Homemade Cereal Bars

Homemade chewy granola bars is one of those recipes you see all over pinterest, often wrapped in slips of parchment paper, secured with red and white baker's twine, and wonder if they every turn out like anything you would like to eat. 

I am pleased to say these do come out quite tasty, although there may be more sugar involved than you care to eat, at least there is not added salt !

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup scooped (not packed) light brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
2/3 cup sunflower seed butter

4 cups rolled oats
2 cups puffed rice cereal

3 tbls roughly chopped dark chocolate or mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Equipment:
large glass bowl
measuring utensils
9 x 12 backing pan
foil to line and cover pan

Process:
- Melt first four ingredients in microwave on low/defrost for 2-3 minutes; stir until smooth.
- Toss together oats and rice cereal
- Pour wet ingredients into dry (except chocolate) and stir gently until coated.
- Press mixture into lined pan, sprinkle chocolate on top and gently press in with foil.
- Chill one our before cutting and serving

Makes 18 2"x 3" bars, which in my house is 9 servings

Cauliflower Pizza flatbreads - as good as you've heard!

Cauliflower pizza crust is one of those things you read about on paleo or celiac blogs and think can't actually be worth eating - I certainly did for the longest time!  I have recently come to the realization that cauliflower isn't actually evil, if it's been sort of cooked.  I cannot stand to eat it raw, or steamed, or boiled, or in chunks larger than my thumb in a stir fry.  I have discovered that I like it raw from frozen and, of all things, baked - which is where the pizza flatbreads come in. 

Juliet Ames, Baltimore artist (and force majeure) behind The Broken Plate, is also locally famous for her love of good food.  If you've ever had a nasty cold or crushing bout with the flu and can't bear to think about solid foods, spend half an hour with her instagram and you'll find yourself getting dressed for a trip to the grocery store in no time flat.  

But I digress.  The below is a variation of her MAC Healthy Recipe of the Week for Cauliflower Pizza Crust. The only thing healthy about my version is that it still doesn't have refined grains, added sugar or anything else in a commercial crust that might not be desirable to you.  I have hens, so eggbeaters aren't a thing in my life and I used slightly less cheese than the original recipe, but the result was a worthy treat that my housemates would like in the regular rotation: 

Ingredients:
3 cups shredded cauliflower (about 1 half medium head, shredded in food processor)
3/4 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella (or whatever other cheap American shredded cheese in a pinch-top bag you can find
3 eggs, beaten
1 tbls + spice mix (Oregano/basil or Chipotle/Fiesta Lime)
assorted toppings including approx 1/8 cup additional cheese

Preheat oven to 350F, line cookie sheet with parchment paper *-* Parchment paper is absolutely crucial, because without it you will wind up with soft, smushy cauliflower breads that have a texture more suited to a casserole (and being eaten with a fork!) than flatbreads or crusts.

Combine ingredients well and evenly spread onto parchment paper in three equal portions.  Bake for twenty minutes, flip and bake for ten minutes more.  Top as desired and brown until cheese is melted.

If you are looking for a not pizza use - mix Mrs Dash Fiesta Lime seasoning into the crusts and top with smashed black beans, grilled onions and colby jack cheese.

one pot frittata

There's a derogatory comment in here about 'simple is as simple does', but, quite frankly, there are a lot of mornings where I need simple. The lovely frittata below was the result of six eggs and one each thinly sliced courgette, red pepper and sweet onion. If you have a silicone whisk you can whip the eggs and fold in your veg in your rice cooker bowl, flip the switch and by the time you get out of the shower your lunch is ready - just needs to be cooled and tossed in a lunch container with some leftover potato salad or frozen broccoli florets. Also an excellent way to have the question of 'What's for dinner?' dealt with while you go do math homework or air out hockey gear or whatever it is your family demands upon arriving at the domicile each evening.

Seriously simple and seriously good. Oh, and that's not a spot of muck on the left front edge of my stove, but a raw spot of metal where I dropped a pressure cooker one magical summer night and banged off the enamel. Ah, good times.

more strawberries

with organic whipped cream

This recipe is from The Two Fat Ladies. I recently discovered that my day coworkers didn't know who the Two Fat Ladies were. Obviously I have to work harder share the joys of eating what the earth gave us.

The cake:
Preheat oven to 450 F

sift together
7 oz self-raising flour
1 oz ground almonds
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon

rub in
6tblsp butter

mix in
3 oz sugar

stir in
one large beaten egg

mix in up to 1/2 cup milk

Dough should come out a bit like a scone. Divide into two and press each half into a buttered 8-inch round cake pan. Bake at 450 for 10-15 minutes.

Cool completely on a rack.

Topping:
Whip up 1/2 pint heavy cream with 1 tsp powdered sugar

Layer one cooled cake with lots of sliced strawberries, layer with cream then more strawberries.

If you want to be decadent and messy, put the other cake on top and do the same. You can serve more people a generous slice, though, if you make two piled up cakes like the ones pictured.

Giant 'shrooms!

Okay, so maybe I was shooting for a bit of a sensational title there. It's been awhile since I posted a recipe, which is just a shame. So here's one of last week's dinners - Topped portabello mushrooms and baked eggs.

Start with portabello caps (without stems), one per person. In our world, they were filled with (in this order) dijon mustard, shredded spinach, diced purple onion, cheese.

I recommend shredded cheese, but all we had on hand were slices. Shredded melts into the onions and spinach and is easier to cut after it's baked.

Throw them into a hot oven (400F) with a dish of baked eggs for twenty mintues. When they're done they look something like this:

Baked eggs can be as simple or as complicated as you like. We like simple. This is a 9x12 pan filled with tomato sauce - we use what was canned last summer, but anything that's chunky and flavourful is excellent. Fill the pan with sauce and then use a spoon to creat little wells (that's why chunkier is better) and drop one raw egg into each well. Bake alongside your mushrooms - after twenty minutes it should look like this:

After twenty minutes the yolks are cooked through but still soft, like a well prepared hardboiled egg. And may look like this:

one bowl + double chocolate = brownies

This recipe is a variation of one by Robert Morocco of the fantabulous 'The Baker's Dozen Cookbook' yum, yum, yum, I say.

I apologize that I do not have photos, but this was one of those '7 am, just in from shoveling, the sooner I have this in the oven, the sooner I can get out of the shower and eat it' preparations.

Ingredients
1 cup toasted nuts (optional - recommend pecan or walnut pieces)

6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
2 ounces unsweetened cocoa powder (not drinking cocoa)
8 tbls = 1 stick = 1/2 cup unsalted butter, chopped

3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract (real vanilla, please)
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs, room temp

7 tbls wheat flour


Preheat the oven to 325 F

In a glass bowl large enough to eventually hold everything, melt the butter and chocolates, mixing until smooth.

Mix in sugar, vanilla and salt until well incorporated.

Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each.

Last, add the flour, stirring heartily for a full minute - you'll know it's ready when the batter is smooth and shiny. Stir in nuts if using.

Dump the batter into a 9" square pan that has been lined with foil, shiny side up, with a little bit hanging over the sides. (Don't butter or flour the foil or pan.)

Bake for 40 minutes +/- or until the top is puffed, cracked and slightly shiny - a toothpick stuck in the middle should come out with a few moist crumbs, but no smear of batter.

Cool completely in the pan (if you can). Pull it out by the foil, peel the foil away and cut. This is a very fudgy brownie, if you want neat and tidy pieces, freeze the uncut brownie for an hour and cut using a sharp knife, cleaning the blade between slices.

tarabu's two cents' worth:

Salt - I know the big boys of tv food go on about the wonders of kosher salt, but I also know that goiter is making a comeback because the health conscious have removed table salt from their diets. Personally, we don't eat a lot of packaged foods and don't add salt to any of our meals, outside the occasional use of low-sodium Old Bay, so I use old fashioned iodized salt in my baking and I have yet to have a complaint that it doesn't have the 'pure, light' taste of kosher salt.

Melting Chocolate - You can either do this over pan of simmering (not boiling) water or in the microwave. If using a microwave, heat on 30% power for 40 seconds at a time. Remember that there is some water in the butter and if it reaches boiling temperature, it will spurt butter and possibly chocolate all over your microwave's innards. And that's a waste of butter and chocolate.

Eggs - Cold eggs taken right from the fridge don't whip well, which is why cookbooks generally tell you to leave eggs at room temperature for a few hours before using. In fact, the 34 - 37 degrees of most refrigerators is too cold for eggs. If you are lucky enough to have a larder that stays betweeen 45 and 55 degrees, that's perfect. If not, set your eggs out for up to two hours before using. If you notice your eggs are sweating, then your fridge is too cold or your kitchen is too warm - if your kitchen is over 70 degrees, set your eggs 'out' in a cupboard so they can lose some of their cool safely.

Cooling - Becuase this is a fudgy brownie, you need to let it cool properly before cutting if you want to have even pieces. If you are a member of chez tarabu, however, you wait five minutes before dumping it onto a serving dish and giving every one present a chunk on a plate and a spoon.

The source:

Hello, August

Hello, 95-degree days with 90% humidity.

Hello, hours spent standing over a hot stove dunking peaches to skin them.

Hello, ice cold water bath.

Hello, paring knife.

Hello, lemon juice and sugar.

Hello, chopping and chopping and chopping.

Hello, giant pot that simmers and simmers.

Hello, hot boiling jars.

Hello, heavy canner. Very heavy canner.

Oh, how I missed you:

Retro Food Month - Recipe System

I'm playing along with MrsB's Retro Food Month for the month of February.

Today's feature: the recipe system - Me, I have a little shelf on the side of my kitchen where my lead cookbooks rotate in and out. I also have a big three-ring binder full of recipes in document protectors, and lots of blank paper for jotting things down as they come to me - or after dinner when we all agree that it's worth remembering!

I'm a bit of a magpie for recipes, so my sleeves are full of pieces pulled off the internet, snipped from magazines and picked up on holidays - historic mills are great sources for baked goods!

Gingerbread Cake

This recipe is a variation of the Yorkshire Gingerbread recipe made by Clarissa Dickson Wright in the first series of 'Two Fat Ladies' and is printed in their companion book, Cooking with the Two Fat Ladies, which is currently out of print, but you can find second-hand copies for a pretty good rate these days.

I have altered her recipe to include whole wheat flour and adjusted the cooking times for cupcakes.

My version:

Ingredients

1 cup - whole wheat flour

2/3 cup - self-rising flour

2 tbls - ground ginger

1 tbls - ground allspice

1/2 tsp - salt

1 tsp - baking soda

1/2 cup (1 stick) - unsalted butter

1/2 cup - packed dark brown sugar

3 eggs, beaten

2/3 cup - molasses

Method

Preheat oven to 340F

Sift together flours, ginger, allspice, salt and baking soda into a bowl.

In a separate bowl cream butter and brown sugar until very soft.

Beat the eggs into the butter/sugar mixture a bit at a time until fully incorporated, then mix in the molasses. Gently fold in the dry ingredients a bit at a time.

Pour into a greased 8x8 cake pan.

Turn oven down to 325F and bake for 50-60 minutes. Cake is done when the top springs back when gently pressed.

tarabu's 2 cents:

Clarissa says to let it cool in the pan and that you should store it in an airtight container for a few days before eating. Mine does not even get the chance to cool before I have eaten some. I made this into cupcakes this evening - I ate three before they were all out of the pan.

They are very chewy and thick with the molasses and I can definitely suggest that if you have dental work like partials, bridgework or braces, that you should probably let it cure for a couple of days or the trauma of cleaning your mouth may outweigh the spicy goodness in your memory.

A note on the baking - if you are using a square pan, it needs to be an old 2.5+ inch deep metal or glass casserole type pan. If you are using a shallow pan like the disposable ones or the kind for making layer cakes divide the batter between two pans, otherwise the batter will pour all over your poor oven as it rises.

If you are going to make cupcakes (like I did today) make 30. I know it looks like it only needs to make two dozen, but you'll have some overflow - and not in a cute muffin top sort of way, but in a 'Who's got a chisel?' sort of way. Bake cupcakes for 25-30 minutes.

Clarissa recommends eating it spread with butter or served with clotted cream and sliced ginger in syrup.

I say it's also good with maple cream cheese and apple cider. There's no apple cider in my house so I will have to settle for a rum toddy.

*contented sigh*

Ridiculously Simple Scones

It's Sunday morning, you may well have all these ingredients in your house, make something lovely.

Preheat oven to 425F

In a large bowl blend:
2 cups flour (all-purpose is fine)
2 tbls white sugar
1 tbls baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Cut into this 1/4 cup (half stick/four tbls) butter or vegan margarine until it is uniformly coarse. A pastry cutter works best, but a couple of knives or a large serving fork can do the job in a pinch.

In a separate bowl blend 1/2 cup light cream (whole milk/soymilk work fine, skim won't do) and one large egg.

Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix quickly until you have a soft slightly sticky dough.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead gently until it comes together (you'll feel it happen)

Press, pat or roll out until it's about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into rounds using a 2.5 inch biscuit cutter, round cookie cutter or the edge of whisky tumbler* leaving as little space between them as possible, re-roll and cut out the rest of the dough.

Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake in hot oven for 12 minutes. Cool for a few minutes on the sheet before moving to a rack.

Eat soon (or right away) with a little butter and jam and a cup of tea.

tarabu's 2 cents:

Cutting - I use a 7 oz neat whisky glass and my scones still separate easily for filling, so you do not necessarily need to have a fancy knife-edged metal cutter. A proper metal cutter does make the job easier, and is necessary if you are making very light biscuits that need room to rise. If you don't have a dedicated cutter and are worried about rising, roll your scone dough out into a rectangle and use a very sharp knife to cut 5" squares, then cut the squares into triangles.

Wash - if you want scones like in a shop, brush a little milk over the top and sprinkle with pearl sugar before baking.

Yes, that's a Highlander mug, and yes, I am a dork.

Shortbread Cookies

Here by popular demand (okay, only Karen asked, but she's popular!) I offer up my Ridiculously Simple Shortbread Cookie Recipe.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound of butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups flour

1/8 teaspoon salt (totally optional, I usually forget it)

1 tsp TrueLemon (crystallized lemon juice, yum, optional)

Tools:

A mixer (hand or stand)

a sieve

a large glass or metal mixing bowl

a rolling pin

oven mitt and cookie sheets or jelly roll pans

a sharp knife

a fork

spatula

The process:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

Cream the butter and sugar really well. In the words of Devo, Whip it Good. Get a good bit of air into the mix.

Then sift the flour (and salt and powdered lemon, if using) in a little at a time. It will be a little coarse at the beginning, just keep mixing and it will come together.

When thourougly mixed, dump out onto a well-floured clean surface. Gently roll out to about 1/2 inch thick, in as close to a rectangle as you can manage. This is a very soft dough, so you just need to push the rolling pin across the surface, rather than push down on the dough. If you do not have a rolling pin, you can just pat it into shape with your hands.

Cut into sticks approx 1/2 inch wide by 2 inch long. Prick a row in the top with tines of a fork.

Transfer sticks to ungreased baking sheets, approx 1/2 inch apart. Load into oven and immediately turn temp down to 275 degrees Farenheit. Bake for 25-30 minutes (check after 20 if your oven is not too reliable), remove when they are a very pale golden.

Cool on wire racks.

Makes approx 3.5 dozen. Enjoy with a copy of tea.

I am sorry I do not have a photo of the finished cookies, but I have eaten them all.