Bread, Wine, Salt

Mmm . . . Monday was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the air was warm. It was Spring Break so the boys were home and no one was complaining about school. Friends came down the hill and invited the boys to play at the playground across the street. It was the Orioles opening day and the good guys won. There was a brief moment where it felt like summer and when I remembered it was just a brief respite from the school year it was sort of a bummer. The two days that followed were cooler and more Spring-like, and I had to make the older boy buckle down and work on some homework so there was no forgetting what month it was. The biscuits that started the whole thing. So fluffy. I made biscuits last night, based on this King Arthur Flour recipe , which came out beautifully, and went well with the bean stew I made. But I noticed on the recipe that I could add up to 4 Tablespoons of sugar and make them scones.  So I made a few adjustments and made scones this morning, bec...

Years ago, when I was first dating the man who would eventually be smart enough to marry me, that man had a roommate who never cooked. Instead he went home every weekend, ate his mother's cooking, and brought back enough dinners, each packed it its own tupperware, to feed him until the next weekend. My boyfriend liked to mock him for it, but I tried a more encouraging approach. I told him that if he made his own dinner, just once, I'd make him a blueberry cobbler. I don't know why I said blueberry cobbler, but I did, and it stuck. Not long after I made the promise, the roommate cooked himself his own dinner, and I was called on to make blueberry cobbler. Grab a spoon. That story has nothing to do with this recipe, except that I was thinking about it while I assembled this morning's breakfast last night. My boys were going to gymnastics camp today, which meant getting them up and fed earlier than usual, and I wanted their bellies full of food which would last the...

I had this idea in my head that I wanted pumpkin granola muffins, with the granola acting as a less-sweet streusel topping. I borrowed Maud's pumpkin bread recipe. (It's not on her blog. You should harass her about that.) The muffins weren't a disaster. Muffins rarely are. But they weren't great. No one loved them. The recipe uses one half of a can of pumpkin, so then there was a half can of pumpkin in my refrigerator, mocking me and my failed muffins. (We'll ignore what else might have been mocking me recently. This is about muffins. Whatever else is wrong it seems only fair that I should be able to produce a decent batch of muffins.) So I went back and tried again. I swapped out some oatmeal for some of the flour, added in crystallized ginger and walnuts. In the process I discovered what might have been a critical error in the last batch.) And then I put it in oven, told facebook all about it, and waited.     Unlike the other things I've been wai...

If you were to invite me over to your house and then leave me alone, to chase after some child who is raiding some other child's couch full of animals , for example, then I will eventually end up digging through your cookbook collection. You're welcome to come over and dig through mine as well. They're in the cabinets above the stove. I borrowed Maud's copy of Avoca Cafe Cookbook (more correctly the Irish version thereof, a couple of weeks ago, because I wanted their baked lamb with cumin, cardamom and coconut milk recipe, thinking it might be similar to a dish I ate in an Indian restaurant years ago. I cannot resist an interesting bread recipe, so when I saw the lovely picture of round loaves of seeded bread on page labeled “Multiseed brown bread with fruit” I knew I had to try it. Now, as it turns out the picture had nothing to do with the recipe, but I liked the ingredients in the recipe too, so I decided to give it a shot. The first four ingredients...

Years ago, when my parents married, my mother asked my father what he would like her to make for Christmas. He asked for Julekake, a Scandinavian Christmas bread. It was common in the bakeries in my father's childhood Chicago, but it was more difficult to find in the small Army towns where my father was posted, so my mother found a recipe, and baked her own. We ate it with eggs or bacon or sausage every Christmas breakfast of my childhood. My mother baked simple round loaves studded with raisins and candied cherries. When I grew up I swapped out dried cherries for the candied ones. I baked it in the oven of my boyfriend's apartment before I went to share Christmas with his family, inhaled the scent of them to make it Christmas when the traditions around me were not my own. I've discovered that the fruit is not mandatory, though I'd never leave it out. A braid is traditional, and I'll make a braided loaf when I have time, though for gift giving I ...

Waffles have become a Saturday morning tradition at my house. We have waffles, fruit, and sausage or bacon. Normally I make buttermilk waffles which are lovely things. When you have one really good waffle recipe, do you need another? No, but I don't need another pair of shoes either, and that has never kept me off of Zappos. The thing about baking bread is that before you know it you've started buying yeast in bulk, and then you've got this big container of yeast in your freezer and you start looking for excuses to use it. I have a friend who swears by his yeasted pancake recipe, and I have every intention of trying it as soon as he actually shares it with me. (I just emailed him about it, in fact.) I've been playing around with things that you can mix up when things are quiet and then bake when you're ready. Waffles that rise overnight seem like just the thing for busy Saturday mornings. You do most of the work Friday night after you've...

Granola is a strange thing.  It's generally fairly high in sugar and fat but it's thought of as health food.  You can pay a lot of money for it even though it doesn't require any exciting ingredients or any skill except stirring.  It lives on the continuum of breakfast foods somewhere between a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal and Cookie Crisp .  It is infinitely flexible and will take on a huge variety of ingredients.    I've been toying with the idea of making a series of cookie inspired granola recipes, and since this is December, the month of cookie madness I decided this was as good a time as any to try it out.  Today's granola is a simple sugar-cookie granola, the only add-in is almonds.  I chose almonds because almond extract is a common flavoring in sugar cookies.  It took me less than 10 minutes to get this in the oven, and yet I have two full cookie sheets of granola that taste like cookies.  What else gives so much ...

These were a riff off of the roasted apples at Remedial Eating .  I roasted mine at 450 instead of 400, used only 1 Tablespoon each of butter and brown sugar and roasted them for 45 minutes instead of 60.  I also skipped the cinnamon and used a full teaspoon of freshly crushed cardamom.  I love cardamom, and just like I think you should grate your own cheese I think you should grind your own cardamom.  In this case I just crushed the seeds on the cutting board with the back of a spoon, no special equipment required.   If you don't want to use them on top of waffles, you could use them on top of ice cream, or just by themselves.  

There are a lot of changes coming for me, and while I'm not making New Year's resolutions per se, it seems appropriate that these changes come at a traditional time of starting over. And while some of these changes revolve around my health, I'm not going to go too crazy. You'll find no promises to give up carbs or fat or whatever it is all the cool people are giving up these days. I will be trying to be more aware of what I'm eating, and not eating things which aren't good. What's that you say? “Of course you shouldn't eat things that aren't good. Who does that?” Me. I do that. I eat things when I'm not really hungry and I sometimes eat things that aren't really tasty even though there's no reason. If I'm going to stuff myself full of something, I want it to be something lovely, eaten in a way that acknowledges that food is not just fuel. So unresolution number one is to make more waffles. These are good waffles. Th...

( Full recipe with vegan variation here. )

I love maple syrup. Everyone else in my house loves maple syrup. But sometimes it's nice to switch things up. And if switching things up means we eat a little more fruit and a little less sugar? Well, that's nice, too. This would probably work with any berry you happened to have bouncing around in your freezer. We always have blueberries in my freezer because a certain small person likes frozen blueberries on everything. If berries are in season, you can use fresh, but you'll want to add a bit of water (maybe ¼ cup) at the beginning and mash them a bit with a spoon to encourage them to give up some juice. Blueberry Sauce for Pancakes (and whatever else you might want to make more blueberry.) 2 cups frozen blueberries ¼ cup maple syrup 1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour ¼ cup water Put blueberries and maple syrup in a small saucepan over low heat. Cook uncovered until the berries release enough juice to swim freely. Mix the flour and water together to form a ...

The lovely and talented Justine left a suggestion on my post about cooking steel cut oats , so I had to try it. I always do what Justine tells me, because in addition to being lovely and talented she's very smart. Toasted oats, people! You must toast your oats! MUST! Why? Because it makes them taste all toasty and nutty and yum and you will love it. Also, because if you follow my instructions you can wake up to a pot of oats which requires only enough heat to warm through and then it's done. No fuss, no muss. The night before you want oatmeal for breakfast, measure out your water and put it on to boil. I use a ratio of 1 part oats to 3 parts water. I use an electric kettle and I really think everyone with electricity should own one, but a kettle on the stove will do as well. Put a large pot over low heat. Toss in a pat of butter (or don't if you'd rather not. This will work either way.) to melt. Measure and add your oats. Add a pinch of salt. Stir...

The frozen blueberry makes regular appearances on the four-year-old's breakfast dish. Oatmeal and plain yogurt, both breakfast staples, are almost always topped with frozen blueberries, and if breakfast isn't quite ready yet, a bowl of frozen blueberries is requested as an appetizer. Naturally, blueberry pancakes are quite popular around here. (The blueberries are on the bottom, waiting to surprise you with their juicy deliciousness.) This is a very thick batter, so the pancakes will take a bit longer to cook than you may be used to, and don't expect popping bubbles to tell you when they're ready to flip. Just keep an eye on the sides, and don't cook them too hot. By the time I get to the second round I generally have my skillet on the lowest setting. (My stove-top runs a tiny bit hot, so aim for medium-low and adjust as necessary.) Blueberry Yogurt Pancakes yields ~16 4” pancakes 1/3 cup butter 12 ounces (about 3 cups) white whole wheat flour 3 teasp...

...and anyone else who needs a fast, hearty breakfast. We all have days when we don't have time to sit down and eat a bowl of oatmeal. I used to have them all the time, days when all I had time for was an apple in the car, but needed more than an apple to keep me upright until lunch. This stuffed apple was one of my grab and go breakfasts back then, or I'd wrap it up and eat it for lunch on the days when I didn't have time to pack something balanced. The peanut-butter provided a kick of protein and good fats. The dried fruit provided a bit of sweetness and chew. And the apple provided crunch, fiber, juiciness and clean hands. It's a simple and versatile meal. Just slice the apple in half and use a pairing knife, grapefruit spoon or melon-baller to carve out the seeds, stem and flower, then fill with peanut-butter and dried cranberries as above. Or use raisins, chopped dried apricots, currants, dried blueberries, dried cherries. Swap out the peanut-butte...

What do you think of when you think of oatmeal? It is sweet powdery packets mixed with boiling water, or microwaved with milk? Is it flakes cooked to thin paste on the stovetop? (Was that leading the witness?) Is it nutty, chewy wholesome steel-cut oats, finished with butter and a bit of honey, or some dried fruit? (That was definitely leading the witness.) If oatmeal makes you think of peaches and cream packets or those flakes, I humbly suggest you try the other kind. It's possible you're intimidated by it. It takes too long. It's more expensive than the flakes. You don't own a spurtle . Now, I am not an oatmeal expert. I was born in Texas, not Scotland or Ireland, and the portions of my family that were from those lovely oat-filled places moved to the mid-West of the United States and assimilated long before I was born. But I do know that not only are steel-cut oats better for you than the packets (which are really no better nutritionally than cold c...

The point of frying slices of green tomatoes in a cornmeal crust is to make use of a foodstuff that would otherwise go to waste. At the end of the growing season, whenever that is for you, the green tomatoes that remain on your tomato plant aren't going to get ripe. You can surrender to it, and let the tomato rot in your compost, but then you wouldn't get to eat fried green tomatoes, and that would be a shame. Green tomatoes are astringent little things, almost as crisp as an apple and that really makes them perfect for frying. The heat softens them, and the astringency cuts through the fat flavor of the crust. Plus, they're simple. The only trick is to pick the tomatoes when they're truly green. If they've started to ripen and soften they'll loose some of their punch. Not that they won't taste good when dipped in cornmeal and fried, just that they won't be fried green tomatoes. Most frying recipes recommend that you remove your food from...

How do you go from prayer to pancakes?  By reading this blog, for starters.  I decided I was never going to be properly focused like the "generate loyal readers and convert them to ad revenue" essays think I should be.   So this blog will be about whatever I'm thinking about, be it prayer or pancakes.   Sometimes it might be about both.  Bread, wine and salt belong in religion just as much as they belong on the table. I love pancakes, so I often order them when we go out to eat, and mostly I'm disappointed.  Restaurant pancakes are almost always sad, thin floppy things with no flavor.  I am never disappointed by these pancakes, which are fluffy and hearty, with rich flavor and aren't all that bad for you.  We mostly use pure maple syrup at home, but growing up we usually had butter and molasses on our pancakes, and these pancakes can certainly hold their own against that team as well. This recipe uses flax seed meal for an extra kick of flavo...