a sauce a couple of times, but I've never had the time and energy to actually form it into little balls, until today.

I've had a can of sweetened condensed milk lying around my cupboard for months and months ear-marked especially for this recipe. And since I'm movingthis weekend it was finally time to use the can up (I hate moving food, it's so much extra work--though I'll move canned goods over things like pancake syrup any day). So while I'm enjoying being unemployed in DC this week I made brigadeiros. So good! I dare you to eat just one.

Brie en Croute

Ok, since I live in DC it's a little far to fly home for Thanksgiving (read: too expensive). And since I'm not living near any relatives I had the pleasure of celebrating Thanksgiving with my roommates this year (and a few other awesome people). My roommate who planned this event did a fabulous job. (I brought the stuffing and a cherry pie.) But she started out our meal with a delicious Brie en Croute with Apple Compote for an Hors d'oeuvre. You may want to note just how awesome her Brie turned out. Mine doesn't look so pretty.

So anyways, yesterday was our Christmas party at work and I had planned on making this pie but after having eaten pie with almost every meal for the last week I just wasn't feeling it. (I'm realizing now that I don't think I've blogged about pie much. I will make every attempt to remedy that in the future.) And then I remembered the brie. My roommate readily shared the recipe with me and away I went. It turned out great. It tasted just like it should have, though my puff pastry did unfold rather a lot during baking and so it didn't look particularly pretty.

Now, someone who was thinking ahead would have taken pictures when the brie was fresh from the oven and gooey and delicious. As we all know I'm not that person. Me remember to take pictures? never. But I did remember enough to throw my camera in my bag to take with me to work. Unfortunately the lighting in my office is about a fluorescent as it gets and is pretty awful. I know I apologize for my photography more often than not, but bear with me. One of these days I'll cook during the day and actually snap a well lit photo. Just remember, it tasted delicious.

Monday Roast

Apple Galette

You'll remember that last week I went apple picking in Damascus. So this week I cooked with apples (imagine that.) On Sunday my roommate cooked dinner for us and I contributed an Apple Galette. In essence a galette is an open-faced pie, that's flat. Therefore it is easier to make than pie and tastes the same. And it looks pretty cool too. It turned out quite nicely. The apples I had picked were a sweeter variety so I only lightly sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top (and mostly just because I wanted the cinnamon). I ate leftovers for a couple days. I will say though that this is definitely better warm. Even reheated.

Roast, Yorkshire Pudding, Sweet Potato Fries

Before my roommate offered to share her dinner with me on Sunday I had planned to make a roast. So instead I had that on Monday. Nothing like a good Monday roast. And I had a sweet potato so I sliced it up real nice and baked it into fries (nothing like the fries at Guru's  but then what is?) and really they turned out ok. I managed to eat almost all of them before my roast was even done cooking. Actually timing wise the whole meal struggled. Everything had to cook for about half an hour, mostly on the same temperature but the fires had to be turned half way through and you can't open the door to the oven while cooking Yorkshire Pudding or it will fall. So all three parts ended up being cooked separately and I don't think all the waiting would have flown if I had been cooking for someone else. But I will say that waiting was worth it. The pudding didn't stick to the pan at all! and it was nice and thick. It was fantastic. 

Chicken Curry

In theory, when I said that I wanted to try new recipes and cook I suppose you imagined that I'd be cooking from scratch and things like that. I think that's what I'd imagined too. I do like cooking from scratch, but I also enjoy prepared things. Like curry sauces. I was at the grocery store yesterday getting ingredients for the dessert I made last night and I happened upon a display of Patak's curry sauces. After reading all the labels I settled on the Butter Chicken sauce. I've used the Tikka Masala before and I really like it. So I thought I'd try something new. And it was easy. Cook up some chicken. Add some sauce. Simmer. Eat. Delicious. I definitely don't find any problem with making cooking easy with prepared foods.

After eating my curry, I tried the S'mores Cookie Bars that I made. I found the recipe on one of my favorite food blogs. Mel's Kitchen Cafe has lots of delicious looking recipes. I am excited to try more of them. I haven't quite decided how I liked them. For sure I didn't put enough chocolate chips in, and I think I should have used more marshmallow too, but really they were just very, very sweet and I'm not sure how I felt about that. I brought some of them to work and my coworkers seemed to like them. I think I will have to make them again one day so that I can form a better opinion of them.

Zupfa

I has been months since I have posted anything, and it has been a while since I have cooked anything particularly exciting too, but I have cooked a few good things in the last while. Last year sometime I made a Lemon Posset, I think I posted about it. This time I used cream that had been frozen and then thawed. That doesn't work. It changes consistency and just doesn't set up in custards. So the lemon posset never really set and it had a weird consistency. So I now know that cream doesn't freeze. But at the same time I made Scottish Shortbread cookies. Those did turn out pretty well. They didn't taste exactly like Walkers, but pretty close.

I also made Zupfa, which is a sort of Swiss bread. It is delicious. I have a friend who has a good recipe and I used hers and it was delicious. I've decided that it is much cheaper to make your own bread than to buy it at the store and so that is what I've been doing. I made this recipe for between $5 and 6 dollars. And it made approximately 9 loaves. So it was 60 or 70 cents a loaf. So much cheaper than store bought bread, and it has no preservatives! The recipe was huge--I think the hardest part was finding a bowl bigg enough to mix it in, and then enough pans to bake it in. I had regular loaves, and more french bread shaped loaves, and round loaves, the works. I also tried to make cinnamon rolls out of some of it, but that didn't work too well. It's definitely not good for sweet breads.

Sometime after my Zupfa adventure I tried my hand at a chocolate rice pudding. I had all sorts of leftover rice one and I thought that that would be a good way to use it up. Yeah, no. I've never really had good rice pudding, but this definitely wasn't it. It tasted a lot like warm, mushy, cocoa krispies. Definitely not exciting. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Maybe other kinds of rice pudding are good, but this one wasn't.

Let's see, after my not so delicious rice pudding I made a dessert that I was a little more comfortable with. I needed a pie for something so I whipped up a cherry pie using cherries I bottled myself last summer. It turned out pretty well. I'm always glad when my pies turn out.

And the last dessert that I've made was a mango shortbread bar. It was pretty good. It had a shortbread base, and then mango slices on top of that and then more shortbread crumbled on top. it was a bit like a cobbler. Everyone seemed to like it well.

Souffles and Custards

I would be remiss if I didn't update soon. It appears that it has been quite a while since I have written.

Some number of weeks ago I tried my hand at a Chocolate-Banana Fool. The OED explains a fool as "A dish composed of fruit stewed, crushed, and mixed with milk, cream, or custard." The word was first used in this sense in the late 1500s and was spelled with an e (foole). So essentially, a chocolate-banana fool is a sort of chocolate-banana custard. It was quite delicious, though the I think that next time I'll use a little less chocolate because it didn't mix into my custard as smoothly as I would have liked and so was a little grainy. but the semi-sweet chocolate definitely was a good sweetness.

After the fool, I tried a Cheese Souffle. Now, I have always heard the souffles are quite difficult to make, and that anything much of a loud sound will make them fall. I don't know about the loud noise (though I suspect that's merely and old wives' tale) but I do know that souffles aren't really that hard to make. You mix the ingredients, whip the egg whites, fold them together, and bake. They are delicious. I've tried to describe what exactly a souffle is to a number of people, and I have yet to come up with a very good explanation. It's sort of like a cake, only spongy-er, and a cheese souffle is kind of like cheesy scrambled eggs, but not. They are extremely light, and moist, and delish.

The week after I made this cheese souffle, I decided that one good souffle deserved another so I made "Hot Berry Souffles with a Mixed-berry Coulis," you know I like coulis. Instead of making these souffles in a big souffle dish like the cheese souffle, these I made in individual ramekins, so they were delightfully easy and individually portioned. The berry souffles were a nice light shade of purple, and were light, and fruity, and a great dessert. The best desserts are the ones where you can eat just a little and feel satisifed, and this was just that way. The coulis on top looked nice, and gave the souffle just the right sauce to eat it with. I included a picture of them right after they came out of the oven. They are amazingly tall, and fell quickly. but they were good--if I'm allowed to say that.

Earlier this week, I had the responsibility of providing treats for our weekly staff meeting, and so I made a Lemon Cream Tart. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, so I have nothing to show for my work. Tarts are surprisingly easy to make, and quite tasty. The dough for the crust reminded me of the smell of cookie dough, (though the dough didn't taste like it. In fact it wasn't yummy at all). The lemon cream part was reminiscent of the filling that lemon meringue pies. I'll have to make it again sometime so that there can be a picture.

Catching Up

Well, it has been a very long time since I have posted, so I will try to get myself caught up on all the cooking adventures that I have had in the last 3 months or so. First off, in October I tried my hand at making fortune cookies. They are surprisingly easy, and quite tasty. When I read the recipe it seemed weird that you can only cook 2 cookies at a time, but when I tried it myself, it is indeed a true statement. If you cook anymore than that there is no way that you'll get the cookies folded before they harden. It is so cool, when you first take the cookies out of the oven, they are soft and quite malleable, but they start to harden almost instantly; nevertheless, it is quite possible to fold them to actually look like fortune cookies.

Then, a little late in the month, I tried my hand at Portuguese Custard Tarts. They utilize two of my favorite ingredients: custard and puff pastry. And they cook in a muffin pan, so they are perfectly bite-sized. Finding the custard to fill the tarts with took a little doing, but eventually Macey's pulled through and helped me out. The tarts turned out so well, that I've made them once since my original attempt and took them to a party, where everyone loved them.

Then November came, This month I tried my hand at my first mousse, a White Chocolate Strawberry Mousse. It turned out quite nice. This time, I decided that instead of putting my dessert in the same old boring ramekins, that I would try putting it in a champagne flute so that you could get the nice effect of eating the mousse out of a nice dessert glass. Really, I suppose that I was envious of the pretty picture in the cookbook.

Finally, after thanksgiving, I decided to try my hand at cooking a pot roast. As you can probably tell, I mostly cook desserts, but man must not live by dessert alone, so I made my first pot roast. All my life my mother has made roasts sometimes for Sunday dinner, but she has always prepared hers in the crockpot while we were at church. I decided that I wanted to cook it in the oven, in preparation for a school project I was preparing for. The recipe that I was following didn't have much instruction regarding seasonings, so I just sort of made it up as I went. But if I do say so it turned out quite tasty. I also made some roasted potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding. My Yorkshire pudding even came out of the pan perfectly--nearly unheard of! My mother always served the juice that was left after the roast cooked as that--juice. But I decided that I would try and make a more proper gravy out of it, and it was to die for, I am so glad that I did. The gravy really made the roast, and with it poured over the potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, it was absolutely delightful! It is always fun to find out that you can cook regular food too, and not just desserts.

Flummery and Buttercookies

Flummery is a sort of 17th century soft pudding. Typically it's made with oatmeal and stewed until it reaches a nice gelatinous consistency. My flummery turned out very much not like that. Based on what I knew about flummery I figured that it would have some sort of pudding-like consistency. Mine was more like a melted smoothie, but that's ok. I was pretty nervous about this dessert since I'd never had it or even heard of it, but I was pleasantly surprised. It tasted delicious. It was a nice strawberry flavoured flummery and it was so light, and yet rich enough that you didn't need to eat tons.

Since I figured that the flummery wouldn't be terribly filling I also made buttercookies. I was a little nervous about them, they were very crumbly when I made them but they turned out quite well, though they took forever to brown. They tasted very much like Royal Dansk buttercookies. Next time I'll have to figure out how to make them in more shapes than just squares or circles.

Spongecakes and Turnovers

Well allow me to say that contrary to popular belief I have been cooking this last month, but what with school and the internet at home being totally unreliable I haven't been able to post. But an exciting month it has been. I started off the school year by making "Blueberry Spongecake" though since I made it with raspberries I suppose it would be better called "Raspberry Spongecake." The spongecake turned out really well, I found a recipe online and I really liked it, and the raspberries were really nice. If I could change one thing I'd vote on the raspberries not having seeds, but somehow I don't think I can change that.

Then about two weeks ago I had a Sunday afternoon where all I did was cook. I made Lasagna, French Bread, and Peach Turnovers. Of course I wasn't thinking and so only took pictures of the turnovers. I had never made french bread before but it's not any more difficult than making any other kind of bread. Spreading the egg white on top was a little bit of a challenge, but only because I was using the back of a spoon and not a pastry brush. Some things are simple fixes. The lasagna turned out, but I had made it before so I'm not too surprised that it worked out well. The turnovers were delicious. The recipe was for apricot turnovers, but finding cheap apricot jam turned out to be harder than you'd expect so I used peach. We served them to some boys who live nearby and they seemed to think they were delicious. This recipe uses frozen puff pastry, and I am a complete fan. Puff pastry is so incredibly easy to use, and it makes for such delicious desserts, I can't wait to make something else with it.

I've also made several batches of Zucchini Brownies this week. Zucchini brownies taste pretty much exactly like zucchini bread, only chocolatey and brownies. They're absolutely delicious. The first time I made them I followed the recipe and made chocolate frosting to go on top and everything. They were good. The second time I made them I ended up with 2/3 of a cup too much grated zucchini, and about half as much cocoa powder as I needed. So I made do the best I could, and since I didn't have frosting ingredients left I just dusted them with confectioner's sugar at the end. They still turned out amazing. Whoever thought to put zucchini in baked goods was brilliant. Though I think that whoever thought that we should spell zucchini with two C's wasn't thinking too well. Courgette is much easier to spell, and just sounds cooler too.