Feeling Guilty, Eating Richly

Hi.  I said I would post every day in February and I made it 22 days.  Not bad.  What I realized is that I don't have time every day.  Good lesson.  I also learned that while I cook food and think about food and eat food every day, I don't always have that much to say about it or pictures to show.  Ot time and energy to tell you about it.  So, good.  From now on I'll post more than I did in January and not as much as I tried to in February.  Seems like a good plan.

Now. More food talk.

I made creme bruleé.  I used Mark Bittman's recipe.  It was awesome.  There's a twist at the end... follow me through the process.

Creamy eggs:

Custard:

Going in:

Coming out:

Bruleé!

I had twice as much custard as I had room in my ramekins.  So I froze the rest in my ice cream machine. I have found my new base for ice cream.  This was incredible.

Even more so drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt.  Trust me.  It's amazing. 

I might even dare to say more amazing than this.  But not by much.

Lemon Pavlova

The new Eating Well came to my house today.  Did you get yours?  Did I mention I'm their home kitchen Tester?  It's true.  Check the masthead.  I'm totally on it.

Anyway -  I tested the Lemon Pavlova, and I highly suggest you make one.  It takes time to bake, but the time is mostly unattended, and it is SO worth it.  This is probably my favorite non-chocolate dessert out there. You know how I feel about curd.  

The meringue is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.  The lemon curd is tart and sweet, and the whipped cream is not-to-sweet perfection.

Thick, delicious, glossy.

A cool little template trick - just flip it over so you don't eat lead.

Just a little wall built up around the edges will keep the curd from running off once it's put together.
I think next time I'll beat it for even longer and see if I can get stiffer peaks to built up.
See Eating Well's picture - now there are some walls!

After round one in the oven.

Out of the oven.
(Please ignore where my finger went through it in the back where I was testing the consistency.)

Curd!

Whipped cream.

It cracks when you cut it, so make sure to show it to everyone beforehand.

Enjoy!!

It's Christmas Eve and I don't think I can get it together to make it for tomorrow, but I think I may have to make this for New Year's Eve.  Have a great holiday, everyone!




The Dying Swan / Anna Pavlova from Atavisme on Vimeo.

And a sandwich for dessert.

So this happened.

But after cleaning up, this happened.

Those are Grilled Chocolate Sandwiches.  And yes, they totally rock.

I used the tiniest slices of leftover Italian bread to make mini-sandwiches that didn't have 350 calories each, Trader Joe's Semi-Sweet Chocolate Callets inside which made them super easy and added a little cinnamon to the egg and milk mixture.

You're welcome.

When Life Hands You Lemons...

...make curd.

I had an excess of citrus.  I'm not exactly sure what possessed me at the store, but it happens sometimes. 

I took this recipe for Lemon Tartlets from Eating Well and made a lime curd and a citrus curd (lemons, limes and orange).  Then I made these:

These little gems are amazing.  They pop right into your mouth and your tastebuds explode.
My mouth is watering as I type.

Lime curd cooking.

Citrus curd thickening.

Yes.  Yes, I did eat some with a spoon right out of the bowls.

The lime was outstanding.  The orange one I cut the sugar in half and it was still a little too sweet for my taste.  I wonder if you need it at all, except for the science of having sugar in there.  I'm willing to try it next time without added sugar - For Science!

One more shot for good measure.  YUM!

S'Mores

Hey, did you hear?  Summer's over!  At least if you live in Minnesota it is.  It happens fast and furious here.  One fine early September day it's 90 degrees, the next day it's 60 and you're lucky to see 73 again til May.

Never fear!  I grill all winter long.  Also, there are oven S'Mores.

Chocolate chips and mini marshmallows in a bowl.

Put 'em under the broiler (or, if you're really impatient, the microwave)

Eat with graham crackers.  Happy Autumn!

Let him eat cake.

Oh, my blog, how I've missed you.  I was on vacation for a week in Columbus, Ohio for Easter.  I gotta figure out how to update from my iPhone.


The day before we left was my husband's birthday.  I made him a cake.  Well, I made him six cupcakes and a half a layer cake.  I knew we were going to have to eat most of what I made, and give the rest to my parents as payment for taking us to the airport, so... there it is.

Bill loves coconut.  He especially loves Almond Joys.  Was I going to crush up a bunch of Almond Joys and throw them in a box cake for his birthday?  No, sir.  I made him an Awesome Almond Joy Cake from scratch.  

I looked at a lot of recipes online and in my cookbooks, but none of them seemed coconut-y enough for me.  I also noticed that because of my extremely efficient clearing out of the refrigerator before going on a trip ninja stylings, I had exactly three eggs.  I was going to have to make half a recipe.  (Two and a half eggs is always fun to add to anything!)

The closest recipe to what I wanted came from Ina Garten, so I adapted her Barefoot Contessa's Coconut Cake recipe and created a coconutty-almondy-chocolate-chunkity masterpiece.  Here's my version of the recipe. (I made half of the recipe shown below.)

Roots And Zest Coconut Almond Chocolate Chunk Cake

Ingredients

3 sticks unsalted butter, softened + more for greasing pan (or use spray like lazy me)
2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp coconut extract
2 1/2 cups white flour + more for dusting pan
1/2 cup almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 cup coconut milk
4 oz sweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup chocolate chunks (the big guys - not chips)


Instructions


Preheat oven to 350F.  Butter or spray two 9" round cake pans and dust them with flour.


Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing in between each addition, and scraping down the sides. Add the vanilla, almond and coconut extracts and mix well [Ina's note here was, "The mixture might look curdled; don't be concerned."  It did.  And I wasn't, thanks to her.]


In another bowl mix together the flour, almond meal, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Alternately add these dry ingredients and the coconut milk to the batter in three rounds.  Fold in the shredded coconut and chocolate chunks.


Pour the batter into the two pans and smooth the top.


Ina says to bake it for 45 - 55 minutes at 350F.  I think that sounds like a long time.  When I did half this recipe, here's what happened next:


For my cupcakes, I used the six silicone cups that came with this cook cookbook for kids.  I also made one 9" round.  The cupcakes took 15 minutes.  The one 9" round took 22 minutes.


I used Mark Bittman's Butter Cream Frosting recipe from page 727 of How To Cook Everything. I substituted 1 tsp coconut extract for half of the vanilla in his recipe.  I also made the whole recipe for my half cake + 6 cupcakes.  Because I'm like that.

Butter Cream Frosting


Ingredients


1 stick unsalted butter, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
6 TBS cream or milk, plus more if needed
2 tsp vanilla extract (again, I used 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp coconut extract for mine)


Instructions


Cream the butter with an electric mixer.
Gradually work in the sugar, alternating with the cream and beating after each addition.
Stir in the extracts.
If the frosting is too think to spread, add a little more cream, a teaspoon at at time,  If it is too thin (unlikely, but possible), refrigerate.  It will thicken as the butter hardens.

Layering and Decorating


Ingredients


whole almonds (I toasted mine a little in a dry pan on medium heat for a few minutes)
chocolate chunks
about 6 oz sweetened shredded coconut

Instructions

When layering the cake, whether it be a 9" round on top of another 9" round, or half of a single round on top of the other half like I did, let the cake cool completely before frosting it.  Smooth frosting on the bottom layer, sprinkle with some of the chocolate chunks, then lay the second layer on.  Smooth the remaining frosting over the top and sides of the layered cake.

Press shredded coconut all over the top and sides of the icing.

Decorate with whole almonds and the rest of the chocolate chunks as makes you happy.  Let your kids decorate the cupcakes to make them happy.

This cake was really, really awesome.  

Happy Birthday, Bill!

My 26 year old ice cream machine

My parents save everything.  I have dressed my daughter in my party dresses and pushed my son in my old pram (thanks, Mom!).  This week, while staying at my parents' house while my husband was away for work,  recording, I played game after game on my old CollecoVision console from the early 1980s (thanks, Dad!).

One great kitchen discovery from the treasure trove in the basement was the Donvier Ice Cream Maker.   Bought on sale in probably 1984 (for $19.99 down from $29.99!), and perfectly preserved in the box with the instructions printed on it, this ice cream maker holds many memories for me.  And now my kids get to use it.

I put the metal insert in the freezer one night, and the next afternoon, I told the kids we were Making Ice Cream!!  Are you kidding?  This was gonna be awesome.  Now, to make it awesome for ME, we made Chef Rick Bayless's Avocado Ice Cream from EatingWell's April issue.

I love Rick Bayless.  I loved watching him win on Top Chef Masters, and I will be forever jealous of our friend who got to hang out with him and eat his food at a small gathering.  I love avocados.  I have been known to enjoy tequila on occasion (though mostly 10 - 15 years ago).  You already know how I feel about zest. 

The kids loved doing this.  They turned and turned and turned and TOOK TURNS turning and turning!  What a great experience for them to be able to see their progress and make something together.  I sat them at the dining room table and they did it all.  Fantastic.

I was so excited to taste this ice cream, and really liked the avocado flavor I got from it.  I think the zest garnish really helped (I tried it the second time without, and found it really does make a difference).  I also found it a little sweet for my taste.  I think I'd use 1 cup instead of 1 1/3 cup next time.  My husband was wishing for more of a gelato experience, and I wonder what would happen if you made this with milk instead of water.  Chances are I'll try it and find out.  The kids each ate about a spoonful and then requested Girl Scout Cookies.  They're two and four, do you blame them?  It's the first year we've gotten GSCs and, boy are they going fast!  I'm so proud of them for trying the green ice cream, though.

I brought some over to my parents' house this week, too, and both my mom (dessert, and particularly ice cream lover) and my dad (typically a dessert passer) LOVED it.  I also heard from a friend before I made this about her story of her family who loved it too.  Her two year old ate it up, her husband tasted the lime most prominently and she, the tequila.

I'm so happy to have a treasure trove of riches four miles away (in someone else's basement), and really look forward to the next time I get to make ice cream with the kids.  This thing is great, if you want to try to find one on E-Bay or something.  I also discovered you don't have to put it in the ice cream machine.  My machine only fit half of this recipe.  I put the other half in a glass pie plate and stuck it in the freezer. It came out exactly the same as the other, it just took a little longer.

But how can you deny the awesomeness of this:

No Electricity! No Ice! No Salt Needed!  

Also,  apparently "Anyone! Can! Do It!"

To answer your question: Yes, I served ice cream made with tequila to my family.  I knew they weren't going to eat very much, if any, and I wanted to keep the integrity of the recipe - at least the first time around.  This was really about the experience of making ice cream with them.  Next time we're doing vanilla made with some of the Life-Time Supply of Mexican vanilla my parents brought back from Cancun for me last week.  Maybe malteds will be in our future, too!

Honey- & Goat Cheese-Filled Fig Muffins

That's right.  The time has finally come.  I made the muffins.  I had A LOT of help.  Luckily, the recipe calls for three bowls to be going at the same time.  2yo boy got to mash and chop and stir to his heart's content, the goat cheese, honey, lemon zest(!) filling.  The entire time.  4yo girl got to "sift" (ie stir with spoon, rake with very clean hands) the dry ingredients.  And I got to stir up the wet ingredients and assemble everything.  That being said, I have no pictures of the actual MAKING of this recipe.  Please enjoy the results, however:

This is an amazing recipe. I tried one right out of the oven - because how could I not?  It was warm, gooey, moist, explosive, sweet - but not too sweet, creamy.  Everything I wanted it to be.  An hour later, I followed the directions for "make ahead" version.  I wrapped one in a paper towel and microwaved it on high for 30 of the 30 -45 recommended seconds.  The filling pretty much disappeared into the muffin. And it was scorching hot.  The kids ate it (after it cooled) for dessert, and thought it was the bee's knees (and of course they did - they made it, after all!).  I nuked one at 20 seconds  for myself, and it was a little better.  When I have one for it's intended destiny of breakfast, I will try 15 seconds, to attempt to preserve the integrity of the goo inside.

A few ingredient notes:  I did use Whole Wheat flour.  I think it makes a big difference not only in nutrition, but also in texture and flavor.  I used "soured milk" (1 cup less 1TBS of milk and 1TBS lemon juice that I let stand while I got everything else together) instead of buttermilk.  Worked like a charm as always.  I got dried Black Mission Figs at Trader Joe's and they were wonderful!

I will definitely make this again.  I may futz with it a little to keep it a little more moist while re-heating.  If you have any ideas or insights on how a person might futz in this way, please tell me in the comments below.  When I microwaved it, I was very happy for the little goo that was left, and the sugar sprinkled on top.  I will also NEVER eat two in one evening again.  This is a VERY filling muffin.  It actually *is* the meal that it is intended to be (and at 6 Weight Watchers' Points, that's a very nice breakfast!)  This is a fantastic brunch party recipe.  Right out of the oven, these are truly outstanding.  It even looks like the picture in the magazine! (Though Eating Well doesn't take pictures with an iPhone, I'm sure.)

UPDATE:  15 seconds in the microwave this morning gave perfect results.  It also preserved the moistness of the muffin itself, so I think no futzing is necessary.  I had posted earlier that I would up the honey and down the zest, but the next day, the proportions in the recipe are really balanced and nice.  I think right out of the oven is, of course, the best, strongest flavor, but these sure hold up.  I'm going to freeze a couple and see how that works out in a week or so.  

Seriously.  Do yourself a favor and make these.