TWD Granola Grabbers

I'm sorry this post is so late! I actually made the grabbers before they were due for TWD, but then I got held up at work and never posted!

Michelle of Bad Girl Baking chose Granola Grabbers (page 82) as this weeks Tuesday with Dorie recipe.

I should start this out by saying that in general, I don't like granola. I find the store bought kind to be laden with extra fat and preservatives. I do like making my own granola though, so I decided to make it for this recipe. One of the bakeries I worked at while I lived in California made huge batches of the most delicious granola. I like to play off what we made there, but I use a lot less of the fattening ingredients. For today's granola, I put 3 cups of oatmeal on a sheet pan, a few handfuls of slivered almonds and walnuts, a good sprinkle of sesame seeds, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and mace, and I poured some warmed maple syrup and honey (with about a tablespoon of canola oil) onto the dry ingredients. I made sure all the dries were well covered with the sugar mixture and then off into the oven it went. I baked the granola at 350 for somewhere between 15 to 20 minutes, stirring frequently so the granola baked evenly.

From Food as of 8/17/08

From Food as of 8/17/08

Once the granola was cool, I started making the cookies. The recipe was very easy to follow. Essentially, you cream the butter and brown sugar, next you add your egg and salt, followed by the flour; and finally the nuts/fruit/wheat germ/coconut mixture. I followed the recipe except I subbed cranberries and small pieces of dried apricot for the raisins.

This recipe was okay, but I don't think I'll ever make it again. I think the flavor was good and I liked the chunkiness of the cookies. The problem was these cookies tasted healthy to me, but they are certainly not. If I'm going to bake/eat something that's unhealthy; I want to feel the decadence of the product. In this case, these cookies are loaded with fat and calories (coconut, butter, nuts, dried fruit), but they taste like they were made at a health store. Truth be told, I think these would be 100% better if I had subbed the raisins with chocolate chips; and I'm kicking myself for not going with my gut instinct and doing that in the first place J

TWD Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity chose Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream (page 434) as this week's TWD recipe. I'm in the middle of a very busy month, so I was excited to see that such an easy recipe had been chosen. Also exciting, was that I used my ice cream maker for the first time this year. Funny though, because after making this recipe; I remembered why it's been in hiding. I really don't like the way my Cuisinart ice cream maker freezes. The blade doesn't touch the wall of the frozen container, so it leaves a ring of frozen ice cream around the container that never gets incorporated. Small gripe, but anyone out there looking to purchase an ice cream maker stay away from the Cuisinart Frozen Yogurt and Ice Cream maker, it usually retails on sale for about $70.

Now onto more important things, like ice cream. It was extremely easy to put together. Simply bring blueberries, sugar, lemon juice and zest to a boil till the blueberries explode. Whirl the blueberry mixture in a blender for about a minute. Finally, add the sour cream and heavy cream to the mixture and blend till just combined. Chill in the refridgerator (I did this overnight), and then process in the ice cream maker.

Fresh blueberries are my most favorite food to snack on, so I had a feeling I would like this ice cream. It was so good. My only complaint is that it was pretty hard and kind of crystallized, but I'm blaming that on my ice cream maker. I'm sure that if I was to spin this ice cream base in a commercial ice cream maker it would be even more delicious.

I'll have pictures up soon. The battery in my camera died this morning right before I started spinning the ice cream. As soon as I get a replacement battery, I'll post the pictures.

Birthday Cupcakes

My friend's birthday party was this weekend, so I made some cupcakes for the big event. First, I made coconut cupcakes with coconut cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut "sand".








I also made chocolate cupcakes with Dorie Greenspan's chocolate frosting recipe. I don't have the book in front of me right now, but it's the frosting she uses on the chocolate cupcakes. I love the way these cupcakes looked with the silver dragees.



Lastly, I filled some of the cupcakes with nutella, and then I topped them with chocolate icing and candied hazelnuts. They were my favorite of the three cupcakes.



Quick post today. No TWD post because I don't care for the banana bread recipe that was selected. My friend made it a while back, and we both thought it was just okay.

1 Ostrich Egg, 6 friends and a whole lot of wine

1 ostrich egg, 6 friends and a whole lot of wine equals a whole lot of food and good time had by all.

Last week Mike and LT became the proud parents of a very big Ostrich egg's days were numbered.

Mike told Joe about the egg over the weekend and they immediately "hatched" a plan of attack.



Take said egg, take drill/knife; make countless egg dishes. That folks, is exactly what happened.




We arrived at Mike and LT's with dessert, wine and some "sides" for the egg. Mike just about bought out the grocery store with items that might go well egg. With ingredients combined we had the makings of 3 very delicious frittatas, as well as hash browns and some roasted cauliflower.


But first, how to crack the egg. When we arrived, LT plugged her drill charger into the wall "just incase we needed it." After reviewing a YouTube video, and 5 people giving advice; Mike decided to go the old fashion way; knife and mallet please.

The egg contained an enormous amount of egg substance. Apparently, one ostrich egg is the equivalent of 2 dozen chicken eggs. We had a lot of egg to work with.



Our first frittata contained tomatoes, basil and mozzarella. After cooking it on the stovetop till almost set; we topped it off with some more mozzarella and some delicious pancetta. It turned out great.










The next frittata was vegetarian (but certainly NOT vegan). It contained broccoli, peppers, onions, mushrooms, goat cheese and a little mozzarella. Before we put it under the broiler we added some cheddar cheese to the top. The resulting frittata was loaded with veggies and 3 cheeses.



Though we were all getting full, the wine was starting to kick in so we decided to make one more. The last frittata contained bacon, potatoes, goat cheese, green onions, tomatoes and thyme. It was delicious as well. After eating that, we were all full.



But then there was dessert:

Before:



After:



(Clearly we found room for dessert, though we forgot about the ice cream)


We drank 3 bottles of wine, but I only got the names of two. Both were from Schweiger Vineyards (where Joe works). We had Mr. Pink (an amazing Rose) and 2004 Cab (great as always).



Cheers!


Thanks to Mike for buying such an interesting ingredient, and for sharing it with us.

TWD Summer Fruit Galette

Galette's are one of the pastries that inspired me to be a pastry chef. Don't get me wrong, I've had lots of inspiration from my mom, some aunts and my memere; but the first time I made a galette (Jacques Pepin's recipe) was an eye opener. Jacques recipe is very simple, the dough is a pate brisee, and you top the rolled out dough with apples, a tiny bit of sugar and a little butter (of course!). After you bake it, you glaze the crust with an apricot cognac mixture. The result is the most beautiful, simple dessert ever. The first time I made it; I really understood what a great pastry was, and from there I was inspired to try different recipes, fruits, techniques, etc.

Michelle from Michelle in Colorado Springs selected Dorie’s Summer Fruit Galette as this weeks TWD recipe. I was excited to make it because I’ve never made a galette with custard in it, and as I mentioned above I love galettes. First I made the dough which was quite simple. Surprisingly, I had shortening in the house (Joe bought it to season our cast iron pans); so I followed the ingredient list. The only change I made was after processing the butter and flour, I transferred the mixture to a bowl and added the ice water; mixing by hand. I did this because I didn’t want my butter pieces to get any smaller, and I almost always finish my doughs by hand. Here’s the resulting dough, pretty nice huh?





While the dough was chilling I went to the grocery store, and I picked up some yellow and white peaches, strawberries and blueberries.

Joe was in Napa last week on a business trip, and he came home with two preserves from LouLou’s Garden. He picked up Rangpur Lime Marmalade and Strawberry Rhubarb Jam. I’m also fortunate to have received some rose petal jam from the bakery I will be working at soon called Sofra. I also had a little bit of peach preserves left over that I made last summer. As you can tell by the number of preserves at my fingertips, I was about to have a lot of fun.

I decided to make four small square shaped galettes. At Sofra we will be making some square shaped baked goods (like English muffins, cakes, etc), so I thought I may as well “get my square on” now. The flavors I decided on were white peach with rose petal jam, strawberry, blueberry and yellow peach with rose petal jam, strawberry with strawberry rhubarb jam and finally yellow peach with peach preserves.

I didn’t have graham crackers in the house, so I ground up some oats and added a bit of cinnamon and brown sugar to it; to act as the absorbing agent.



The galettes came together quickly. After 20 or so minutes in the oven, I took them out and added the very simple custard to the galettes. I ended up adding about 2 teaspoons to each galette. After 14 minutes in the oven the custard was set and they were ready to come out.



Once they cooled, we took them to Mike and LT’s for a very special dinner party. Last week Mike purchased an Ostrich egg, so we had an Ostrich egg party last night.



Check out my next post for more on that. That was a lot of egg (about 2 dozen).

The galettes were delicious.



The two favorites were the strawberry and strawberry, blueberry, peach.






The peach galettes were great as well.






The strawberries I purchased were so amazingly good that those galettes tipped the scale towards extraordinarily delicious.

Jacque’s recipe will always be my favorite, but I loved this galette recipe was well. I guess Dorie’s recipe will truly be my summer galette recipe, and I’ll save Jacque’s for the other seasons.