making things

I keep wondering if it makes sense for me to have some kind of career where I cook food on a regular basis. Or, I guess, alternately, spawn a Brangelina quantity of children.

The thing is, I just really like to cook and would often just like to do it all day. It relaxes me, it helps me do my best thinking and work through the stuff in my head, it’s a creative act, it helps show people I love them, it’s a satisfactorily sensory experience between the aromas and the sounds and the colors and the textures.

But only have so many people to feed.

So I make muffins and eat way way too many of them.

 

Apple Greek Yogurt Muffins

1 T ground flax
3 T water
1 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1 T wheat germ
½ tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup maple syrup
3 T brown sugar
1/4 c. canola oil
½ cup Greek yogurt
¼ c. milk
2 small apples, cut into tiny dice

Set aside flax and water in a large bowl; let sit until frothy. Meanwhile, combine dry ingredients (flour through baking powder).To the flax combo, add remaining wet ingredients (maple syrup through soymilk or milk). Whisk together vigorously until smooth and bubbly.

Add a third of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and fold gently to combine. Add half the apples, then another third of the flour, then the rest of the apples, then the rest of the flour.

Bake at 350 for 14 minutes.

This was a good one. Soft and lovely on the inside.

It actually made more than a dozen muffins’ worth of batter (if you fill your muffin tins 3/4 full, as I do. If you pack ‘em and have mega muffin tops, more power to you, and you’re set.)

However, I prefer to have extra to bake into a giant muffin top. Mm. I also sprinkled it with brown sugar, just to make sure it was okay.

 

In other making stuff news, I opened up my latest issue of Cooking Light and saw this recipe for strawberry buttermilk sherbet and thought it looked quite nice.

And I had grocery store strawberries I no longer had any interest in eating straight up becaaaaaaause we had FARMER’S MARKET STRAWBERRIES that look like jewels and taste like sunshine (and we got free “I love local strawberries” pins!).

So I made the recipe (ish, by which I mean my store didn’t have full fat buttermilk so I used low fat and I didn’t have agave nectar so I used stevia and a little bit of honey)

The bright red strawberries looked lovely against the frothy white buttermilk.

And the pureed color was lovely.

  

A trip in the ice cream maker resulted in something that looked a lot more like granita than sherbet, but tasted great.

Finally, making food, or assembling food, or basically just providing people with food, is how I show them I love them and attempt to help them cope with life’s difficulties. Our poor choir director came down with bronchitis the week immediately preceding Easter (where he had to conduct the choir at ridiculous quantities of services). Then his wife got sick too.

So I made them an Easter basket! Of wellness :D

First, soup, cause you gotta have soup when you’re sick. This turned out GREAT and it was all slow cooker.

Headed out to class followed by services on good Friday, I threw in my slow cooker: 1 bay leaf, 1/4 a cup or so of chopped celery, 1/2 a cup or so chopped carrots, 1 cup lentils, and 4 cups water. Put it on auto shift and left for ten hours or so.

I arrived home and chopped up a bunch of Swiss chard and put that in. At that point it was good enough to eat, so we did, some.

But THEN, knowing I wanted to deliver our friends some soup the following morning, I added some oomph, in the form of 1 can of fire roasted tomatoes (the garlic seasoned kind), the remainder of a can of chickpeas, and a chopped up potato.

The next morning (say, 8 hours later?) I turned it off. And the potato was cooked PERFECTLY and the flavors were GREAT!

(Seasoned it with salt and pepper last; as I’ve heard salt can slow down dried bean cooking time.)

Also the ancient Greek remedy of Vick’s vapo rub. True story.

A tea variety (pomegranate white, cinnamon stick caffeinated black, and my all time favorite decaf Good Earth)

And because this is an Easter basket and there must be treats, a choco bunny:

And this fun guy, picked up at the Greek store buying Easter provisions. Like peanut brittle but made with sesame seeds and honey!

 

And now I am home on a day off, writing a whole bunch of pre-scheduled blog posts, and despite the fact that I ate roughly four peoples’ worth of Easter treats yesterday, I still want to cook something!

christmases

Wakeup! Christmas Morning! Woohoo!

Oh… it’s 7:30. Oh… my entire family is asleep. Oh… we’re going to church before we do anything and that’s at 10.

Do some yoga! (I think I did yoga on Thanksgiving too? My practice is basically confined to major holidays when I wake up before anyone else)

Make some gluten free shortbread for our Celiac-disease afflicted friend who wasn’t actually at church but I was happy to give the recipe a trial run before its debut at our party next week!

Went to church!

Went home!

Presents with nuclear family!

Hop in car!

Arrive at Kathy and Tom’s. Park self next to unbelievably amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing fireplace.

  

Was delighted to see my wonderful family members, and think of those who weren’t there (that Keep Austin Weird mug, which I immediately nabbed, was a gift from my cousin Rachel, who with her hubby Richard and her parents and sister are still in Austin, with Richard and Rachel’s BABY! Who I want to meet, STAT!)

And it was nice to catch up with everyone in a delightfully low-key and relaxed and fun brunch, the spirit of which I think is nicely evoked in my cousin Steven’s bacon frosting.

Obviously, food was present in mammoth quantities, laid out in a beautiful spread.

 

I probably would’ve eaten a bagel…

Except instead there were biscuits! Done in the Cook’s Illustrated manner.

Kathy is a GREAT cook! I spent the first part of the morning interrogating her about where she got all her recipes cause they were so good :D

She’s also my most devoted blog fan. She said “So I was reading your blog the other day and went ‘Colcannon? What’s that?!’” And I interrupted and went “Ooh it’s so good you should make it!” and she said “I did! And the other recipe you posted that day!” SO FLATTERING.

Onto what else Kathy made- breakfast casseroles! One with jack cheese and queso fresco sprinkled atop, and one with sausage (and it was bliss to be reunited with meat) and DANG that sausage one was exceptional.

It had eggs and bread in it, and the interior was soooooooo perfect; tender, custardy, ethereally light and not at all dry or overcooked. A testament to eggs! (And sausage!)

How many awesome streusel-topped applesauce muffins did I eat? I am sort of not prepared to talk about it. And really don’t actually know… since I was mostly just slamming back streusel. (Slamming back streusel might be the title of my hair metal band’s first album…)

Our contribution: my mom’s Linzer hearts and my/my boyfriend’s gingerbread (after an adorably disastrous gingerbread house, he still had a tonnnnn of gingerbread dough yet, so I made adorable little men. Thanks, adorable man, for enabling me to do so!)

 

Thoroughly overwhelmed (in a good way) by the riches laid before me, I began with a leisurely mimosa and a cup of tea. And coffee. And tea. And water. And tea (I try to consume a lot of fluids at these things to minimize stuffing my face too much. In the case of the muffins, I happily conceded defeat).

I love mimosas so much. (And now giggle and think about the My Drunk Kitchen version)

My first of several plates. Half a muffin (ha!); taste of both casseroles as well as some cheese grits made by my aunt Nan; grapes (many more were consumed), a delicious layer of smoked salmon, tomato, and capers; biscuit; a smoked oyster. I. Love. Christmas.

 

(Nice legs, sis!)

Highlights of conversation at Christmas was learning how to say something unprintable in Farsi from one cousin, having another cousin urge me to visit her in Amsterdam and travel throughout Europe because “It’s still fondue season!”, and having yet another cousin urge me to practice forklift driving in a parking lot.

My family is awesome.

Gag gifts of note (nerf guns are basically mandatory at our family events and you generally have projectiles whizzing by at some point in the proceedings!)

 

BUT WAIT!

Though I’d definitely eaten enough for an entire day (or three…), it was in fact only 4:30 or so when we left the cornucopia of deliciousness and fun that was the Mom’s Family Brunch.

Now (children of divorce, who else is familiar with this syndrome?) the Dad’s Family Dinner!

Let’s start by admiring how frickin’ adorable me and my little sister were back in the day:

The evening began, like many on both sides of my family, with artichoke dip.

I snort every time my dad refers to it as “his” famous artichoke dip… since he definitely got the recipe from his ex mother in law.

Think I’ve written about it before, but it’s just jarred artichoke hearts, cheddar cheese, garlic and mayo. So simple, so delicious!

Bodie (looking like a little sissy in his bow; but he was totally proud) begged incessantly throughout the Christmas activities and seemed particularly interested in this dip.

And Jasmine was all ‘Oh please, I’m not waking up for that.”

    

We did a formaler (ish) sit down dinner.

My contributions:

1. Totally boss kale salad

Combine:

Shredded kale (I got mine at the farmer’s market the previous day. It was purpley!)
Craisins
Pecans (1 cup pecans, 1 tsp. oil, 1 tsp. dried thyme, dash of hot sauce, salt; roast til golden)
Dressing- a haphazard mixture of lemon juice, honey, mustard, olive oil, and cinnamon

SO SO SO DELICIOUS! The honey was key.

Also, pumpkin risotto. Made in my usual barley risotto style (see my recipage!) but with mushrooms added with onion at the beginning, roasted cubed pumpkin stirred in at the end, and a bit of thyme.

My dad, like any holiday he hosts (literally; he has done this for Thanksgiving) made lamb.

I. Love. Lamb.

(Note: the fact that the meat is browned, rather than still “baa”-ing, means that my dad horrifically overcooked the meat by his standards)

In a tribute to my (recently) late grandmother, my aunt Jeanie made scalloped potatoes. And, as my dad and I rather candidly pointed out later, while making us miss her and think of her, they were definitely BETTER than my grandmother’s. Still awesomely rich, but Jeanie did a great job of evenly slicing the potatoes so they were all perfectly cooked (rather than an occasional alarmingly al dente bite).

The plate. Went back for more salad and potatoes!

  

Also a tribute to my grandmother: English trifle!

Do people without roots in the British Empire eat traditional English trifle anymore? I’m talking sponge cake sprinkled in sherry, raspberry jam, peaches (canned; you know it!), custard made from Bird’s custard powder, whipped cream, slivered almonds.

    

So good! Multiply this by about five, *rolls eyes*

Then pressies and a minor miracle: the women on my dad’s side of the family, all with open eyes and a reasonably attractive expression!

My aunt Michele, me, my sis Malindi, my aunt Jeanie, and my stepmother Sally.

Merry Christmas friends! Hope you all enjoyed your holiday as much as I did!

how bout them apples (and more!)?

When you think about it, farmer’s markets are an amazing thing.

Our food supply does so much to separate us from its producers. Your chicken burrito at taco bell contains from an anonymous chicken that lived under crowded, dark, likely unhygienic conditions; a tortilla that was made at a factory by workers who you’ll never meet; vegetables that were grown on industrial farms spread all over the place, likely picked by people with minimum pay and minimal rights. If you’ve gone through the exercise in masochism that is a viewing of Food, Inc., you know these things.

Which is why it is so amazing to have access (and believe me, I recognize how lucky I am to have it proximate to and affordable for me) to a farmer’s market. You go to the market, you say hey to your buddies, and they hook you up with a bunch of free fruit cause they like you :D

I mean, obviously, that is not the reason to go. My usual farmer’s market, which I attend most every Saturday, has vendors who routinely (though lovingly) mock me for the large quantities of kale I purchase. I don’t get freebies.

But this Thursday one I hit up occasionally- man they treat me right. I paid a ludicrously low amount for the initial quantity of peaches and apples in my bag (about half the amount you see above), and then when I told them I’d be starting a new job and not coming on Thursdays anymore, they stuffed in a whole bunch of extras (many of them those ugly duckling specimens with just the barest hint of bruises that often turn out to be the most tender and juicy fruit).

I also paid full price for some heirloom tomatoes that were JUST SO GORGEY.

They’d had some small green apples (whose name is escaping me at the moment) of which, when I inquired of their taste, they hooked me up with a free sample. The grower said it was a baking apple, and I went, “I dunno, tastes good for eating to me.”

However, if you have eight apples for a two person household, why not bake with some of them? As you all know, I like baking muffins on any day that ends in y!

I am comforted to know that there is something in the current generation that relates deeply to the urge to bake. Perhaps its the constant push for success combined with the crappy economy in which we’re coming of age. We all seem to be craving the calm, methodical ritual of baking. My Americorps coworker Patricia and I have been swapping unemployment baking stories. Over this past Saturday’s gabfest with my bestest friend Lydia, we discovered that we were both home alone with boyfriends out of town and both planned soothing, labor-intensive culinary projects (bread for her, ravioli for me).

Three cheers for making muffins and feeling good inside.

I decided to take out for a spin a new (discounted!) purchase my sister had made: spelt flour! I’m inordinately fond of Trader Joe’s spelt bread and have seen spelt touted over the blogosphere for whole grain yet tender and soft baked goods.

4 grams of fiber in 1/4 of a cup; not too shabby!

First I threw together a batter, held together with a flax egg. I just haven’t been using eggs for baking, because we get our eggs at the farmer’s market and they just seem too delicious to disappear into a batter.

Then I folded in huge quantities of the apples. Those good-for-baking green apples were teeny tiny (you can sort of see their relative size next to the other apples and peaches), so I used three.

Put them in my beloved muffin tin (it was inherited from my grandmother, I think. She took cooking and baking very seriously- and did it semi-professionally for a time as a caterer- so she always had good equipment. This tin is great because it is super heavy and solid, so it conducts the heat really nicely and doesn’t ever warp).

And then I decided I wanted these muffins to be AWESOME.

My muffins are always good. They are also always healthy, in that I always do most or all whole grain, limit added sweetener, and make the star ingredient something virtuous like fruit.

However, I wanted these to be AWESOME. I’d gotten these apples out of the kindness and generosity of someone’s heart, and I wanted to showcase them in the best muffins ever.

To me, that spelled crumb topping.

Walnuts and brown sugar. How can you go wrong?! Cha-ching.

Sure enough, the scent of them baking filled my entire house with the aromas of fall, crisp weather, orange leaves, comforting home.

They came out beautifully golden, with gently crisped nuts and brown sugar atop.

Here’s how it’s done!

Apple Muffins

2 T flax
¼ cup plus 2 T water
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup spelt flour
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg
¼ cup canola oil
1/3 cup stevia baking mix (or white sugar; if you are using this, use a bit more)
¼ cup maple syrup
1 cup buttermilk
3 small apples (or 2 large apples), cored and chopped into small pieces
3 T walnuts, finely chopped
2 T brown sugar

Mix together flax and water and leg sit until frothy and somewhat thickened.

Meanwhile, mix together flours, baking powder and soda, and spices, and set aside.

Whisk together oil, stevia, syrup, and buttermilk with flax mixture. Gently dry ingredients into wet ingredients until just combined. Fold in apples. Pour muffin mixture into a greased muffin tin.

Combine walnuts and brown sugar. Sprinkle evenly over the tops of the muffins.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins for 5 minutes in the muffin tin, then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

I mean, if you feel like waiting that long.

Obviously, a fresh hot muffin was required to play a starring role in my lunch.

To round out my other food groups, I put together a salad of spinach, some of those lovely cherry tomatoes. tuna, avocado, and oil and lemon.

And then, once I’d dispense with the protein and veggies, devoted my full attention to eating this fantastic muffin.

I eagerly await using more spelt flour in the future, because its influence contributed to a wonderfully battered muffin. The outside had that wonderful slight crispness that gave way to your teeth as you bit in. The inside was incredibly soft and tender, flecked with the yummy spices that’d filled it. The apples provided pleasant chunks of flavor but had cooked in the oven so that they were tender, not crunchy.

It was, indeed, a fantastic muffin.

One turned into two… then another that night… suffice it to say they went quickly.

Finally, I’ve recently updated my About Me and My Recipes pages. Check ‘em out!