sprinklefingers

I have a granola addiction.

I love to make it. I love to eat it. At work we’re currently serving up three delicious types: peanut butter & jelly, blueberry & orange and nutty maple. I love all three of them equally and would eat them for every meal of the day if I could.

Problem is, they aren’t (probably) the best thing to eat for every meal of the day. They contain butter. And loads of nuts. Sure there’s fruit involved, but I’m no fool. I know all about granola and it’s ability to pretend to be hippie diet food while really being packed with more fat and calories than an Oregon Sea Salted Caramel Brownie*. Okay, maybe not. But you get the picture.

The other thing I’m addicted to is yogurt. Not long ago I told you about my honey problem. Well, people, yogurt is my new honey. Even if I have six very fine tubs of yogurt at home, I’ll still buy more if I go to the market. It’s like I’m building a bomb shelter and I plan to sustain my family on plain greek-style yogurt until the coast is clear. Or until we run out of yogurt - something that, by the looks of my fridge, would take a while.

Of course (you knew this was coming) I especially love granola + yogurt = together (forever.) As breakfast. As a snack. As lunch. As another snack. Thank god I’m not one of those dairy intolerant (or do they call it sensitive these days?) weirdos people!

The (other) problem is, I’m trying to watch what I eat (ugh) - since my decision to stop drinking so much damn half & half my body underwent a miraculous change and I magically shed twenty pounds. This is excellent news not only because I lost twenty pounds but also because I hate shopping for pants. With that chunk of weight missing from my body I can fit into all my old pants again. And none of them are elastic waisted or made of lycra! 

In order to steer clear of pants shopping, I’m doing my best to keep that extra twenty off. This means only one cookie a day instead of six. It means eating less brioche. And it also means limiting my granola intake. Boo hoo.

To get my fix I’ve been adding a sprinkle of toasty oats to my beloved yogurt each morning. While not perfect, and no way near as delicious, it’s a decent substitute. And aligns perfectly with my plan to avoid pants shopping.

By the way, isn’t pants the funniest word? Cracks me up.
 

Toasted Oats
Makes 1/3 cup

You need:

• 1/3 c thick cut rolled oats
• 1/4 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t canola oil

Toast the oats:

1. Preheat an uncoated frying pan over medium.
2. In a small bowl combine the oats, cinnamon and oil until all traces of the oil disappear.
3. Slide the oats into the pan and cook, stirring frequently, until you can smell toasty oats and the bits are beginning to take on some color.
4. Let cool and use them as you’d like.

For a larger batch of toasty oats, increase the amount of oats to 2 cups. The cinnamon would bump up to 1 1/2 teaspoons and the oil would go to 1 tablespoon. Combine as described above then spread out on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake in a 300 degree oven until toasted - about 10 minutes or until the oats take on the golden hue of your choosing.

Watch that your oats don’t scorch. Speaking from experience, they can go from perfectly golden to kinda burnt very quickly. 

And now! Photos!

 

*Yes, this is a treat on my bakery menu. Yes, the sea salt is actually from Oregon. Yes, there’s a post coming soon all about it!

My kid is just a few weeks into his fifth year and already it’s different than four. As if someone flipped a switch, his already amazing brain kind of exploded and became even more amazing. He’s tuned in. He’s thoughtful. He’s full of love. And most of all - most of all - he gets me. 

I have favorite parts of every day with him - waking him up in the morning and seeing his bedhead. Sitting him down for breakfast and listening to him talk about his plans for the day. Seeing his reaction when there’s a pile of buttermilk biscuits (or chicken satay or chicken soup or fruit salad) on the dinner table. But lately my favorite part of each day is reading to him before bed.

You see, he’s become completely obsessed with Edna Lewis. At first I know he was feigning interest just to placate me. I’d gush on about her and her thoughts on food and her amazing recipes and he’d nod and smile. But then I found this book and he went from pretending to be interested to being obsessed. We have read Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie nightly for weeks straight - he loves the seasonal approach - he loves the sing-songy rhymes - he loves the idea of spending the summer stocking the larder - he loves the recipes. 

He thought we should share one of Edna’s recipes with you. Corn Pudding is, hands down, his ‘most favorite food in the whole world’. And, in fact, he loves it all the way to Pluto and back (a journey, he’d like to remind you, that would take 10 years…so that’s a lot of love.)

This dish is rich. And filling. And packed with full-fat dairy. I wouldn’t make any alterations to the ingredients if I were you. Instead, I’d enjoy a smaller portion and savor the good stuff. 

Corn Pudding
Inspired by Edna Lewis
From the recipes found in Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie by Robbin Gourley.

Serves 8

Notes: Of course it’s not corn season. But that’s okay. We’ve found that you can make the pudding with frozen corn and the results are definitely acceptable. Using fresh corn cut from the cob results in a kernel that melts into the pudding a bit more than does the frozen, and both ways are delicious.

The recipe includes freshly grated nutmeg, and you really shouldn’t leave it out. It adds so much dimension to the finished dish.

You need:

• 3 T unsalted butter, melted - plus more for buttering your cooking vessel 
• 2 heaping cups best quality frozen corn - or 4 ears worth of corn cut from the cob
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 t kosher salt
• 2 large eggs (use pastured or farm eggs if you can find them)
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 dashes of cayenne pepper
• 1/2 - 3/4 t freshly grated nutmeg
• 2 T cornmeal 

Make the Corn Pudding:

1. Preheat oven to 350 and butter a 1.5 qt ceramic baking dish.
2. In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the corn with the sugar and salt and stir well. Set aside
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs until the yolks are fully combined with the whites then (while whisking) add the milk in a slow stream. 
4. To the milk and eggs, add the melted butter, cayenne pepper and nutmeg then whisk until combined.
5. Add the liquid to the corn/sugar and stir until combined.
6. Scatter the 2 T of cornmeal on the bottom of your baking vessel then gently pour in the corn pudding.
7. Find a roasting pan larger than the dish the corn pudding is in and place the corn pudding inside. Fill the roasting pan with water until it reaches about 3/4 of the way up the sides of the corn pudding dish.
8. Pop the whole thing in the oven and bake for 1 hour or until set and golden brown.
9. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

We like corn pudding with just about anything. Most recently we had it with braised red cabbage, sausages and roasted kale. In the summer I dream of eating big bowls of it with fresh garden tomatoes on the side. Of course it’s a dream because no one should really eat big bowls of this stuff - a small serving is all it takes to experience the deliciousness. [I cannot believe I just said that. But, alas, it’s true.]

Why in the world does something like Duncan Hines Frosting Creations exist?

I must be completely wrong, but I thought the country was finally picking up on the fact that putting huge amounts of gross junk in your body isn’t good for you? But, of course, giant corporations keep pushing the (complete) crap onto grocery store shelves and people keep buying it. And I can see it - busy mom wants to make a cake (or cupcakes) but is short on time so she buys a tub of Duncan Hines ‘starter’ frosting at the megamarket and grabs the packet of magical Frosting Creations dust and decides it can’t hurt - a powder that has the power to turn frosting blue and flavor it like cotton candy?  The kids will love it AND the shade of blue perfectly matches little Billy’s party color scheme! 

But hold on a second. I should be nicer. And more understanding. Maybe the reason so many tubs of frosting (and now packets of magical frosting dust) sell is because busy people don’t realize how easy it is to make homemade frosting. Frosting that can be whipped up with real ingredients and flavored with real flavorings. Not cotton candy, but vanilla. Or vanilla bean. And cinnamon. Lemon and lime. Orange. Chocolate. Coffee. Almond. Mint. Or a combination - chocolate and coffee. Orange and chocolate. Cinnamon and vanilla. It’s a complete cliché, but the possibilities truly are endless. Is it as easy as opening a tub of frosting and a packet of powder? Not quite. But it’s nearly as easy and definitely worth the extra effort. I mean, what ingredient makes frosting blue and flavors it like cotton candy anyway? Not something I want to put in my mouth, that’s for sure.

Here’s a quick and easy (just three steps!) recipe for simple buttercream - the kind you remember from your days of licking the beaters in your childhood kitchen. I’ll also include tips & tricks on flavoring the icing…just no cotton candy!

Vanilla Buttercream

 Ingredients:

• 227 g  softened unsalted butter 
• 1247 g sifted (lump free) powdered sugar
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• ¼ cup whole milk (approximately)

Make the buttercream: 

1. Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth.
2. Add the sifted powdered sugar and vanilla.
3. Begin to add milk, starting with half of the amount, and then continue adding it until the buttercream is smooth and the desired consistency is reached. You want it to be spreadable but not at all runny.

Using the Vanilla Buttercream:
Orange: Add 1 T of orange juice and the zest of 1 orange as you’re adding the milk. (You can also do the same with lime or lemon juice & zest.)
Vanilla bean: split and scrape one vanilla bean and add the seeds to the butter before creaming.
Maple: Add 4 T maple syrup IN PLACE of 4 T of milk. Spice it up with 1/2-1 t cinnamon if you’d like!
Chocolate: Add 5 T best quality cocoa powder plus 1/4 t kosher salt with the powdered sugar. You may need to increase the milk by a smidge. (For chocolately chip buttercream: Chop some chocolate until it’s in shards. Mix in the chocolate shards to your liking.)

Using the Mint Buttercream:
Choco-Mint: add 5 T best quality cocoa powder to powdered sugar. At the end add more plain milk if necessary - but just a touch!


Now, I seriously do not want to hear about you making bubblegum flavored frosting with the help of a magical powder…got it? Good.

We cut a lot of ham at the bakery.
And, of course, I use that “we” in a completely royal sense because I actually do no cutting of ham myself. We have a meat slicer (a device, not a person) and we get these giant hams in from one of our purveyors - and really, it takes a special person to do all that cutting - and I’ll freely admit that I’m not that special person. 
So, while the meat is being sliced (by a person using a device,) I’ll busy myself with other things that make me look extremely busy. Like, say, reviewing invoices. Or eating lunch. 

After the ham is cut there are always scraps and odd bits left over that we affectionately (of course) refer to as ham bits. The ham bits are stuffed into bags and then stuck in the freezer (did you know you can freeze ham AND its bits? You can!) After that, the fate of the ham bits lies in the hands of our employees. Ham bits for all! I have personally taken a dozen or so bags of ham bits home from the bakery in order to turn them into something more than just scraps and odd bits - but how often does one need to incorporate ham bits into their everyday cooking? Not very often.

Until, of course, I remembered soup. SOUP! Ham loves soup and soup loves ham! So, I created a very special soup based on the abundance of ham bits I have in my life. (And, seriously, if you’re ever in the neighborhood of SW 12th & Morrison in Portland, stop in to see me - I’ll give you your very own bag of ham bits. And you can also have a cookie.)

Ham & Bean Soup
featuring ham bits!
serves 12 (yes, this makes a giant pot of soup!) 

This soup requires that you soak dried beans overnight. No problem! Just rinse your beans well, put them in a giant bowl and cover them by a few inches with cold water. Then leave them on the counter overnight. 

You need:

• 4 cups mixed dried beans, soaked overnight.
  - Choose from: black beans, black eyed peas, white beans, cranberry beans, kidney beans, pinto beans or gigante beans…there are a lot of dried beans in the world, so pick the ones you like - 4 cups of them, mixed - and soak them in plenty of water overnight.
• 3-4 cups chopped ham bits - any fatty or unsightly parts of a ham you’ve trimmed away would be perfect. (No ham bits? Use a hock!)
• 3 bay leaves
• 5 quarts water 
• 3-4” piece of parmesan rind

Start the soup: 

1. Put everything in the above list in your largest soup pot. 
2. Bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Allow the soup to simmer for 2.5 hours, stirring occasionally.

Add to the soup:

• Dice a yellow onion. Put it in a sauté pan set over medium-low heat and let it gently caramelize with a tiny glug of olive oil. Once the onion has caramelized and there are bits of brown stuck to the pan, deglaze the pan with a bit of balsamic vinegar. Remove the onions from the heat and add to the soup.
• 8 oz good quality tomato sauce
• 14 oz diced, fire roasted tomatoes
• a few good grinds of black pepper
• a glug of balsamic vinegar
• two good pinches of kosher salt
• 3/4 t cumin
• 1/4 t Hungarian paprika
• 1/4 t allspice
• 1/8 t cloves

Once you’ve added all of the above to the soup and have stirred well, continue to simmer for 30-45 minutes until the flavors have melded and the beans are perfectly biteable. Fish out the parm rind and any strange bits of ham. Adjust the seasonings and you’re ready to enjoy.

Now you’ve got a lot of soup on your hands! I suggest refrigerating one half and freezing the other. The refrigerated half will result in at least two good dinners. And having soup in the freezer means dinner in flash when you’re short on time.

Oh, and, I’ve made this soup quite a few times, making tweaks along the way. Here are some variations that have worked splendidly:

• For part of your dried bean mix, use lentils. They will basically break down completely and make the soup a great deal thicker. Yum! And comforting when it’s cold out.
• When it comes time to serve the soup, place a nest of ribbon-cut raw kale in the bottom of each bowl. This pumps up the nutritional value of the soup AND adds a crunchy, zesty element to the soup.
• For an even meatier dish, add cooked sausage to each bowl at serving time.

in yesterday’s post i mentioned a fig & bacon compote i’ve been using at work. we’re also turning out a delicious fig bar with a maple & sea salt glaze. figs figs figs. everywhere!

even here:



thank you Yotam Ottolenghi (and the guardian) for this delicious sounding sweet potato & fig concoction! click on the photo for more…

i kinda feel like i have a lot of balls talking (or typing) all that talk about salads and then - then - posting about mac & cheese. because, let’s be honest here, the last thing i need right now is a bowl of white noodles covered in cheese sauce.

but never mind all that. i committed long ago to not ever (ever) letting food make me feel guilty - that’s what parenthood and the in-laws are for!

getting on with it: it’s green chile season. if you are lucky enough to know someone with new mexican ties, you ought to beg that person to get a hold of some freshly roasted hatch chiles for you. if you aren’t that lucky in the friend department, you might want to see if your local specialty market is carrying hatch chiles. they don’t last long, so you should grab them if you see them!

since freshly roasted green chiles started showing up at my market, i’ve been celebrating their deliciousness like you wouldn’t believe. it’s like i’m organizing my own chile festival over here, i swear.  

my latest incarnation of chile celebration is mac & cheese. this mac & cheese is unlike any other because it makes use of another of my current obsessions - roasted shallots. add in a bit of bacon and you’ve got a veritable parade of deliciousness on your hands. (if you played an instrument in high school like - say - the trumpet, you should dig it out the night you make this mac & cheese and call your family to the dinner table by performing a one-man (or woman!) parade around the table. sure, they’ll think you’re crazy for a minute, but when they taste this mac & cheese they’ll change their tune. ha! i said tune!)

anyways, enough of my lack-of-sleep-induced rambling. let’s get to the food!

roasted shallot & green chile mac & cheese with bacon 
makes two 9x13” pans

you need:

• 1/2 c butter
• 2/3 c flour
• 6 c milk
• 1 t kosher salt
• 1/2 t granulated garlic

• 8 oz jack cheese, shredded
• 20 oz beecher’s flagship cheese, shredded

• 24 oz macaroni noodles

• 24 roasted shallots, chopped
• 5 roasted chiles, chopped
• 6 slices bacon, cooked & chopped 

make the mac & cheese:

1. melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and whisk in flour. cook while whisking for 2-4 minutes. you’re not looking for the butter to brown at all, you simply want to make sure the flour & the butter combine and cook together a bit. guess what? you just made a roux! magic! 
2. slowly add the milk. whisk constantly. cook until the sauce thickens, about 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently. remove from the heat.
3. add the cheeses, salt and garlic powder. stir and stir until all the cheese is melted and all ingredients are incorporated. this is your cheese sauce. set it aside until your noodles are ready.
4. speaking of noodles, boil your macaroni. you’ll want to cook it a minute or two less than the package instructions suggest. drain the noodles and then pour them back into the pot you boiled them in.
5. over the cooked noodles, pour the cheese sauce. once the cheese sauce is on, add the chopped shallots, chopped chiles and bacon. mix the entire thing together very well so that all of the ingredients are combined.
6. divide the macaroni between two 9x13” pans and bake at 350 for approximately 30 minutes. if you’re not feeding an army, you can freeze one entire pan for later. perfect.

ps: why, yes, this recipe does look a lot like the one i posted ages ago for plain ol’ macaroni & cheese!

i can’t believe i’m going to say this, but, sometimes i just want a huge salad for dinner. 

generally i arrive to work at 4am. sometimes 4:15. or 4:17. in order to make this possible, my alarm goes off at 3:30am. at this time of the morning (which is, basically, still night,) the last thing i want to do is think about packing a lunch. because of this, right around 9am everyday i eat a cookie. and then perhaps a few bites of a tart. and then maybe a bit of pie. all of this adds up to trouble. delicious trouble, yes, but still trouble.

to make a loooong and butter-filled story short, because of all the eating i do at work, sometimes i just need a salad. 

thankfully the world of salad is so vast and so tasty - coming up with something perfect (and fast) is never difficult. sometimes i simply throw together some greens and a bit of veg and call it good, other times i get a bit more complicated. but one thing is true: the more effort you put into a salad, the more delicious it is. homemade dressings, roasted vegetables, grilled protein - all of it can add up to a dinner that’s much more than just a salad. 

one thing i love in salad is an onion. but a raw onion is sometimes too powerful for me. and a grilled onion? sometimes i just don’t want to fire up the grill. a roasted onion? same thing…after working an oven most of the day at work, i sometimes prefer my evenings to be oven-free.

thankfully the amazing michael ruhlman has an answer to my onion-in-salad conundrum: behold the blanched onion.

in all my years of salad eating, i have never thought to blanch an onion. blanching takes the sharpness out of the onion leaving behind the sweetness…and an onion of perfect texture for a salad. you really, really should try it. really.

blanched onions

you need: 

• 2 large yellow onions, peeled and thinly sliced
• very icy ice bath

blanch the onions: 

1. bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. (hint: use more salt than you think you should, and your onions will be perfectly seasoned.)
2. add the onion slices to the boiling water and boil for one full minute.
3. remove the onions from the water and plunge into the prepared ice bath.
4. let the onions sit in the ice bath for two minutes, then remove to a paper towel-lined plate.
5. make a salad! use these onions! and if you don’t use them all, they’ll hold over in the fridge perfectly.

i’m not shy about my love for mr. hugh fearnley-whittingstall. and his column from last weekend’s the guardian isn’t helping.

subject: bacon.
yes, i’m swooning.

the column includes recipes for chops, soup & a strata. all with bacon.

the strata includes leeks, bacon and cheddar - sounds like an outstanding candidate for your next brunch. the recipe can be found here.

and to quote the wonderful mr. hugh:

It’s amazing how many dishes are improved by the addition of even just a little bit of salty, porky brilliance.

amen to that.

weekday mornings. phew.
is it just me, or are weekday mornings always a delicate balance? i generally try to get up at least an hour & 1/2 earlier than anyone else in the house. the minute my feet hit the ground i’m working - making coffee, squeezing in a few loads of laundry, researching & writing this here diary, reviewing work emails, replying to work emails - it’s non-stop. but! this balance of work is only possible if everyone stays asleep…on the days where my kid wakes up earlier than usual, it’s all over. work is out the window and i’m instead (forced) to partake in some kind of crazy star wars production where i’m usually assigned the very flattering role of chewbacca (don’t ask.)

but today they stayed asleep. i got all my work done AND had time (well, it only takes about 3 minutes) to whip together this french toast. it sits while you finish up your morning chores and the household wakes up…you fry it up and within minutes you’ve got a from-scratch breakfast on the table…on a weekday morning!

chinese five spice brioche french toast
makes 6 slices

you need:

• brioche loaf - a few days old - sliced into 6 - 1/2” thick slabs
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup half & half
• 2 t vanilla extract
• 1 T plus 1 t chinese five spice sugar (recipe here)
• hefty pinch kosher salt

whisk together 3 eggs, half & half, vanilla, chinese five spice sugar and salt. place the brioche slabs into a roasting pan. pour the custard over, let sit a few seconds, then turn each piece of brioche so that the custard coats evenly. let sit until everyone wakes up - anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours is fine.

1. as you’re nearing breakfast time, preheat the oven to 300. plop a slab of butter into a generously-sized frying pan and place it over medium heat.
2. when the butter is melted and starts to bubble a bit, fit a few slices of custard-coated brioche into the pan.
3. let the brioche fry until golden on the first side, then flip and repeat.
4. as soon as the french toast is finished, remove it from the pan and store it in the oven - the oven will keep it warm AND will dry it out just a tiny bit more to make it perfectly ready for an extra coating of butter and a pool of maple syrup (which is how i suggest you serve it.)

i like to serve my brioche french toast with sausages and fruit. and a giant mug of coffee.

did you see yesterday’s post about the tart?

well, the lovely ronnie fein saw it and had this to say, “This sounds fabulous — less custardy than quiche. Lots of cheese. YUM.”

and she’s right! the tart filling is full of leeks and bacon - the cream & egg mixture just barely binds them together. after baking you certainly don’t have a quiche on your hands, but a very definite leek tart.

and speaking of cream, if you’re going to go to the trouble of making this tart, please use heavy cream - just as the recipe is written. no low fat substitutions, got it? good.

and the cheese. it certainly plays a roll in the deliciousness factor of the tart - but don’t substitute the gruyere for any other cheese. there’s a careful balance of salt in this tart and you don’t want to throw it off by using the wrong cheese.

good lord, i’m a control freak. sorry. uh, make this tart! have fun doing it! (but do it exactly as i say!)