This Isn't a Cooking Blog

Good thing.

I'm going to blame this on Pinterest. For those of you who haven't heard of Pinterest it means "Pinning Things of Interest". It's like an electronic bulletin board. How many times have you printed off a recipe or tutorial? With Pinterest, if I see something I like, I can "pin it". Its a place where you pin crafts that are too complicated or things you'll never afford. It's fantastic!

I had my quilt group over this week. I went to my Pinterest boards and looked under "Foodalicious" for something to make. There it was, little bowls. How simple. My brain was working it. Let's see, find some fall-ish ice cream, a little whip cream and nutmeg. How spectacular it will be. But my vision did not materialize.

 

This is what my snickerdoodle cookies looked right out of the oven. So far, so good. Think about this cinnamon goodness with my pumpkin ice cream inside it.

This is what the pan looked like as I tried to chisel the cookie bowls off of it. Trust me, it got much worse than this. Needless to say, there were no cookie bowls for quilt night.

A Dessert Smackdown

A couple of weeks ago at work, I had a couple of the maintenance fellows trying to figure why it was so cold at my desk. I also had IT at my desk helping with a phone issue. I can't remember the progression of the conversation but we were talking about baking. One of the guys made a comment on how wonderful a baker my friend Donna was. I then challenged Donna to a baking contest. We got together over break and decided when we were going to bring our treats in.

After talking with Donna, I knew I had to change my strategy. I was going to bring in cinnamon rolls and a cake. After mulling over things, I decided to make a chocolate espresso yule log and a white chocolate macadamia nut pie. Now mind you, this was a friendly smackdown. We decided no judging. We would just let our co-workers in IT and Maintenance eat the goods.

Here is my yule log. I think I should have left off the powdered sugar. I went to the florist and purchased lemon leaves and painted the underside of the leaves with the chocolate. The yellow cyathia's are made of marzipan.

Irish Soda Bread

This Easter I decided to make a couple of loaves of Irish Soda bread for dinner. A yeast bread would have been more appropriate but this is quick and easy. I was able to put this together and bake it before going to church. For those of you who haven't tried this yet, it is similar to a scone. This recipe was published in our local newspaper, the Post Crescent this year right before St. Patrick's Day. Unfortunately, I printed the recipe off the newspaper website but the recipe doesn't state who the author is.

Aunt Barb's Irish Soda Bread

2 cups slightly rounded all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (a bit less) baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
small handful of each: golden and regular raisins
1 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons butter or margarine (cut into pieces)
Pinch of salt

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add raisins and gently mix. Add buttermilk, blend, and add butter or margarine. Do not overmix!

Shape into a mound, then gently pat down. Cut a cross-shape with a knife into the top of the dough.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 35 minutes. Bread will be golden.

I have used both attachments on my Kitchen Aid mixer. I do think the paddle works slightly better than the dough hook. I think the batter is too wet for the hook to work it's best.










As you can see, the dough is a moist dough. Kind of in between a muffin dough and a yeast dough. I find that I add a little more flour than what the recipe calls for. I usually double the batch so it makes 2 loaves. One quart of buttermilk will make four loaves. Don't let the buttermilk go to waste! I'm sure this would freeze ok if you double wrap it. Make sure that you don't skimp on the raisins. I only used regular raisins. There isn't a lot of sugar in this recipe so the raisins give it a little extra sweetness.



Because this dough is so sticky, make sure that you generously flour the board. Do you see the scorch mark? All I know is that it involved a husband and a saucepan. I was gone for the day. It really isn't safe to leave home some days.









Generously flour the top of your dough. Now you are ready to "knead". You don't really knead this dough. I will just knead or flip it over until most of the flour is taken up by the dough and the dough is now workable and no longer sticky. Because this is a double batch, I then cut the dough into two and shaped the dough into mounds.







This is what they look like going into the oven. I love using parchment paper. I use that on just about anything that I put into the oven.











There you have it! Two golden brown loaves of Irish Soda Bread. Don't wait for the next St. Paddy's day to roll around to make this. This is a great breakfast bread or snack bread.

Lenten Recipes

I added a new recipe to our Lenten repertoire. I found this on the internet last week. It is from Gourmet magazine. It sounded good and it looked good. I was game to try it. Whitney was over for dinner and both she and Jeff gave this dish a thumbs up. It goes together quickly. Let me tell you that the aroma of the pine nuts and garlic simmering in the olive oil and butter makes you stop and take notice of what is happening in the kitchen.

The second recipe that I have for you is an old, family Lenten favorite. Every year, the first graders in the school of Religion would get a hunk of pretzel dough and shape their dough. All three daughters made these pretzels in first grade, then for several years, I was a first grade Catachist at St. Bernards so I made them each year with my students. Pretzels go back to the early days of the church. People would abstain from meat and all forms of animal products. The pretzels were then a simple bread to eat during Lent. In addition, a young Italian monk shaped the dough to mimic crossed arms in prayer. Lauren has asked me to send her this recipe for the last two years. About a week ago, I received an email from her asking me once again to send her the recipe. So I've included the pretzel recipe for all of you to enjoy. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture to share with you with the homemade pretzels.

Penne Rigate with Mixed Greens and Pine Nuts
1 lb penne rigate
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup pine nuts
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
2 (8 to 10 oz) bags of mixed salad greens with radicchio (often labeled Italian)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus extra for garnish

Cook penne in boiling salted water until al dente or according to package directions, then drain in a colander.

Combine butter, oil and pine nuts in cleaned and dried pot and cook over moderately high heat, stirring, until nuts are pale golden, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until garlic is golden, about 1 minute. Stir in greens and cook, stirring, until they wilt, about 3 minutes. Add penne, salt and pepper and toss to coat. Stir in cheese and serve immediately with additional cheese on the side.

**To reduce the start-to-finish time, cook the nuts,, garlic and greens in a separate pot while you boil the pasta.

**I only added one bag of mixed Italian greens and that seemed to be plenty. I went to the store without the recipe so I didn't know how much I needed to buy.

Soft Pretzels
1 pkg dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
1 egg
coarse salt

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add salt and sugar. Blend in flour. Knead dough until smooth. Cut into small pieces. Roll in ropes and twist into shape. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet. Brush pretzels with beaten egg. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake at 425 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Makes about 12 pretzels.

My Retreat Snack

This year for quilt retreat I decided to try a new recipe. I was making a different dessert for work and came across this recipe on the inside of the cream cheese package. So thank you Crystal Farms for this!




Chocolate Peanut Fudge Bars

Crust
2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted

Filling
1 (8oz) pkg Crystal Farms Cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons milk

Topping
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup coarsely chopped peanuts

In a medium bowl, combine crustt ingredients; mix well. Press firmly on bottom of 13x9 inch pan. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes. In a medium mixer bowl, combine filling ingredients; blend at low speed 30 seconds. Beat at medium-high speed 2 minutes or until light and fluffy. Spread over crust. In medium saucepan, melt chocolate chips over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Stir in peanut butter; blend well. Stir in peanuts. Spread over filling. Refrigerate at least 4 hours. Store refrigerated.

While searching for a picture of the chocolate cookies, I came across an article from the Washington Post. It talked about the difficulty of finding this little box of wafers. There was a statement by a law professor who said that it was easier to find heroin than these chocolate wafers. If you live in Appleton, Woodman's carries these for under $4/box. You will need about 2/3 of the box for these bars. Eat the rest of the box for breakfast like I did! If you can't find the Nabisco wafers, a second choice would be Chocolate Teddy Grahams. I think that Oreo's would be too sweet.

Prom Dessert

I wanted to show everyone the dessert the kids had for prom dinner. A big thank you to Terry Rathsack who made the dessert. Terry is the executive chef for a company in town. The company owns what is called (I think) The Farm. This is where the visitors to the company stay instead of a hotel. I believe that there are company functions held there also. So needless to say, when I heard a chef was coming to the house I was very nervous. I can cook for family but God forbid what a chef would say about the menu and how I did. The Rathsack's contribution was Tiramisu. Luckily, there were maybe 5 pieces left for the adults to share. It was excellent. I wish I had had more time, in a less hectic setting to discuss baking with him. We did talk about getting Creme Anglaise to not curdle. Double boiler!

All the parents and siblings did a wonderful job of prepping, cooking and serving the food. I wish you all could have seen how wonderful the presentation was. The punch goblets had strawberries on the rim as a garnish. I've never had a staff of 10 under me! I need this crew for Thanksgiving.