Kate's in a pickle

Recipe Box

2009-03-25T07:40:00.021-07:00

Gentle readers,

I hope you enjoy flipping through this online recipe box as much as your favorite magazine. May your forays in the kitchen always become adventures.

xoxo, Kate

Breakfast foods

Pumpkin cream cheese muffins

Chocolate coconut flax granola

College Hill Coffee blueberry muffins

Cajun potatoes

Easy orange rolls

Ms. Rita's Banana Bread

Tree's granola

Fruit + nut buttermilk scones

Not-so-naughty chocolate and buttermilk swirl cake

Sunflower scones with boiled citrus glaze

Sun-dried tomato and fresh herb spread

Lunch/Dinner

Farfalle pasta with walnuts in a mushroom cream sauce

Swiss, onion, and chard panade

Chickpea salad

The OMFG pizza

Kefir pasta with sausage

Creamy Swiss and pepper sandwiches

Asparagus quiche

Beans and maters

Rice and beans (and cheese)

Spaghetti with roasted tomato cream sauce

Cajun shrimp and rice

Easy tamale pie

Rigatoni with red pepper cream sauce

Shallot, crimini, and chard pizza

Zucchini tart

New Year Black-eyed peas

Barbecued peach pizza

Pan-fried chickpeas with cabbage and potatoes

Caramelized onion and prosciutto pizza

Gouda mushroom quiche
Turkey pot pie
Hoppin' John
Mennonite-style bierocks
Heavenly farro with lemon and tomato
Emo Pasta

Fruits

Cranberry peach salad with g.i.n.g.e.r

Candied orange peel with almond

Slow-roasted tomatoes

Three-minute strawberry salad with spearmint

Candied citrus slices

Indigo Jam
Drunken Berry Cobbler

Vegetables

Fried potatoes

Kicky coleslaw with brown sugar dressing

Polenta fries

New potatoes with onions and chard

Slow-roasted tomatoes with cardamom and caraway

Butternut squash gratin

Glazed carrots and zucchini

Radish top-basil pesto
Red cabbage candy (cinnamon rode kool)

Potatoes, Cajunified

Breads

English seed bread

Confetti-top cornbread

Freezable wheat pizza crust

Ms. Rita's Banana Bread
Chai-spiced pumpkin bread

Mennonite-style bierocks
Chai-spiced pumpkin bread with streusel
Crazy Aunt Fruitcake

Soups

Butternut squash soup

Kate's red chili
Potato and caramelized onion soup

Cozy lentil-squash soup

Miso white bean soup with bacon and kale

Snacks and tiny treats

Quickie pumpkin seeds

Vanilla mint French meringues

Sweet n' Spicy Curried Nut Mix

Candied citrus slices

Oven-fried tofu with chili and jam

Meringues noir

Cracker-Jack Peanuts

Party macaroons
Devil with the green dress on
Evil Special K bars
Sun-dried tomato and fresh herb spread

Chocolate

Chocolate champagne truffles

Dark chocolate cookies with espresso

Rocky road brownies

Midnight brownies

Thinish Mint Cookies

Cranberry walnut fudge

Cookies

Sesame coconut cookies

Chocolate chip biscotti with orange

Cashew macadamia butter cookies

Hazelnut cookies for Karen

Chocolate chip walnut cookies

Cherry chili chocolate chip cookies

Coconut macaroons

Almond biscotti with lemon icing

Aloha cookies

Ranger cookies

Gingerbread biscotti with white chocolate-cardamom icing
Thinish Mint Cookies

Pies, Cakes, and Ice Creams

Snow ice cream

Maple buttermilk pie

Double lemon, double poppy seed cake

French pear cake with brandied glaze

Apple pie with cranberries

Pecan pie

Fall pear tart

Dried fruit pie

Chocolate cardamom swirl cheesecake

Strawberry rhubarb tart

Not-so-naughty chocolate and buttermilk swirl cake

Sour cherry apple pie with root beer
Coconut key lime pie with pretzel crust

Beverages

Lemon-ginger syrup

Cherry vanilla cola
Spearmint lemonade with rosewater

Espresso con panna
Mulled wine

Foodie Adventures
Adventure 1: Beast
Adventure 2: DIY Coffee Roasting
Adventure 3: Can it and Bake Cobbler

Work lunch: Miso white bean soup with bacon and kale

2012-01-11T13:02:00.000-08:00

Hello from my lunch break, everybody. I thought I'd show you the chic spot where I eat most mid-day meals.

Check out that stylish desk phone!

We're 11 days into the New Year, but already 2012 has been a busy one for me: less time for blogging, more time for working, hula hooping, and cooking at home. I figured you're also pressed for time, so let's have desk lunch together.

To our virtual picnic, I've brought a round of Babybell cheese, a slice of apple tart and miso white bean soup (with bacon and chard, zuh.) Please excuse the sub-par photos I took with my cell phone just now.

You can make a French apple tart like this one by reading the "Apple Butter Magic" post on Dramatic Pancake. (Actually, Dinah's apple tarte tatin is way sexier than the one I baked.)

I concocted this soup last night around 10. Starting a soup with just-soaked beans at 10 ensures that you'll be up past midnight, waiting for the beans to finish cooking. Despite the late hours, I think that night-time is the best time to experiment with soup. I'm a bit sleepy and loopy and crazy enough to try new things.

I'll give you my best approximation of how to make it. You should have just enough time to finish your lunch and bookmark this recipe before you bop along in your day. If you throw some beans into water for a soak when you get home from work, we can make more of this soup together tonight!

Miso White Bean Soup with Bacon and Kale

from my fevered mind

2 cups small white beans
2 slices smoked bacon
1 - 2 stalks celery, diced
6-10 green onions, sliced
1 cup carrots, diced
2 fresh garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. oregano
2 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth
1 1/2 cups fresh kale, torn into small pieces
1/2 cup fresh mire poix veggies or 1 Tb. dried mire poix (optional)
1/4 cup mild white miso paste
bay leaf

Soak the beans in cold water for 4 - 8 hours. Discard the water and pour beans into a medium-sized soup pot. Cover beans with enough water to have 4 - 5 inches of water on top. Bring the water and beans to a boil, along with a pinch of salt. Let the beans cook at a low boil while you chop veggies.

In a skillet, cook the bacon slices 'till they're crispy. Use a pair of kitchen shears to cut the bacon into small pieces and set the bacon aside. Saute the carrots, green onion, and garlic in the bacon grease-coated skillet.

Stir broth (veggie or chicken) and the miso paste into the simmering beans. It'll take a while for the miso to dissolve, and you may want to add a little more to taste. If the broth is too salty, add more water. The broth should taste slightly salty and have a faint ring of miso flavor. Toss in a bay leaf, then add the sauteed vegetables, kale and bacon pieces.

Let the soup simmer until the beans are soft. Adjust the seasonings before serving (Does it need more water? More miso?) and serve.

I've added a sprinkle of furikake seasoning to it for a nice Japanese touch (you can find furikake at Uwajimaya), but a swirl of Sriracha chili sauce is always in style.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

Butternut squash soup

Potato and caramelized onion soup

Cozy lentil-squash soup

Escape the family with fruitcake

2011-12-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

Is family time getting you down? Would you like to escape your relatives and get some "me time" during the crazy Christmas shuffle? If the answer is yes, now is the time to cultivate a burning desire to bake fruitcake. Become obsessed. Decide that Christmas isn't Christmas until there's a big plate of home-made, alcohol-spiked, fruity cake on the table.

The Diva of Domesticity, Martha Stewart, says the rhythm of creating a fruitcake can be soothing during the holiday rush. She also says you can excuse yourself from holiday obligations by saying "the fruitcake needs tending."

Depending on how patient you care to be, fruitcakes can take between one day and one year to finish. The process breaks down into three steps:

1. Chopping an infinite number of fruits and nuts and soaking them in rum for a day or twelve. (I hear that in the Bahamas, people soak the fruits and nuts in rum for several months before assembling the cake!)

2. Baking the cake on low heat, then brushing it with brandy while it's still warm. (Fans of alcohol abstinence may substitute delectable fruit juices for the brandy glaze.)

3. Letting the cake "cure" for a day, a week, or a year...and brushing it intermittently with rum to keep it moist.

If the idea of "aging" fruitcake scares you, try to think of fruitcake as a sweet variety of cheese; it must ferment for the flavors to develop.

Do you know what this needs? More rum!

My mom went on fruitcake kick for a while. I remember her buying giant jars of red and green candied cherries for it. She doubled the recipe and filled the kitchen with gift-size fruitcakes, wrapped in colored cellophane. I'm pretty sure she skipped the rum part, but I was also too young then to know the difference. Whether boozy or not, I thought those fruitcakes were sure fun. Anything involving green maraschino cherries has to be fun, right?

Now that I've tried baking fruitcake, (loosely) based on the recipe mom used, I know that fruitcakes are a labor of love. By chopping the nuts, candying the fruits, letting the cakes age...you're basically creating an edible testament to the triumph of the human spirit. If dotty Aunt Dottie ever presents you with a home-made fruitcake, know she's also giving you hours of her hard work and thank her accordingly.

At the outset, I thought I could buy pre-candied fruits at the store, stir in the nuts and bake the cake in under an hour. When the store-bought red-and-green cherries tasted like dirt and sawdust--even after a good soak in rum--I candied the contents of our kitchen fruit bowl (tangerines) along with some cranberries and apricots. Once I candied the fruit, I thought, "In for a penny, in for a pound! Let's soak everything in rum for a day, too!"

Once the cakes baked, I wrapped them tightly and let them age in the fridge for a week, brushing them with a bit of brandy every few days. If you'd like to bake this in time for Christmas dinner, just let the filling soak in brandy all day today, then bake the cakes Christmas morning and serve. You could also start a new Christmas tradition: bake the fruitcake, wrap it tightly, and let it age in the freezer until next Christmas. People do this!

I hope you're able to incorporate some fruitcake into Christmas this year. Call it "me time" or share the prep with your family. Also, from my nutty heart to yours, have the happiest of holidays--whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, or just winter solstice.

(I first wrote about baking these fruitcakes for OPB's Arts & Life page. They did a whole article on how people either love fruitcake or love to hate it. Check out the controversy here!)

Crazy Aunt Fruitcake
liberally adapted from Janice Scott’s Brazil Nut Loaf

Makes 2 quick bread loaves or four mini-loaves

Fruits and Nuts:

1 cup walnuts
1 cup roasted & salted cashews (Brazil nuts or pecans)
8 oz. pitted dates, diced (about 1 heaping cup)
½ cup dried apricots
1 cup red maraschino cherries, drained and soaked in rum
1 cup fresh-frozen cranberries
¾ cup glacéed (candied) tangerines or orange peel (with a little fruit left on) (glaze = ½ cup sugar & ½ cup water)
1 cup spiced rum (yes, you’ll have leftovers)

Batter:

1 1/2 C flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 C sugar
6 medium eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

The day before (or up to a week before):

Drain half the liquid from 10 oz. maraschino cherries. Replace the drained liquid with spiced rum. Let the mixture sit.

Snip the dried apricots into quarters, then soak them in a small bowl filled with hot water. Let them sit for 30 - 60 minutes while you dice the dates and prep other fruit.

Use kitchen shears to cut the dates into small squares. Place the dates in a medium-sized bowl. When the apricots are re-hydrated, drain the water and douse the fruit with spiced rum. Stir the dates and apricots well. Place a clean cloth over the bowl and let the fruits soak up more rum. Stir the fruit every so often.

Glacé the tangerines. Slice six small tangerines into quarters, using a sharp knife to cut away most of the fruit. Keep the rind plus a ¼” of fruit on each slice. Next, bring ½ cup water and ½ cup sugar (plus any tangerine juice you can save from your cutting board) to a boil in a saucepan. Stir in the tangerine rinds and let them roll on a medium boil for 5 - 10 minutes, until the skins turn semi-translucent and the syrup reduces.

While the citrus is being candied, take a cup of frozen cranberries and place them in a heat-proof bowl.

Remove glacéed tangerines from heat and poured the mixture over the cranberries. Let everything sit for a few minutes before stirring together the candied citrus, still-whole cranberries, and sweet syrup. Top with (you guessed it) rum, cover the bowl, and let the fruit sit.

On the day of baking:

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease two loaf pans. Line the pans with parchment paper, then grease the paper. Set aside.

Drain the excess brandy off the fruits, but SAVE THE LIQUID. You’ll need it later, to brush the cakes with while they cure.

Stir the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together in a large bowl. Dump in the nuts and preserved fruits, and mix everything together with your hands. Set aside.

Wash your hands, then — using a clean, even larger bowl — beat the eggs with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Add in the fruit/nut mixture a cup or two at a time, mixing on a low speed. (You could also work with your hands again here.)

Pour the batter into your baking pans. Bake for between 1 ½ hours and 1 hour 45 minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Peel away the waxed paper while the loaves are still hot. Brush the cakes lightly with rum while they’re still warm.

You could eat the cake now, or you could go for the gold and:

Let the cake cool, then wrap in rum-soaked cheesecloth. Place the loaves in an air-tight container for a week, checking every so often to add more rum to the cloth. Cure the cake for at least a week or even a month in a cool place (like the fridge.)

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
Ms. Rita's Banana Bread
Drunken berry cobbler
Dried fruit pie

Chai-spiced pumpkin streusel bread...in pictures

2011-11-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

I'll bet you're busy with Thanksgiving preparations. Do you have time to read a long, heartfelt post about Thanksgiving? No.

Do I have time to write one? No. I've got candied yams and cranberry sauce to make. Instead of foisting a lengthy hunk of written word on you, I'll show you how to make chai-spiced pumpkin streusel bread. In pictures. Give your brain a break today!

First, assemble the best ingredients you've got. I scrounged up organic brown sugar, unsalted Rose Valley butter, sea salt, Stash tea, Oregon hazelnuts and my favorite Kansas flour, Hudson Cream (which I found it at The Dollar Tree, of all places.)

Don't forget the pumpkin! You'll use a whole can of pumpkin puree for this bread; spring for the good stuff.

Grease two loaf pans and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Steep 4 - 6 bags of chai tea in 3/4 cup hot water. I chose double spice Stash tea for extra punch, but you don't have to live that dangerously.

This photo is an excuse to showcase my 1970s mixing bowls

Stir together the dry ingredients (flour, salt, spices, optional dry chai mix) in a large bowl. Whisk together the eggs, sugar, oil/butter, tea concentrate and pumpkin in another bowl.

Whisking helps offset the calories from the mashed potatoes you will eat today. Keep that in mind as you whip together the pumpkin, sugars, and oils.

Whiskin' ain't easy, folks

Pour the wet ingredients into your flour mixture, then stir until just combined.

It's like a lava flow of delicious, isn't it?

At this point I should tip my hat to Lauren, who let me borrow her camera for this baking adventure. She also took half of the photos, in case you wondered how I photographed myself mixing batter with both hands.

Please wait until after pouring the batter into the bread pans to lick the whisk. I'm pretty sure the oven will bake out any cook cooties, but not 100 percent sure.

Divide the batter evenly between the pans, then create the streusel topping. I use my hands to mix together the chopped nuts, butter, sugar and flour in a small bowl. If you're feeling fancy, you could use a pastry cutter for this part.

Sprinkle the streusel on top...

Then bake for 60 - 70 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. While you wait, sneakily eat some batter.

Don't mind me!

You'll know the bread is done when your house smells like fall and a knife inserted into the center of each loaf comes out clean. Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of each pan, then turn out onto a cooling rack.

Let the bread cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing . This is the hardest part.

Serve on a pretty plate or wrap up the bread for later.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. I'm so glad I've met you. If we ever meet in person, I'll bake this bread for you and we can enjoy it with coffee.

You can find the full story behind this pumpkin bread here at OPB.

Chai-Spiced Pumpkin Streusel Bread
makes two loaves

Ingredients

2 ½ cup organic (if you’ve got it) cane sugar
¼ cup powdered chai mix - optional
1 cup butter, unprocessed coconut oil or canola oil (I use ½ butter, ½ coconut)
⅔ cup hot water and 4 - 6 bags chai tea
4 eggs
15 oz. can pumpkin puree (about 2 cups)
3 ½ cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg
½ tsp. cloves
½ - 1 tsp. cardamom

Streusel Topping

¼ cup brown sugar, packed
½ cup nuts (any combination of walnuts, pecans or hazelnuts), chopped fine
2 Tb. flour
2 Tb. softened butter

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and steep the tea bags in hot water. Grease two bread pans with butter or oil.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil and eggs until fluffy and creamy. Stir in pumpkin and chai tea until smooth. In a smaller bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, spices and dry chai mix. Mix the dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ingredients, stirring until just combined.

Pour the batter into the bread pans and set aside.

For the streusel topping, mix together the softened butter, brown sugar, flour and chopped nuts in a small bowl. I typically use my hands to work everything together until the butter, flour and sugar have mixed into fine crumbs.

Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the top of both loaves and bake for about 60 - 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into each bread’s center comes out clean. Let the loaves cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edges of each pan. Turn each loaf out onto a cooling rack. Once the bread is cooled, slice with a serrated knife and serve.

To keep the bread for later, wrap each cooled loaf tightly in plastic wrap, then again in aluminum foil. Keep the bread in the fridge (or freezer) until ready to eat.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

Ms. Rita's banana bread

Apple pie with cranberries

Pumpkin cream cheese muffins

Yes, fall is here

2011-11-02T18:00:00.000-07:00

Fall has arrived, folks. I've been trying to deny it, trying to squeeze a few more verdant days out of Portland's pathetic excuse of a summer, but Halloween plopped its pumpkin ass down on my sofa. It gazed quietly into my eyes and whispered, "Fall's here, dude. Can't deny it. Check out the leaves."

Oooh! Nice couch!

A storm of raindrops and a parade of red, orange, and yellow leaves are flying by my window. Trees fling leaves like confetti. I've been pretending not to notice. It's November now. Time to wake up and smell the pumpkin spiced latte.

Thanks to Neighbor Kristen, I even carved a pumpkin and ate roasted pumpkin seeds! Kristen hosted 2011 The Great Pumpkin Carving at her apartment, followed by mulled wine an The Nightmare Before Christmas. Who could resist such a sincere invitation?

That's what I like about fall: the sincerity. We celebrate harvests, press apple cider, honor the spirits of those who came before us, then give thanks for those who are with us. We cuddle up with books, wear warm clothing, and snack our way to the holidays.

Instead of sharing an fall recipe for you, using the hippest ingredients of the season--like fresh nutmeg or caramel apple cider cookies--I'd like to share a few low-key ways my friends and I like to celebrate fall. There's still time for pumpkin lattes, roasted pumpkin seeds, and butternut squash before the holiday haze pushes them out of the way. Snuggle up and enjoy the foliage.

Classic Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

seeds from a freshly carved pumpkin. (Some grocery stores sell seeds still in the shell, or raw pepitas. These sub nicely.)
coarsely ground pepper
Worcestershire sauce
kosher salt
butter or olive oil (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Lay a sheet of parchment paper in two baking sheets.

Rinse pumpkin seeds under cold water and pick out the pulp. This is easiest to do right after the pumpkin is carved and the pulp hasn't dried onto the seeds. If you've waited, you may want to soak the seeds in warm water to remove the pulp.

Pour the cleaned seeds into a bowl, then stir in Worcestershire sauce, a tablespoon or two of melted butter or olive oil, salt, and cracked pepper. Adjust the seasonings to suit your tastes.

Spread the seeds onto the baking sheets in a single layer. (You may need a third sheet if you carved a large pumpkin!) Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until the seeds are toasted, about 25 - 35 minutes. The seeds should be a light golden brown. Serve immediately or let them cool and store in an airtight container.

** Playing with the flavors of roasted pumpkin seeds is half the fun. This version uses Worcestershire sauce to evoke fond holiday memories of Chex Mix, however, I also like to make these with soy sauce.

Neighbor Kristen is the queen of effortless entertaining. She can throw together a holiday fete in minutes, with as little as an open bottle of wine, freshly cooked popcorn, and a well timed mass text message.

Last weekend at the Great Pumpkin Carving, Kristen mulled this wine using her wily simmer-it-'till-you-make-it ways. Many people crash and burn (literally) when they cook on the fly; Kristen always wins when she cooks without script. It's the perfect thing to sip while you dance along to Jack Skellington's antics in Halloween Town.

Now this is Halloween!

Fast Mulled Wine
a la Neighbor Kristen

1 bottle of "skunked" - aka opened and unused - red wine
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tb. brown sugar if the red wine is particularly dry
1-2 Tb. mulling spices (Kristen recommends Penzys' brand)
zest of a fresh orange (optional)
4 oz. brandy (optional)

Whisk wine and sugar(s) together in a large saucepan. Add brandy, mulling spices, and orange zest. Bring the wine to a simmer but do not boil. Let the wine simmer for at least 20 minutes and serve. Mulled wine is also a great crock pot recipe; make a double batch and let it simmer all evening during a holiday party. Guests can sneak up for another ladle-full as needed.

Dr. Brian approves of mulled wine

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
sweet n' spicy curried nut mix
Cracker Jack peanuts
quickie pumpkin seeds
pumpkin cream cheese muffins

One hundred posts, a thousand thanks

2010-11-21T10:30:00.001-08:00

This is my 100th post. In a Pickle is old enough to have a Centennial entry. I can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday that I started this blog as a creative outlet from my cut-and-dried news jobs.

At first, I thought I'd share a few family stories and a few recipes that anchor my life...and within a few months, I'd run out of things to say. Well. Here we are two years later, and I have yet to share my mother's recipe for Danish Shepperd's Pie. The end is nowhere in sight.

snow ice cream

I want to thank you for joining my cooking adventures. When I write here, I am not just howling into the darkness; you join me in my kitchen and we share our stories. So thank you, thank you, thank you for reading, for commenting, and for connecting with me through cooking. It gives me joy to know that humans have come together over food for thousands of years, and we're carrying on that tradition.

meringues noir

Because it's Thanksgiving here in the U.S., because I'm thankful for you, and because I love giving gifts, I have a present for you. And since I don't have the resources to travel to your home and cook you a meal (which I would love to do,) I'll have to connect with you in pictures. On December 1st, I will randomly select three readers and send them a beautiful, ready-to-frame print made from one of the photographs in this blog. I'll include a recipe on the back of the print and some tasty treats.

Not-so-naughty Senator bunt cake

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post! The easy-to-ship treats I have in mind are: chocolate coconut flax granola, cherry chili chocolate chip cookies, Karen's Nutella hazelnut cookies, or almond biscotti with lemon icing. However, if you have another favorite recipe of mine and if the USPS can deliver it safely, I'll try to oblige you. I want to give you a gift you'll like!

Before I leave you, I do have a Thanksgiving recipe to share. If you live in the U.S., you probably have your traditional foods prepared already. However, if you're searching for a great host/hostess gift to bring to the feast, consider this quick spiced pumpkin bread.

I bumped up the intensity of the pumpkin pie spices, plus added a healthy dose of extra-strong brewed chai teas to give the pumpkin a more complex, belly-warming flavor. The bread bakes up in an hour, freezes well, and slices like a dream. Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for reading my blog.

Chai-spiced Pumpkin Bread
serves 8

4 bags Stash chai spice black tea, steeped in 2/3 cup near-boiling water
1 1/2 cups cane sugar
1/2 cup light-flavored oil, like canola
2 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and steep the tea bags in hot water. Grease a loaf pan with butter or vegetable shortening.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, and eggs until creamy. Stir in pumpkin and chai tea until combined. In a smaller bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and spices. Whisk the dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ingredients, stirring until just combined. Stir in the chopped nuts.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for about 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the bread's center comes out clean. Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the pan's edges and turn the bread out onto a cooling rack. Once the bread is cooled, slice with a serrated knife and serve or wrap tightly in plastic wrap and foil and freeze.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
Ms. Rita's Banana Bread
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Double lemon, double poppy seed cake

Foodie Adventure 3: can it and bake cobbler

2011-10-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago, on the hottest day of the year in Portland, Lauren convinced me to drive to Sauvie Island and pick fruits and vegetables for canning. Why should we can food in my unconditioned house when it's over 90 degrees outside? Because Lauren and I are insane. When you combine her quest for Portland foodie adventures with my What Would Ma Ingals Wilder Do? compulsions, we're impractical and unstoppable.

I think we also wanted to chase away the specter of the day: the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. We needed to soak up the sun, to spend time outside remembering that we were alive and that life is still good, even though a group of people did terrible things ten years ago.

We drove to Sauvie Island Farms--just 10 minutes north of Portland--with visions of blueberries and peaches dancing in our heads. Lauren wanted to can fresh peaches; I had my heart set on making both blueberry and peach preserves. Any hopes of finding summer fruits were dashed when we reached our destination, though.

See that peach? It was pretty much the only ripe-ish peach in the whole orchard. The ladies working the farm stand said we missed the best pickin's by a few weeks.

We focused instead on veggies. We picked pickling cucumbers and lemon cukes, zucchini (and zucchini blossoms as big as your hand), cauliflower, broccoli and corn.

Can you find the Kate in this picture?

Lauren and I still picked a dozen half-ripe peaches--beginning to blush pink on the outside, but still a few days away from softening into ripeness. (We had our hearts set on peaches, dammit!) We put them in a paper bag and left them alone until it was canning time.

Thank goodness we also stopped by Kruger's Farm Market down the street. They supplied all the fresh peaches, tomatoes, and blueberries we needed for canning....plus a fresh crop of tart apples. Lauren and I gave ourselves credit for "picking" this produce, since we purchased it on the property of a market that also doubled as a "you pick" farm. I'm glad we stopped by and bought more peaches here because, when I checked on the Sauvie Island Farms peaches two days later, they'd turned into squishy black fuzz-covered meteors in their paper bag. Tasty.

Prepping jars with cinnamon and a little citric acid

We canned the (non-black, non-moldy) peaches from Kruger's with cinnamon and a pinch of sugar. Lauren had the brilliant idea of throwing an entire cinnamon stick into each jar. Not only did the peaches taste lovely--each kissed with just a little bit of cinnamon--but they looked lovely in their jars, with the peach slices bobbing above the cinnamon stick below.

Lauren and I canned like crazy in that cramped, air-conditioning-free kitchen until after midnight. We listened to blues, country, and Motown. (Did you know that the Dixie Chicks complement The Supremes? And that Moreland and Arbuckle round them both out nicely?) We put up jam, over a dozen jars of pickles, peaches, cauliflower, and sweet corn relish. Even after an entire evening of canning, we'd barely processed half of the fruits and veggies we'd purchased.

We reconvened several days later for more canning: tomatoes with herbs from my patio garden, pickled daikon-and-carrot relish for Bánh mì sandwiches, and blackberry-blueberry "bruiser" jam. I'll be sharing some of our recipes over the next few days. Lauren will also feature a few on her website, Sinful Misadventures.

Lauren Flemming, Canning Goddess!

We learned many things from our canning adventures:

Canning tongs (pictured above) are the best $4 you'll ever spend on canning supplies. I'd been burning myself for years by trying to use regular tongs to remove the hot jars from the boiling water bath. (Canning is pain!)
The "pop" of a jar lid sealing itself, locking in deliciousness and locking out bacterial contamination, is one of the sweetest sounds on earth.
Friends and family members who return your jars after you give them canned goods as gifts are worth their weight in gold.
There's something empowering about preserving food you picked yourself, that same day, with a friend.

Before I break out the lengthy and comprehensive details about what we canned and how, I'd like to share something else with you: a recipe for the blackberry cobbler that sustained us as we chopped, preserved, and processed. You'll want a snack to tide you over when you can on your own.

Before baking 'till golden and bubbly.

I've been picking blackberries all summer. There's a sprawling patch of brambles less than a block from my apartment, something that just about every resident of the Pacific Northwest can boast. I've been picking a giant bowlful once a week since July, which means my freezer is FULL of quart-sized bags of fruit. Whether you use frozen berries or fresh ones--I've seen a few patches around the neighborhood still putting out fruit, this cobbler bakes the blackberries into thick, gooey submission.

Lauren, Raymond and I enjoyed our cobbler hot from the oven, with plenty of vanilla ice cream.

Double crust, double cinnamon, double good

Blackberry cobbler with double-cinnamon topping
heavily adapted from the Better Homes & Gardens 10th edition

1/3 cup sugar
1 Tb. cornstarch
4 cups fresh or frozen blackberries
1 Tb. fresh lemon juice, plus lemon zest

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 Tb. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
4 Tb. unsalted butter, cold
3/4 cup milk or buttermilk
2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a 2-quart saucepan, mix 1/2 cup sugar and cornstarch. Stir in the blackberries, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Cook over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and boils. Keep stirring the blackberries while they boil for another minute. Pour the blackberry filling into a 2-quart ungreased casserole dish.

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Cut in butter using a pastry blender or crossed knives until the dough is reduced to fine crumbs. Stir in milk slowly, until just combined.

Drop the dough on top of the blackberry filling in generous spoonfuls (but don't drop the dough so forcefully that you burn yourself with blackberry filling. Not that I did that.) Bake the cobbler for 25-30 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown. Serve immediately.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
Foodie Adventure 1: Beast
Foodie Adventure 2: DIY Coffee Roasting
Drunken berry cobbler
Cranberry-peach salad with ginger

PS: The photos in this post were taken with Lauren's insanely awesome Canon Rebel.

Emo Pasta

2011-10-14T21:18:00.001-07:00

Try as I might, I could not coax a good photo out of this pasta. Perhaps she is shy? She is shy and moody. Just look at those colors: intimate yet hesitant.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Emo Pasta. Do you remember those remote days (from the late '80s to the early 200s) when we called people emo? Before we thought about hipsters, we called kids with safety pins on their backpacks and chips on their shoulders emo...because saying "emotional" took too much effort. I don't know why, but this pasta feels like the Dashboard Confessional of comfort dishes. I hear it whining, "Maa! Leave me aloooone!" as it hides from the world under a pair of battered Skull Candy headphones. In other words, this introspective dish is perfect for fall, when we all pull back into ourselves and prepare for the cold times ahead.

This recipe leans on the last of your summer harvest and also brings in first of your preserves: tomatoes dried to chewy perfection in the oven, pesto from the last batch of basil you picked before frost appears in the mornings. Summery preserved lemons tumble brightly over winter kale. Buttery toasted walnuts round everything out.

I recommend creating your own oven-dried tomatoes from the last of your summer crop (or the last batch of good farmer's market tomatoes.) Wait until the next gloomy, rainy day that rolls around to make them. Just halve a dozen tomatoes, sprinkle them with salt, and bake at 300 degrees for four hours. Your oven will keep the house snug and warm while the tomatoes fill the kitchen with tomatoey fragrance.

As the tomatoes roast, you could set up a new jar of preserved lemons or take a walk in the October woods. Feel the pine needles crunch underfoot. See the leaves change before your eyes. Listen to the Smiths when no one is looking.

For those of you without woods nearby, you can walk in Portland's many parks and forests through my friend Stacy's blog: Weekend Walks from a Dog's Point of View. See the neighborhoods of our city through the lens of Nelly the dog--cats hiding on porches, dewy leaves, towering oaks, shimmering spider webs. By the time you've finished your fall walk--whether real or virtually--this pasta will be waiting, reluctantly.

Where is my Mead Composition Notebook?

Emo Pasta (aka Screaming Infidelities Pasta)
serves 4-6

1 box curly pasta (like fusilli)
1 cup home-made basil pesto, like this
1 cup fresh kale
2-3 Tb. lemon juice or water
slow-roasted tomatoes like these
1/2 cup walnuts
1-2 wedges preserved lemon
freshly shredded Parmesan to taste
red pepper flakes to taste

Phase 1: toasting the walnuts

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Arrange walnuts on a cookie sheet in a single layer, then bake for eight to 10 minutes, checking frequently. The walnuts should reach a light-golden brown and smell quite fragrant. Remove the walnuts and let them cool.

Phase 2: cooking pasta and prepping vegetables

Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil, then toss in the fusilli. Reduce the pasta to a rolling boil while you prep the veggies.

Using kitchen shears or a sharp knife, cut/slice the dried tomatoes into thin strips. Set aside. Dice a wedge or two of preserved lemon and set aside.

Wash the kale with cold water and pat dry with a towel. Chiffonade the kale: roll it into a big cigar, then slice it diagonally into thin strips. Toss the kale strips into the bottom of a pasta strainer. When the pasta is al dente (cooked through but firm to the tooth), drain it over the kale. This cooks the kale enough to turn it a vibrant green without cooking out those delicious vitamins and enzymes.

Phase 3: Profit!

Turn the kale and pasta out into a large mixing bowl. Toss in the walnuts (you may crush them a little with your hand for presentation/stress relief), sliced tomatoes, preserved lemon, and red pepper flakes. Stir in pesto and lemon juice until all of the curly little noodles are well coated, even a bit soupy and saucy. Adjust the amount of pesto and lemon juice to taste. Stir in 1/3 - 1/2 cup of fresh Parmesan and serve.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
Radish-top basil pesto
Rigatoni with red pepper cream sauce
Cherry chili chocolate chip cookies

Can it: indigo jam in the interim

2011-03-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

Hello from a brand-new apartment! In pursuit of great rent, my husband and I packed our tiny home and moved...one block away from our old digs. We're now happy residents of The Barbur Fiefdom. Or The Infinite Wilderness of Barbur Woods. We haven't settled on our place's new nickname just yet.

Did you know that it is as annoying to move one block as it is to move across town? I know that now. Thank goodness Raymond and I own a truck and are blessed with kind neighbors who helped with the heavy furniture. (Seriously, Brian. You are a hero for helping move our 90s projection-screen TV. We owe you popcorn chicken.)

Now that I've discovered the clever place where I hid the camera for "safe-keeping," I'll begin taking photos of our new home. You'll love the kitchen. There's a window right next to the stove which I hope will illuminate future blog posts with real, honest-to-goodness sunlight. Sunlight!

Taken on our patio last summer. Remember summer?

In the interim, I'd like to share some indigo jam with you. It's a hybrid of blueberry jam and grape jelly, keeping grape's juicy flavor and blueberry's silken texture while abandoning seeds and that jiggly jam texture I find annoying. While tinkering with the recipe, I threw in some summer blackberries to deepen the flavors and cinnamon to give a faint spiced scent.

So far, I've given away three jars of this jam and received three stellar reviews from the recipients. Erin says the cinnamon reminded her of Christmas. Luci says it tasted "great." I think Indigo Jam tastes like the color indigo might. But Amanda captured its effect the best: "Indigo Jam is the shit."

We're down to one jar in the pantry. Must. Make. More....now.

Indigo Jam
makes about 6 1/2-pint jars

2 1/2 cups champagne grapes (or another small, tart variety), washed and removed from the stem
2 1/2 cups of fresh blueberries, washed
1 cup blackberries, washed
1 1/2 - 2 cups cane sugar
juice of 1 lemon
1 cup water or dry champagne
1 packet fruit pectin gelling powder
2 - 3 Tb. ground cinnamon

Some beginning notes:

If you plan to can the jam after making it, as I did, you'll want to read a guide on how to do it properly. I always find canning/preserving wisdom over at pickyourown.org. Before I even prepped the fruit, I sterilized my canning jars and rings in the dishwasher and set a half-filled stock pot of water to boil on the stove top. You can also sterilize canning jars by boiling in hot water for 10 minutes.

You can also do what I call "fridge canning," or storing the jam in sterilized jars in the fridge. Because the jam has not been boiled and processed in a sealed canning jar, you'll have to keep it in the fridge (or freezer) to preserve it. I think it's easiest to prep for canning while you're cooking the jam; after a quick hot water bath for canning, the jam's finished and preserved.

Prepare the jam:
Wash all of the fruit and strain excess water through a colander. Pick out any stem pieces, wrinkled or mushy fruit. Pour the grapes, blueberries, and blackberries into a large cooking pot. Cook over medium heat until the blueberries and grapes start to burst and break down.

Remove the fruit from heat and (carefully) mash the heck out of it with a potato masher. Strain the thick, pulpy fruit mess through a mesh-wire strainer and into a large bowl. I used the back of a large spoon to get the fruit pulp and skin through but leave the seeds behind. Work in small batches until all of the fruit is strained and the bitter grape seeds are filtered out. (It's OK to leave the blackberry seeds. They give the jam more character.) Return the fruit mash to the cooking pot and stir in lemon juice, cinnamon and water/champagne.

Put a spoon in a small measuring cup filled with cold water. Place the measuring cup in the fridge.

Mix together 1/4 cup sugar with the pectin packet. Stir this into the fruit mash and bring everything to a full, rolling boil on the stove. Stir in the rest of the sugar and bring the jam back to a rolling boil for one full minute.

Remember that spoon? Test the jam's "done-ness" by scooping a 1/2 spoonful of jam into the spoon. Let it cool to room temperature. If the jam is firm enough for your liking, great. If not, add another spoon-full of pectin to the jam and bring it back to a boil. Repeat until your jam is jiggly, not tough or runny.

Fill each jam jar to within a 1/4" of the top. Wipe up any jam spills, place a lid on top and tighten the jar ring. You're ready to a) refrigerate this jam or b) heat process it!

If you're processing them....

Place the jars in that stock pot of hot water at least 1" apart. Make sure they're submerged beneath at least 2" of water. Let them sit in the boiling water bath for 5 - 7 minutes. Carefully remove each jar with a pair of canning tongs and let it sit, without touching or bumping another jar, on a counter at room temperature until the lid seal "pops" flat. This could take as little as an hour or overnight. If, after a night, the lid pops back up, you can call that jar "fridge jam" or reprocess the jam in a clean jar with a new lid seal.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
Candied citrus slices
Drunken berry cobbler
Strawberry-rhubarb tart

Key lime, fine times

2011-09-05T22:00:00.000-07:00

I've been reluctant to embrace key lime pie as an equal in the custard pie cannon. It's silky, it's citrusy, and it's not unlike my favorite pie ever (lemon sour cream.) But, instead of being over the moon for it, key lime pie has left a bad taste in my mouth. It has nothing to do with flavor, either.

You see, only Wild Women like key lime pie. Not amazing women who are also wild like Mae West or Jane Fonda or Pink. Wild Women who cultivate chaos in their lives..but who lack that stable center of self-awareness. Whirling dervishes who whirl without purpose.

I met my first one in high school, my first boyfriend's mother. She bleached her hair a crispy platinum blonde. She turned her home into a zany DIY project by painting walls brick red and canary yellow and upholstering dining room chairs with zebra-print fabric. She meant well and she forget to cook dinner. She loves loves loves key lime pie--with as much enthusiasm as she maintains for brightly colored nail polish.

Other Wild Women I've met share this brand of craziness. They smoke Newport Lights and take lovers and dream in excess. They're brassy, they wear white summer suits and they dream of retiring in Miami. They all love key lime pie. Like Annette Benning in Running With Scissors...

"I'll have a Tab and a key lime pie. Doesn't that sound good, Augusten?"
She smiles dreamily and closes her eyes.
"Key. Lime. Pie."

No, Annette Benning!
That does not sound good!
My teeth are going need therapy to recover from the idea of Tab cola and key lime pie!

Anyway, you know and I now know that using pie as a barometer for mental stability is...insane. It's right up there with picking a mate based on a favorite color or whether or not he likes Queens of the Stone Age. Duh, Kate. Crazy and pie are mutually exclusive.

The point finally sank in a few Thursdays ago. My friend Lauren --a wild woman not unlike Mae West, in the best way -- and I attended a last-minute author reading at Powell's, then skipped across the street for dessert at The Living Room Theaters. From the cafe, we watched all of the nightlife downtown. Kelly, our waiter, kept us company and didn't complain once as we cheerfully sang along with the music over the stereo. Lauren snapped photos of her dinner and took notes for a review on her site while I treated myself to an Americano and a slice of house-made key lime pie. We had the perfect Portland evening, on what just happened to be my second anniversary of living here.

After such a cozy evening with a friend--in such a dark and inviting cafe, with light sparkling from glass teardrops in the chandelier--my heart softened. It only took one tart, creamy bite before key lime pie entered my good graces.

In fact, I now like key lime pie so much, I bake it at home. Just a word of warning: people react violently to this pie. One woman cursed me because she loved it so much. A coworker who ate this pie told me that when the dollar becomes worthless and when the economy tanks completely, he would like to be paid in this pie. Hopefully, people will go just as crazy when you make it.

Coconut Key Lime Pie with Pretzel Crust
improvised from a King Arthur Flour recipe

about 6 oz. salted pretzels (1 cup crushed)
7 Tb. coconut oil
1/4 cup unbleached cane sugar

1 1/2 14-oz. cans sweetened condensed milk
3 large egg yolks
1/3 cup coconut milk
3/4 cup lime juice
zest of 2 limes
1 drop green food coloring (optional)
lime slices, shaved coconut, or pretzels for garnish (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9" pie pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Crush the pretzels until they're reduced to fine crumbs. (I used a blender for this, but a food processor works just as well.) Pour the crumbs into a small bowl, and mix in the coconut oil and sugar.

Press the crust filling into the bottom of the pie pan, then up the sides. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and cool.

Whisk together the egg yolks and sweetened condensed milk. Add the lime juice (and zest) and coconut milk, plus a drop of food coloring if you like. The mixture will thicken almost immediately; the citric acid in the lime juice reacts chemically with the sugar in the milk to "cook" the pie via souring. Freaky, I know.*

Pour the filling into the prepared crust and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake the pie for 28 to 32 minutes, until the top is almost completely set. There should be a smallish spot in the top that's still soft-looking; it'll firm up as the pie cools. Judge the doneness of the key lime pie the same way you would a cheesecake.

Cool the pie for several hours (or overnight) before serving. Top with whipped cream, lime zest, or crushed pretzels.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
Candied citrus slices
Maple buttermilk pie
Sour cherry apple pie with root beer

21st Century Bagel

2011-08-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that I'm terrible at eating a proper breakfast during normal breakfast hours. At 2 am before bed? Sure. At 8:30 am? Please. I don't even have my makeup on then.

On weekends, I do breakfast up right--usually pan-cooked potatoes with onion and garlic, egg over medium, coffee and Postsecret--but that relaxed groove escapes me on weekdays. Monday - Friday, I'm doing well to breeze out the door with a scone or a bagel in hand. Coffee's non-negotiable; everything else is just fat, carbohydrates, and protein.

Unless your name is June Cleaver, you've probably got a similar breakfast routine. You wake up at the last. possible. second. (because you didn't sleep enough the night before.) You haphazardly dress, then run out the door while clutching piece of toast. We're under-paid and poorly rested; we have trouble finding our car keys and shoehorning more vegetables into our diets.

The days of leisurely breakfasts, of reading the paper cover-to-cover while drinking orange juice--they're gone, baby. Welcome to the 21st Century. We're so plugged in now, we never unplug.

If I sit too long thinking about the demise of leisurely breakfasts, I begin to percolate other rage-inducing subjects in my brain, like the decline of the newspaper industry, Twitter, and and the dad-blasted debt crisis. If I continue this vein of thought unabated, I end up hysterical and weepy in the Papasan chair, shouting things like...

"The American Dream is dead!"

"I'm almost 30 and I don't have a house or kids! What is my barometer for success?"

"How am I supposed to eat 5 - 8 fruits and vegetables every day? Buy stock in V8?"

Whew. That's a lot to worry about before breakfast. I don't want to deal with that much before work, do you? I haven't found a way to fix the debt crisis, but I did discover a way to sneak more vegetables into breakfast this week. All it took was five minutes and a pair of kitchen scissors. Fortune and notoriety have passed me by, but I can keep a container herb garden healthy.

That makes me feel better. Though I don't have time for leisurely breakfasts, I do have the time and the resources to grow some of my own vegetables. Debt crisis what? I've got a Victory Patio Garden! I did not buy; I created. Think of that when you're rushing out the door in the morning. I did not buy; I created.

If you're (ahem) still planting your Victory Garden, you can still pull off this fresh herb spread for about a dollar in fresh produce. Parsley packs a fresh punch of springtime into the creamy cheese, and a pinch of salt lifts the chives out of produce obscurity. It's a 20th-Century spread for your 21st-Century Bagel. Proper Breakfast Catastrophe = averted. Now, who will help me solve the debt crisis?

Sun-tried tomato and fresh herb spread
serves 6 generously

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/3 chopped and finely diced fresh parsley
1/4 cup finely chopped chives
6 - 7 finely diced sun-dried tomato halves
1/2 tsp. garlic salt, celery salt, or onion salt

Prep for this recipe couldn't be easier. Chop the herbs and tomatoes finely, blend them into the cream cheese, and stir in the salt! I'd use a bowl and spoon rather than a food processor for this spread; who wants to clean cream cheese from a food processor?

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
Devil with the green dress on
Indigo Jam in the interim
Barbecued peach pizza

Cozy lentil-squash soup

2010-11-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

It's snuggle-up season in Portland. The time when leaves flutter down from deciduous trees like pieces of fire and rainclouds trundle in like down comforters. The near-constant rain has me dreaming of sweaters. Specifically, cashmere sweaters from J. Crew, knit with the wool of the most sincere cashmere goats of Mongolia. I want to live in a cocoon of J. Crew sweaters from now until May.

Please excuse me while I spend an entire paycheck on sweaters online....

Atticus, my proofreader

Whew. Thankfully that urge passed. However, I still love how fall and winter weather forces us to get cozy, to hunker down for the duration. We retreat inside for house parties, for movie nights, board games or celebration dinners. When it's dark and cold outside, we get cozy inside.

One of the first really cozy gatherings I remember took place in a bank. Yep, a bank bank. FDIC insured and everything.

My college poetry class was invited to see Tracy Grammer perform in Winfield's First National Bank building, a historic beauty built in 1872. At first, I wasn't thrilled to see a concert in the same place where I, you know, banked. But when our group walked through that rotating front door, we found an oasis from winter. Warm light danced on the marble floor. We saw pushpin stars in a black velvet sky through windows that ran to the ceiling. The setting was perfect, intimate. The acoustics were amazing.

There weren't more than 50 people in the audience. We sat close together in the lobby, semi-circled around Tracy as she sang and talked about writing the her musical stories. I must have been impressed with her imagery, because I filled a page in my poem notebook with quotes from the performance. Here are my favorites:

Where's that Xanax?

It's me against the cashew

Paprika chiffon

pothole for my soul

"At this point in the evening, I would like to point out that Mr. Johnny Colt is wearing a lovely suit."

Some of these are pieces of her songs, and some are quotes from the stories. I can't remember which is which, and I like that I can't tell from looking.

After the show, Seth, who worked for the bank, hosted a dinner at his home. Some of our class came along for the ride. I remember his house was cozy and cheerful, full of music and people. And I remember curried pumpkin soup in a large silver tureen. I'd never had pumpkin in a soup before, and this silky sister blew my mind. I found creamy nutmeg curried pumpkin wintry heaven, ladled in a bowl.

Last Sunday, I tried to recapture that taste and that memory in my kitchen. This time a fresh butternut squash from Sauvie Island captured the soup's starring role. To create the silky consistency of the original soup, I added cooked red lentils and coconut milk. (Everything is more luxurious with coconut milk.) I spiced until it tasted right. When I finished tinkering with the flavors, I had a soup that rivaled that first pumpkin curry in texture and effect. It's just as cozy as the original, and decadent served when garnished with olive oil.

Cozy lentil-squash soup
serves 1 billion

1 medium butternut squash
2-3 Tb. Sriracha hot chili sauce (or your favorite chili sauce)
1/4 cup olive oil
3-4 fresh rosemary sprigs (optional)
6 cups vegetable broth
1 cup red lentils
1 15-oz. can light coconut milk
2 Tb. yellow curry powder
2 Tb. red chili powder (the hotter the better)
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. clove
1/2 tsp. cardamom
olive oil for drizzling

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and cut the butternut squash into small cubes. (Alli has an excellent post on how to efficiently cut and dice them here.) I use a large, sharp knife and little-to-no method. Alli's method does not put her fingers at risk for amputation. Mine requires no planning. Choose the method that's right for you.

Transfer the squash pieces to a baking dish, then drizzle them with olive oil and chili sauce. Stir until all the squash is evenly coated, and toss in a few sprigs of fresh rosemary. Roast the squash for 40-60 minutes, until the pieces are mealy throughout and beginning to crisp up on the outside.

While the squash is roasting, bring two cups of vegetable broth to a boil in a saucepan. Toss in the red lentils and lower the heat to a medium boil. The lentils will finish cooking in 5-10 minutes. Remove the pan from heat but do not drain the lentils.

Once the squash is finished, begin pureeing all the soup elements together. Place a cup of squash, a cup of broth, and a cup of lentil/broth a blender, puree until smooth, and then empty the blender into a large saucepan. Repeat the process, adding enough liquid in each batch to keep the squash from bogging down your blender.

When you've pureed everything to a smooth consistency, bring the saucepan back to your stove. Stir in the spices, the coconut milk and any remaining broth. You may need to add more broth or water to reach an ideal consistency. Bring the soup back to a simmer and serve warm, garnished with olive oil.

If you like this post, you might also enjoy:
Pesto presto with radish greens
Butternut squash soup
Kate's red chili

Canned pumpkin put to good use

2008-12-02T19:54:00.024-08:00

The real deal: check out those sugared pumpkin seeds.

I graduated from a prestigious liberal arts college in May, 2005, with a real degree in writing and a minor in journalism, and, after a brief stint in Seattle, I moved to Wichita to get a grown-up job with my college skills.

However, I ended up using another talent I learned in college: the ability to sling lattes. I worked as a shift supervisor at one of the top ten busiest drive-thru Starbucks stores in the country after college. What an... eventful time in my life. I learned to rock the green apron and a headset, to make tasty beverages fast, and to draw personalized Sharpie pictures and messages (Have a great day!) on cups in under 15 seconds. My fellow partners and I literally bonded over coffee, and some of those friendships are going strong today.

I learned to see the seasons through the lens of a Starbucks drink menu. Spring was iced teas, smoothies, and dainty cookies. Summers floated by in frappuccinos and clouds of fresh whipped cream. I kept cozy in the winter with peppermint mochas (topped with the special red sprinkles) ginger loaf, and the occasional chai eggnog. But in the fall, my favorite beverage arrived: the pumpkin spice latte, and it's prom date, the pumpkin cream cheese muffin. Starbucks would bring these warming treats into customer's lives on November 1st and take them away as soon the holidays ended. Harsh move, Starbucks.

As the November leaves fell, we sold boxes and boxes (and boxes) of pumpkin cream cheese muffins. I remember the amount because my supervisor duties included keeping the pastry case stocked and gorgeous. I considered it a calming, zen task. I could forget when drive thru window looked like a battlefield strewn with dead cups or the arrival of that peculiar man who wanted his dry, dry soy cappuccino while I piled scones and muffins high.

We kept our freezer stuffed with these muffins at all times. I enjoyed their subtle goodness and variety. Crunchy-sweet pumpkin seeds on top, spiced cake beneath, filled with sugared cream cheese. And, after handling literally hundreds of them, I know a real Starbucks pumpkin cream cheese muffin when I see one.

I searched the Internet tonight for a recipe that could capture these qualities. There was no one, definitive recipe out there. So, I threw a few strong contenders together and made tweaks to match my memories, and I think we have a winner.

Pumpkin cream cheese muffins
makes 12 normal muffins or 6 Starbucks-sized muffins

For the muffins

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup ground flax (optional)
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. baking soda
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar (I used turbinado sugar)
1 cup pumpkin pie filling (the higher quality, the richer the taste)
1/2 cup + 1 Tb full fat yogurt or salad oil

For the filling

4 oz. softened cream cheese
3 Tb. maple syrup
1/2 tsp. vanilla (optional)

Topping

1/4 cup raw or toasted pumpkin seeds
1 Tb. maple syrup
1 tsp. sugar
ground cinnamon for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with 12 cupcake papers. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt, and flax, then set aside. In a larger bowl, beat eggs for a minute, then whisk in pumpkin, sugar, and yogurt. Stir dry ingredients into the wet mixture, mixing just enough to blend everything together. Spoon batter into the pan, filling each well 2/3 full. Set aside.

In another bowl, cut cream cheese into small chunks and whip together with maple syrup and vanilla until smooth and consistent in texture. Spoon this mixture into a pastry bag with a shaped tip or use the corner of a plastic bag to pipe cream cheese into the center of each muffin. I made sure to get the cream cheese mixture at least halfway down into the batter, so there was cream cheese in each bite.

Using your now-empty flour bowl, quickly toss the remaining maple syrup, sugar, and pumpkin seeds together until the seeds are well coated. Sprinkle the seeds on the top of the muffins for a tasty garnish. Lightly dust the tops of the muffins with cinnamon and bake them for 20-25 minutes. They're done when a toothpick inserted into the largest muffin (not the cream cheese filling) comes out clean. These muffins are even better the next day. Store in an air-tight container in the fridge for a week. Not that they'll last that long.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
In Memory of Aunt Rheba
Miss Rita's Banana Bread
Chai-spiced pumpkin bread

In memory of Aunt Rheba

2008-09-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, my Great Aunt Rheba passed away. She'd been a slow decay of Alzheimer's disease for years. But even with her Alzheimer's, Aunt Rheba was a fancy lady. She had an eye for all things crafty and arty. Her house was filled with stained glass window ornaments. She and Uncle Phil for years owned a small, yippy chihuahua named Princess. And they'd tote Princess along on all the RV trips they took with my grandparents every year.

After her funeral, we wished Aunt Rheba well in our family's section of the cemetery. Then, we relatives met at Uncle Phil's house for fried chicken, potato salad, caffeine-free cokes, and wine (you've got to love middle-aged relatives.) That was the best part for me that day; I got to see first-removed cousins and second cousins and aunts and uncles, to chill with my awesome grandparents, and to show off my wonderful husband, Raymond. And of course, we all shared our love for Aunt Rheba.

The whole day brought another afternoon to my mind: Aunt Rheba's 85th birthday several Octobers ago.

At the crack of nine that morning, sporting a mess of hair and yesterday's T-shirt, I browsed Martha Stewart's website for craft ideas. I love browsing Martha Stewart's website. It holds hundreds of do-it-yourself projects for creative types.

So I'm surfing around on the site...clicky, clicky, clicky...reading how to make easy felt hats or strawberry pincushions, pillows out of handkerchiefs or candles of halved lemons, when I remember:

Aunt Rheba's 85th birthday party was that afternoon. I decided to make her present. It should be baked good, perhaps, because she was turning eighty-freaking-five and had all the useless nick-knacks she'd ever need. My kitchen cupboards could normally produce practical from-scratch biscuits or sugar cookies, but nothing special or gifty. To remedy this, I purchased blueberries and a pretty tin at the Goodwill while out-and-about. Then, I flipped my trusty College Hill Coffee Cookbook open to Blenda's fabulous blueberry streussel-top muffins.

Now, I've made these gigantic, buttery, crumbly blueberry muffins at least two dozen times. While working at College Hill Coffee, a cafe & lunchette, in college, I learned how to make and bake many delectable items... cheesecakes, scones, cookies, etc. My friend and co-worker, Ben, would crown his batches of blueberry muffins with so much sugary-buttery topping that sometimes they would seal themselves right into the tin! A customer favorite, a Kate favorite, these muffins would surely win over Aunt Rheba. I could see her eating them her cheery kitchen over that checked table cloth.

In my teensy downtown apartment kitchen, I whipped the butter, sugar, eggs together, lightly mix in the dry ingredients, folded in blueberries. Then, I spooned everything into my muffin tin. Everything looked and smelled fantastic.

But then, I didn't add enough flour (or too much sugar) to the streussel topping that is sprinkled on top. Yes, I should have stopped there, fixed the topping, and gone on. Instead, I let the poor, doomed muffins bake, knowing deep inside that when I placed them on the oven rack, I sent them to their encrusted grave.

While they cooked, the over-abundance of sugar melted together, down the sides of the muffins and caramelized. The caramelized sugar then turned a dark, crunchy brown. The muffins that weren't irretrievably stuck to the pan didn't come out in one piece. We had to leave for the party ten minutes later.

The whole drive to Aunt Rheba's house, I scolded myself. I was a few tablespoons of flour away from baked blueberry goodness! Raymond tried to console me. "What did I expect?" he says. "You don't cook for a living."

Yet, I still magically believed those muffins would come out Martha Stewart Perfect. All of my great aunts and my grandmother are excellent bakers. They make pies with gorgeous crusts on the first try, no mistakes. (My grandmother can produce a golden, custard Jeff Davis pie while checking her Myspace or crocheting. No kidding.)

Yet, Raymond reminded me in his gentle way that Grandma and the aunts have roughly 50 more years of experience in baking than I do. They've ruined their share of muffins and cookies. I also consoled myself with the idea that Martha Stewart has also burned her share of cookies, though she'd never admit it.

Forget Martha and her perfect baking. You can't win them all. It turns out, Aunt Rheba was happy enough to see us on her birthday. Plus, Raymond and I had crunchy muffin bits for breakfast (they're good with cold milk.)

CHC Blueberry Muffins (makes one dozen, or six very fat SuperMuffins)

(muffins)

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup milk
2 cup blueberries

(topping)

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Oil muffin tins. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add the egg, and beat the whole mixture for what seems like forever.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry mix to the creamed mixture alternatively with the milk. Fold in blueberries (if you're using frozen ones, be extra super careful not to over-stir, as the berried will make the muffins a very smudgy blue.) Fill muffin tins about two-thirds full.

In another bowl, combine the topping ingredients until they make a crumbly mixture. Sprinkle the streussel over the muffin batter. Then, bake muffins in a 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove muffins from oven and let sit for a minute before running a sharp knife around the edges of the muffin tins. Allow muffins to cool for another 10 minutes or so before removing. These babies go well with a cold glass of milk and an over-stuffed chair.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
Chai-spiced pumpkin bread
Ready, set, camp!

With a candy thermometer

2011-03-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

My candy thermometer and I have made a breakthrough! We've climbed to dizzying new heights of deliciousness in the field of candied mixed nuts. I'm doing a happy dance of elation in the living room right now. Really. This moment.

What did it take to change my recipe for salty-sticky Cracker Jack Peanuts into a crunchy-sweet cocktail of snack heaven? A few drops cinnamon leaf oil, more kosher salt, and stirring for another minute or two. Easy peasy.

It's an avalanche of delicious!

Don't get me wrong; my first attempt to make these nuts went well. The original recipe, which I found via Jeannette at everybodylikessandwiches, promised to envelop the peanuts in a sticky/sandy coating of candy goodness. However, I was so 'skeered of scorching the peanuts that I removed them from the stove much too early. My coating wound up soft, almost chewy, like brown sugar candy. If only I'd known what deliciousness was possible with more patience.

When you've been stirring for 8 to 10 minutes and a dark brown syrup begins to pool at the bottom of the saucepan, stay the course! Don't stop stirring until the candy coating looks sandy and dry. Remove the nuts from the heat, toss in kosher salt and another dash of cinnamon, and you've got some snacks that can't be beat.

By adding both cinnamon oil and ground cinnamon, the spiced flavor is locked into every bite. These taste just like those cones of roasted, candied almonds you'd buy from a street vendor in New York or at a county fair. I should have packed another jar for my flight to Cleveland last week...

New and Improved! Candied Mixed Nuts
makes 3 cups

1 cup roasted peanuts
1 cup roasted/salted cashew halves
1 cup raw almonds
1 1/2 cups unrefined cane sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
5 Tb. water
4 - 5 drops cinnamon leaf oil
2 - 3 drops red food dye
2 Tb. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. kosher salt

In a large saucepan, stir together peanuts, almonds, cashews, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla extract, dye and water. Heat everything over medium-high heat until everything looks sandy, about 8 to 10 minutes. The temperature of the peanut goop should reach near 220 degrees, if you've got a candy thermometer handy. Take heart and keep stirring.

Soon, you will have a dark golden pool of liquid forming below the peanuts. This is good! Once the peanuts have reached a nice golden-red color, remove them from heat and turn the peanuts out onto parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Sprinkle the cinnamon and salt onto the peanuts, stirring everything around a little until the peanuts are in a single layer. Let the nuts cool, then store in an air-tight container for up to two weeks. Like they'll last that long.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

Sweet & Spicy Curried Nut Mix
Cracker Jack Peanuts
Tree's Granola

Refreshment for the road ahead

2009-01-23T09:53:00.017-08:00

In about five hours, my husband and I are boarding a train to Colorado! We're visiting his parents for the weekend, and now, instead of sleeping, we are both finishing tasks that should have been done days ago. We're flitting around our house, worriedly asking questions like, "Will the cats have enough food?" "Where did I put my green shirt?" and "Is that the dryer making that high-pitched sound?"

I know we'll finish packing soon and even have time for a nap. And I'm not worried about forgetting anything important. Plus, the snacks are already packed. I have my priorities in line.

Because we're taking wonderful Amtrak and not a plane, we can sneak some lemonade on board. I've already got some in a thermos.

I promise a more fattening post soon, one with marshmallows and chocolate and real butter, but for now, I must leave you with a crisp, refreshing lemonade. It certainly travels well. Have a delicious weekend, and I will write again soon.

Also, apparently 2009 is the year of the pickle. Let's hope so!

The husband dutifully writes measurements as I mix

Spearmint lemonade with rosewater

makes one quart

5-6 cups water
3/4 cup lemon juice (or the juice of four large lemons)
2 droppers-full liquid stevia extract (about 50 drops)
1/4 cup rosewater or 10 drops rosewater concentrate
1/4 cup spearmint syrup*
5-10 fresh spearmint leaves for garnish

To make lemonade:

Pour all ingredients into a cute little pitcher and stir. Serve over ice, garnished with fresh spearmint leaves.

To make spearmint syrup:

Place 2 cups of granulated sugar and 1 cup of water in a saucepan, and bring the mixture to a gentle boil. Stir the syrup occasionally until the sugar is fully dissolved. While the syrup is heating, rinse spearmint leaves - you should use 1 cup of firmly packed fresh leaves, or six "ice cubes" of spearmint.

Remove syrup from heat once the sugar is dissolved, then add spearmint leaves. Give the leaves a good mix, then let the syrup cool for at least one hour before straining the mint. Store in a clean, air-tight container.

* If you haven't saved spearmint from your garden this summer (frozen in ice cube trays, with a little water), you can find fresh spearmint almost year-round at any decent-sized Asian market. If you don't like spearmint at all, the lemonade will remain just as refreshing with your favorite kind of mint.

Carla Eckels keeps it green

2008-09-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

Community gardens in Wichita

If you've read my blog on pickle-making, you've heard about my Garden of Social and Political Revolution. It's nothing much, just a stunted little garden in muddy soil outside my dining room window. My most impressive plant remains a robust green Italian pepper. I'm intensely proud of my GSPR, though, because it's my first garden of my own, at my own house. It's kept me stocked on salad greens all summer!

However, I will be the first to admit there are gardens in town that more fully embody the term, Gardens of Social and Political Revolution. My co-worker and friend, Carla Eckels, found several of them for a recent piece she produced. These are the gardens that change the world! They feed the hungry and teach people new skills. They teach city-dwellers how to love the earth. They provide giant eggplant and collard greens.

If you have a few minutes, please listen to Carla's story. And if you have a few minutes more, visit one of these lovely little gardens, right here in The Vortex. And if you really want a kicky time, volunteer at one of these gardens. Who cares about rising food prices? Not people who grow their own food.

The whole cole (slaw)

2008-09-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

My refrigerator has a shadow life. Maybe yours does, too. My fridge keeps dark secrets in its corners. It hides things. You'd think a mostly rectangular object like a Kenmore refrigerator would be easy to navigate. Finding the milk/gigantic assortment of olives/leftovers/aging carrots should be a snap, but no. My fridge hides its favorite things like a sulky child hides her favorite toy.

This month, it hid the cabbage.

A month ago, at Aldi, I purchased that head of green cabbage in full faith. I planned to use it, but my fridge wedged it somewhere betwdeen the bottle of whiskey that will never be finished and the half-eaten container of hummus. I unearthed it yesterday.

As an apology to my neglected cabbage and as a practical solution to my post-work hunger, I made a cole slaw of sorts. Not one of your homey, may-o-naise and marshmallow concoctions, this slaw is sweet and sour and refreshing in a crunchy way. My measurements were not exact, so yours need not be, either. The dressing I made was sweet, savory, and refreshing; mess with my measurements until your dressing is, too.

KICKY COLE SLAW with BROWN SUGAR Dressing

1/2 one large head of cabbage
1 cup of red wine vinegar
1/2 cup sucanat cane sugar (or turbinado, or other whole, granular sweetener)
1/2 to 1 tsp caraway seeds
pinch of salt
1-2 tsp coconut oil (or favorite liquid oil)
1-2 Tb sweet mustard or Bavarian mustard (optional)

Chop cabbage into small slivers on a cutting board. This salad is especially pretty with a combination of red and green cabbage as well. It depends on what you can fish from the depths of your fridge. When you think the cabbage is sufficiently chopped, give it another few cuts with the knife. Set the slivered cabbage aside.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine red wine vinegar and sucanat, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. (I had to heat the mixture for 10 seconds in the microwave to break down the sugar a bit; however, you could skip this step depending on the sweetener you use.) Mix in coconut oil, then the caraway seeds. Add a little salt to the mixture - just enough to make the dressing a little savory. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes while you whistle/skip about the kitchen/drink your neglected coffee/wash dishes.

Toss the cabbage and the dressing together. Though the dressing will slip through the cabbage and make a bee-line for the bottom of your bowl, keep tossing until the whole mess has been coated well. I think this cole slaw is better after at least 24 hours, but if you're in a hurry, several hours in the fridge will do.

This cole slaw made my lunch a little more fun, and my fridge a little less cluttered.

Tree makes granola. C'est bon.

2010-04-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Do you believe that granola is capable of being sexy?

How about now?

I made half a batch of this granola before work Tuesday and oh man! I'm glad no one saw me shoveling it into my face. It wasn't ladylike at all...

But if you make this granola, you'll understand. My friend, Super Sheree, shared the recipe with me last year. This isn't health food store granola, sweetened only with kindness and good intentions, packed with chicory and flax (well, there is flax.) Sheree's granola is made with our friends Butter and Maple Syrup, with a splash of sugar thrown on top for crunch.

This granola is sweet-salty and sticks to your ribs without any apologies or murmerings about how "you'll have to work that off later." Yet it's filled with fruits, nuts, oats, and flax--models of virtue. It's what I'm packing with me today, when I fly to Texas for a weddin'. Sorry, Southwest Airlines; I love you, but Sheree's granola kicks your snack box's ass.

The lovely granola
adapted from Tree's granola,
which was adapted from epicurious

3 cups steel-cut rolled oats
1/4 cup ground flax meal
2 tsp. quinoa (optional)
2 tsp. medium-grind corn meal (optional)
1 handful raw almonds or pecans
1 handful walnut pieces (or crush a handful of walnut halves by hand; very satisfying)
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/4 cup dried apricots, snipped in fourths
1/3 cup dried cranberries or raisins (I choose cranberries; raisins are evil.)
2 Tb. granulated sugar
1 tsp. cardamom powder
4 Tb. melted butter
4 oz. maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. sea salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, then line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Microwave or melt the butter, then stir in the maple syrup and vanilla. Set aside.
Stir all of the granola filling --everything that's left but the salt and sugar--together in a big bowl. Pour the butter/syrup over the granola and stir well.

Spread the granola onto the parchment paper, making an even sheet of filling. Lightly sprinkle the salt and sugar over the granola and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the granola halfway through cooking and stir; keep a close eye on the oats for the last 5 minutes. Once the oats are golden and the fruit slightly crisp, remove the granola and let it cool, undisturbed, for 10 minutes.

If you prefer big chunks of granola, carefully crack the sheet of granola with a spoon, then store the cereal --loosely packed--in an air-tight container. If you prefer a more even consistency, cram the granola in a quart-sized bag. It'll (allegedly) keep for weeks (not that I let it sit around that long.)

If you enjoyed this recipe, you might like:

Chocolate coconut flax granola
Dried fruit pie

Buttermilk to go

2010-07-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

No matter how much I train myself to love superfood breakfasts like fruit smoothies or cooked oats, I always come back to coffee and scones.

Daily smoothies would be perfect if I had a live-in Jack Lalanne to prepare my breakfast to-go. (Alas, I do not.) Also, when I cook oatmeal, even when I spike it with flax and walnuts and--let's not hide things--butter, my stomach is a screaming banshee by 11 am. I don't know if an enzyme imbalance or my bum-ass metabolism is to blame, but I do know what works: coffee and a good scone.

For me, coffee is so wonderful that I name my top six coffee-related songs with no mental prep:*

1. "Coffee and TV" - Blur
2. "Cigarettes and Coffee" - Otis Redding
3. "Black Coffee" - Ella Fitzgerald
4. "Coffee Shop Girl" - Ozma
5. "The Coffee Song" - Frank Sinatra (Soul Coughing sings my favorite version.)
6. "Starfish and Coffee" - Prince

Scones accompany coffee almost as well as cream does. Unlike giant gas station muffins, they don't scream, "Look at me! I forgot to eat breakfast." They're classy, low-key. The scones I love most come packed with flavorful treats like walnuts, spices and fruit. Also, I love that scones are easy to carry, since I never leave enough time for breakfast.

I started making scones in my College Hill Coffee days. There, cranberry-orange buttermilk scones reigned supreme. In the CHC kitchen, I learned to cut in the cold butter, to make buttermilk from vinegar and milk, and to quickly press the scone dough together into a flaky round. After slicing the dough and a quick bake in the oven, CHC's cranberry buttermilk scones often sold within a few hours.

Years later, when I was morning shift manager at a Starbucks, I'd take my 7 am "lunch break" with a foamy latte and maple-nut scone. Starbucks also carries a cranberry-orange scone, but nothing tops the ones from College Hill Coffee. Now when I make scones at home, I always use the CHC recipe as my foundation. I might swap in cranberries and lemon, or sprinkle poppy seeds on top, but the proportions are always the same as the original recipe.

I made some great swaps in my last batch of scones. Instead of tart cranberries, I filled them with soothing apricot and buttery walnuts, then swirled cinnamon and cardamom through the dough. They went over well at work. I think my boss ate three. Thanks, College Hill Coffee, for teaching me another recipe that keeps on giving.

Buttermilk scones! (the fruit + nut variety)
from the College Hill Coffee Cookbook
makes 1 dozen scones

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¾ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ¾ c. cold butter
• 1 c. – 1Tb. Milk
• 1Tb. Vinegar
• 1 tsp. grated orange peel (optional)
• 1 cup dried apricots (cranberries, cherries, etc.)
• ½ cup walnut pieces (or almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds, etc.)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a small cup, combine the milk and vinegar. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes to create buttermilk (because who keeps buttermilk on hand these days?)

In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Cut in the cold butter using a pastry cutter or the tines of a fork, working until the butter is incorporated with the flours in tiny pieces. Stir the buttermilk into the flours until just combined. Fold in the fruit and walnuts.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and lightly pat and squish the dough into two 6”-diameter circles. (The less you knead the dough, the flakier the scones will be.) Add cinnamon-sugar swirl.** Divide each circle into six wedges, and brush the scone tops with milk. Sprinkle a spoonful of sugar on the scone tops if you like.

Transfer the scones to the baking sheets, leaving 2” between each scone. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until golden brown.

**I marbled a cinnamon-sugar mixture through the dough before I cut it into scones. I mixed 2 Tb. Cinnamon, ½ tsp. cardamom, ½ tsp. sugar, and 1 Tb. water into a thick paste. Then, I use that paste to “glue” together random chunks of scone dough before I pat it into the circles. This creates lovely ribbons of spice.

*I did not list "Java Jive" by Manhattan Transfer because I wish that barbershop quartets worldwide would retire it, forever.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

Ms. Rita's banana bread
Pumpkin cream cheese muffins
Chocolate chip biscotti with orange
CHC Blueberry Muffins

Foodie Adventure 2: Coffee Roasting 101

2011-06-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

At around 10 yesterday morning, I was lazing around my apartment, sipping coffee on the back porch. I remember staring idly at the my strawberry plants, which have produced bouquets of flowers but no berries. The ceramic mug in my hand contained a strong, citrus-y brew with a splash of half & half.

Only one thought floated into my head during this 20-minute space-out:
"I need to roast more coffee."

I sure do. Now that I've successfully roasted one batch of beans without burning down the apartment, I'm ready for round two.

This foodie adventure started with a coupon for a roasting class at AJ Java in north Portland and a rumor that coffee can be roasted in a cast-iron skillet. I hope you know me well enough by now to guess if something can be cooked in cast iron, I'll give it a go.

AJ Java is a cheery, brightly colored and cafe in north Portland. When I arrived for class, the whole building (and the parking lot) smelled like toasted wheat berries. Owner Eleza Faison had just begun roasting a batch of beans in a giant Dietrich drum roaster. Within a few minutes, the aroma of freshly roasted coffee saturated the place. I felt coffee in my pores.

Eleza got our small class pumped about roasting beans at home; it's the freshest way to enjoy coffee, and to discover the infinite number of flavors you can coax from different varieties of beans, roasted in slightly different ways.

This is an excellent time to mention that I'm not a roasting expert. I have no credentials, but I took one class and watched a few cupping demonstrations at the Stumptown Annex. I've learned enough to know that home roasting is fun...and also a fire hazard if you're not careful. So, have fun and be careful.

All of the photos I took in Eleza's class were terrible. Every last one. Let's pretend I was too mesmerized by Eleza's philosophy on farm-direct coffee purchasing** to fully document the experience. So, I'm sharing photos from the roasting party Raymond and I had two Saturdays ago in our kitchen. Armed with an instructional pamphlet from Eleza, a skillet, and a great oven vent, we were ready to duplicate The Spice Merchant's Columbia Supremo roast on the first try!

The raw materials from which we created greatness

Turns out, we are not roasting savants. For our first batch, Raymond and I brought a skillet up to "high" heat, using a candy thermometer to measure up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Leaving the end of a regular candy thermometer directly on a 450-degree heated surface is a great way to break a candy thermometer.

After saying adieu to the thermometer and lowering the burner heat to "medium-high," Raymond and I carefully poured a half-cup of green beans in the skillet. We lowered the heat further when over a dozen beans singed almost immediately. Raymond stirred constantly while I kept the kitchen ventilated and took pictures with my arthritic, first-generation Canon CoolPix.

One bad, charred bean can ruin a whole batch.

I picked out the burned beans while Raymond stirred, stirred, stirred. Eleza told our class to stir at least once every 30 seconds, but said the more often you stir, the more evenly the beans roast. By this point, Raymond and I had dismantled the smoke detector and turned the oven fan on high.

Foodie field note: roasting coffee is done by ear, by eye, by smell, and by timer. Prepare to examine the coffee closely, to watch the beans burst into a larger shape, and to write many, many notes.

Our very uneven, under-roasted first batch

You'll notice that the beans in this batch are either an under-roasted gold or a charred brown-black. The gold beans never reached a hot enough temperature to reach a "first pop," the temp (around 420 degrees Fahrenheit) at which the internal cell walls of the coffee bean are cracked by its oils and applied heat.

Raymond and I didn't want to waste those precious beans. We tried to sort out the golden beans and give them another quick roast. Starting and stopping the process was a mistake; half of the beans ended up roasting too much, while others never heated back up to the correct temperature.

Foodie field note: roast a batch all in one go, without stopping. This could take as little as 5 minutes for a light roast and as long as 12 or 13 minutes for a dark or "French" roast.

Winner of the 2011 Husband-of-the-Year Award

We knew we were on a mission for failure when we poured the beans into my old hand-mill. I've ground at least a dozen pounds of beans in that grinder, using only its iron crank and elbow grease to crush the beans into ground coffee. Usually, I can feel the beans being pulverized with minimal elbow grease on my part.

Properly roasted beans crush in the grinder with the same sound and feeling that crushing walnut halves in your hand would create. With our over/under cooked first and second batches of beans, it sounded grinding seashells or gravel. I summoned Herculean strength to grind what felt like sun-roasted cherry pits into coffee.

R-L: Two samples each of batches one and two

We pressed on and set up glasses for a cupping. (Here's a nice summary from Coffee Geek on why roasters do formal tastings, or cuppings, of each batch and how to set up your own.)

I prepped two samples from each batch, using 12 grams (about 2 heaping spoonfuls) of ground coffee per 6 oz water. While I heated a tea kettle-full of water to boiling, Raymond and I sniffed the fresh coffee and noted the scents and aromas.

After we did our preliminary sniff, I took the water off a boil for just a second, then stirred 3/4 cup water into each glass. What usually happens at this point --and what happens every time I see a cupping at Stumptown -- is the coffee grounds rise to the top of each glass in a heat-sealing cap. The coffee should brew for four minutes under this cap before you crack the crust of grounds, take another sniff, and write more notes about the aroma.

Here are some of our notes from this cupping:

Chez Clause Light

1. Sniff: light, woody, earthy
2. Sniff after brew: "Same as before, only stronger." (Raymond's notes are in quotation marks.)
3. Sniff after breaking crust: citrusy, light.
4. Taste: "like poo."

As coffee roasts, it loses up to 20 percent of its weight in moisture. When the grounds from this cupping sank like stones in the bottom of the glasses, I knew we'd just browned the outside of some raw coffee beans instead of cooking them from the inside-out.

We were ready to roast again, slowly and evenly this time.

Keep stirring! Keep stirring!

With batches three and four, we tweaked the heat to a strong "medium" on our Hotpoint burner. At this temperature, the coffee beans started to turn yellow and smell grassy after 3 minutes. Perfect!

In 5 - 7 minutes, the beans swell and reach the first pop. They literally jump in the pan! You can watch them expand in size. This stage sounds like a crackling campfire. Keep stirring!

From this point, the roast and flavor of the coffee will change rapidly, every minute. You could stop after the first pop and enjoy a light roast. You could roast (and stir) for a few minutes more to achieve a darker roast. In fact, the way the cast iron pan keeps the smokiness of roasting near the beans complements a darker roast. A French or dark roast takes 12 to 15 minutes.

When your coffee has reached roasted perfection, remove it from heat and transfer it to a metal bowl or colander. Stir, stir, stir to stop the cooking process as quickly as possible. You may even use a tabletop fan to cool the beans as you stir.

That's much more even!

Foodie field note: Coffee Geek recommends letting the beans rest for two days before using them. Once they've properly degassed, you can store them in an air-tight glass container (like a cleaned pickle jar!) in a cool, dark place.

Raymond and I couldn't wait to get the taste of mud-flavored coffee out of our mouths, so we jumped the gun and did another cupping.

Layers are good

See the grounds floating at the top of the glasses, as God intended?

After four minutes of brewing, Raymond and I gently pushed the top layer of grounds down with the back of a spoon, like we were cracking the shell of crème brûlée. When you try this, smell the steam that escapes from the coffee as you push the grinds down. You'll smell a burst of complex aromas as the steam rises from the glass. Write your impressions of these aromas down.

So delicious! I could just drink it with a spoon.

Oil- and flavor-rich crema rose to the top after we pushed the grounds down. This is the same crema that tops a perfectly pulled shot of espresso, the stuff that gives espresso its rich flavor.

Now, it's time to slurp a spoonful of coffee. This is how professional roasters do it, I swear. The louder, the better. (Slurping allows the coffee to coat your entire tongue, giving you a real taste of the brew.) Again, write down what you taste.

Here are our notes from this cupping:

Chez Clause Dark

1. Sniff: woody, sharp, moist
2. Sniff after brew: woody, earthy, citrusy
3. Sniff after breaking crust: citrusy, light.
4. Taste: light-bodied, with wood and oranges

The real stuff: ground and brewed just minutes later

Foodie field note: taking notes not only allows you to notice the flavors in each type of coffee and each roasted batch, but it allows you to duplicate the results you enjoy later. Whether you're Starbucks, using a complicated "flavor profile" to create the same House Blend batch after batch, or a home roaster trying to remember how to bring out the lemony flavors Tanzanian Peaberry beans, notes are your friend. They're your operating manual.

Whew! I burned through so many cups of coffee while writing this foodie adventure that it's time to roast more coffee. If you're curious about home roasting--whether you use a skillet like me or even a popcorn popper--please look at some of the resourced I've compiled below. Most of the Portland businesses I found who sell green beans also offer online ordering for people who don't live in town. Happy roasting!

Green Beans and Roasting Classes Portland

AJ Java Roasting - roasting classes, plus a great rotating cast of green beans online. ***Eleza specializes in buying beans directly from growers; she doesn't trust third-party "fair trade" groups to pay fair prices, so she gets to know the farmers directly.
Sweet Maria's - offers beans and home roasting supplies online, plus fantastic home roasting reading material
Lovejoy Coffee Co. - offers online ordering, plus you can set up an appointment to learn home roasting in their store.
Mr. Green Beans - sells beans and supplies in Portland and online, plus DIY home craft (canning, roasting, soap- and cheese-making) classes at their Mississippi District storefront.
Barbur World Foods - in SW Portland, offers several varieties of green beans in bulk. When I stopped by on Sunday evening, they were carrying beans from Africa and Columbia.

Cupping / Roasting Tutorials

Roasting in an air popper
Whirley-pop roasting
CoffeeGeek.com's guide to cupping: a no-fuss, educational guide

Died and gone

2008-11-05T17:02:00.001-08:00

Martha knows her cookies (and her serving plates)

For me, the past few days have required an extra boost of emotional fortitude. I finally finished a huge project at work, caught a cold on Monday, and slogged through election night with a Vitamin Water and a microphone in hand. The elections really got to me -- would that jerk Tiahrt get re-elected? (yes) Would we elect Barack Obama or John McCain (or Ralph Nader, for that matter?) Would Kansas turn red or blue? Would the school bond pass? I just couldn't deal with these and the rest of life's little stresses without chocolate.

It wasn't until today, though, that I could take the time to get a real dose of that soul-soothing substance.

I'm such a chocolate junkie that I no longer get cravings for just chocolate, I get cravings for the style and texture in which the chocolate should be delivered. Some days, I need the smooth predictability of a Lindt truffle (though the shiny little wrappers help, too.) Some days, the chocolate gets melted and mixed in espresso and milk. Other times, I just carry a bar of Green and Blacks in my bag for square-at-a-time doses.

Today, I needed cookies, and as usual, Martha was there for me. In fact, the very cookie I'd been dreaming of -- dense, intense, chewy and chocolatey -- was today's Cookie of the Day. Perfect timing as usual, Ms. Stewart.

If you're in need of a lift, please make these cookies. Make them now. And enjoy them with a glass of Iwig milk, if you live in Kansas. These cookies are so magical, so blissful, so appropriate for the hard times in which we live, that when my husband ate one, he said:

"Oooh. Oh. Oh. Oh, Jesus. I have died and gone to chocolate."

Dark Chocolate Cookies with Espresso
(lightly modified from marthastewart.com)

one cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch cocoa (also spooned and leveled)
1//2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar (I used a mix of cane and sucanat)
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp. kick-in-your-pants good vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. ground espresso
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate (4 oz. melted, 4 oz. coarsely chopped)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and place oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of your oven. In a bowl, mix together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Set that stuff aside.

Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (this is where the room temperature butter thing comes in handy.) Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla. Add in your melted chocolate and espresso, and mix well until your batter looks ooey, gooey, and very, very good.

With your mixer set on a low speed, mix in the flour mixture until just combined. Then, fold in the chocolate chunks.

Drop the dough by two heaping tablespoons-full, three inches apart, onto two baking sheets. I lined my sheets with parchment paper, and the cookies turned out just fine. Bake the cookies for 14-15 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are dry. Be sure to switch the sheets on the oven rack half-way through cooking. Transfer your cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. They should have a shiny, crinkly texture when finished, and a heavenly, full-bodied taste.

These babies will keep well in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to three days. Not that they will last that long...

Waiting patiently

2008-10-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

Dear lovely readers,

For your patience, you will soon be rewarded. I've sent in my order for my winners' Wheat Treats (there's no online ordering with that company! Phissht!) and taken many photos of foods that you will want to eat. I remain committed to snail mail and real-film photography, so there will be a small lag (of about a week.)

Until then, get your recipe cards ready for:

bread-machines-ain't-so-bad grilled cheese sandwiches

cheater tomato soup

lower fat double lemon and poppy seed bread (I'm eating a piece of it now! Mmmm.)

scenic, bicycle-eye pictures of the ICT you won't find in Wichita Magazine

Until then, please have a latte.

Pesto presto, with radish greens

2010-10-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

Dear readers,

I'm about to share something with you that nobody, not even my BFF, is allowed to read: my journal.

Yes, I use graph paper.

No, I don't draw parabolas.

Thrilling, no? This little red book actually contains honest-to-God secrets, insights, and, oh yeah, shopping lists. And recipes that I improvise in the kitchen. And lists of presents that I'll make/give for Christmas. And sometimes the breakdown of our household budget. When did I become so exciting?

I've been writing in journals since the late '80s, when a girl called them "diaries" and they came with puny locks on the side - as if an 1/8" of cheap metal could keep out prying eyes. I moved from Lisa Frank to Mead Notebooks and eventually to minimalist Miquel Ruis ones with blank pages with no dates to pressure me into writing about nothing.

Once, while rifling through some grade school papers, I discovered my "diary" from second grade. Our whole class had to keep one for a month, writing in it daily. During this month, I wrote that Brant was in my reading group and Cherity won an award "but everybody likes her because she runs the fastestt and THAT'S NOT FAIRE!!" So I thought. (Cherity was our Washington Elementary class Golden Girl and man, did I detest her. I'm over it now, like I'm over the time she tried to take back the Hula Hoop she gave me for my birthday.)

Recipes crept into my journals when I started this blog. Dishes that I had just futzed together before turned into real recipes once committed to paper; I dissected my chocolate-coconut-flax granola and the recipe took up permanent residence in my home. If sticky notes are weekly-rate sublets, journals are historic homesteads with names. I keep all my old journals, no matter how embarrassing or mundane the observations. They contain my history....and now my recipes.

Like this recipe for pesto. I think pesto is more process than a measured recipe, similar to making gravy with milk and flour and fat. Start with the basics--basil, garlic, olive oil, lemon, Parmesan--and improvise from there. I added some radish tops after being inspired (again) by Clotilde, then tossed in some baby Roma tomatoes from the garden. You may prefer pine nuts and spinach in yours; the key is taste, taste, taste as you go along.

Pick the last of your garden's basil and blend a few batches to keep in the freezer through winter. I spread homemade pesto on bagels and sandwiches and mix it with spaghetti or macaroni and cheese.

Radish top-basil pesto
for Sheree, who requested this recipe months ago
makes 4 -5 cups

3 cups fresh basil, washed and dried
1 1/2 cups fresh radish tops, washed and dried
5 cloves garlic
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 fresh lemon juice
2/3 cup freshly shredded Parmesan
1/2 cup walnut halves
1 tsp. Kosher salt
10-12 baby Roma tomatoes (optional)

Wash and dry the basil and radish tops. Break long stems of basil down into smaller pieces to avoid testing your blender's patience. Chop the garlic finely and slice the tomatoes. Begin layering the pesto ingredients into your blender's bowl, like a parfait, in roughly this order:

1) a handful of basil and radish greens. Really smoosh them down by the blades.
2) a glug of lemon juice or olive oil
3) a handful of walnuts
4) a handful of Parmesan
5) another handful of basil and radish greens.
6) another glug of lemon juice or olive oil
7) some chopped garlic and tomato and salt

Blend the pesto on high for 30-second bursts. Depending on the age/strength of your blender or food processor, this may reduce the veggies into a smooth, liquidy paste immediately. If you own a blender like my last blender, this process could take days and you will use a spoon to manually stir the pesto between blending bursts.

Keep blending until everything is incorporated, add more lemon juice or oil until you reach your ideal pesto consistency. I like smooth and creamy pesto, as pictured above. Some people like chunkier pesto, a cross between a dressing and a salsa. It's up to you.

Once finished, divide the pesto into one-cup containers. Top each pesto container with a thin layer of olive oil (to seal in the freshness and seal out air) and freeze what you won't use within a week. When one pesto container starts running low, I simply defrost another one and I'm back in the pesto business within 24 hours.

Some recipes that began in a journal:

Pumpkin cream cheese muffins
Cajun potatoes
Easy tamale pie
Caramelized onion and prosciutto pizza
Meringues noir

Adventures in pickle-making

2008-09-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

Pickles are the reason this blog exists.

More specifically, the wonky pickles I tried to make a month ago inspired this blog. My forays into pickle-making and canning in general stem from a move this June. After three years in various apartments, My husband and I moved into a house. A house house, with a real roof and four non-shared walls and a yard. We loved it. The kitty loved it. Our friends loved it.

After we moved, I began to suffer from Laura Ingalls Wilder-like delusions of self-sufficiency. We bought the first shovel and rake I'd ever purchased. I started a pathetic excuse for a compost pile. And I also dug up a third of our side yard and planted what I call The Garden of Social and Political Revolution, which was to be a source of fresh produce and herbs all summer long.

"Screw rising food costs and pesticide-riddled produce!" I said to myself as a turned over the very dense, nutrient-sparse dirt by my dining room window. "I will not have to eat pale, cardboard-flavored tomatoes this January!"

The garden turned did not produce the bounty we'd require to make it through the long prairie winter. The GSPR has given me many gifts, though: almost two dozen tomatoes of varying sizes, hand-fulls and hand-fulls of leafy lettuce, basil upon basil, spearmint, green peppers, and pickle cucumbers, and spinach (sometimes.) If my carrots, beets, and yellow bell peppers ever mature, I'll have those, too.

My cucumber plant (before it experienced a mysterious blight in late July and died) produced about a cucumber a day in its prime. I squirreled them away in a Green Bag and waited to find the perfect pickle recipe. I bought fresh dill and filled some mason jars with fat cucumber spears, garlic, and way too much mustard seed. It couldn't be helped. The mustard floated around so wonderfully with the garlic and dill in its vinegar marinade.

I proudly displayed my six jars of pickles in the pantry for a few weeks before I opened one up. One of my home-made pickles should go with my soup and sandwich, I remember thinking as I scooped a spear out of the jar. No matter how lovely to behold, the proof was in the pickle. The flavor of mustard overpowered me. These pickles would make an excellent cure for a head cold! So much for my ideal pickles from my Garden of Social and Political Revolution...

But, later I had a revelation: my pickles were a perfect 2-in-1 combo for hamburgers and chicken salad and any other food-in-a-bun where mustard+pickles were welcome. Ha!

And so, this blog is dedicated to the state of being in a pickle over pickles, and over other areas of life. May your pickles, whether mushy or wrongly flavored, always go with your sandwich.