blog

Dutch Magic Tart

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 01:01:13 +0100

I love to bake things for people. When a friend's birthday rolls it around, I like to use it as an excuse to fire up the oven. But sometimes I don't feel like baking a cake. I make a lot of cookies, but after awhile those don't feel as special anymore. That's when I start to pull out the weird recipes. A few days ago, I decided to bake this tart for a birthday party I was going to. It may not have candles you can lick frosting off of, but it's fun to make and even more fun to try to explain to people when they ask what it is.

I don't know where this recipe originally came from, but I got it from my parents' recipe box. It's kind of a pudding and kind of a pie and it likes to call itself a tart. You make a sort of custardy batter, pour it into a pie crust, and pour some chocolate sauce over it. While it bakes, the chocolate "magically" sinks to the bottom, creating a melty chocolate layer between the pie crust and the pudding. When I was a kid, my dad would make it from time to time and it would disappear incredibly quickly.

Ingredients:
*makes one 9-inch tart

For crust:
1/4 cup butter
1 cup flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
cold water

For batter:
1/4 cup softened butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1+1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk

For chocolate sauce:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
6 tbsp water
1/2 tsp vanilla

First, make the pie crust. Mix together the flour and sugar, then cut the butter into it until the butter is in pea-sized chunks. Add cold water just until the crust will hold together in a ball. Chill the dough ball in the fridge for 1 hour, then roll it out into a circle to fit a 9-inch pie tin. Keep the pie tin with the crust in the fridge while you make the batter for the tart.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. To make the tart batter, cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl, then add the egg and vanilla. Mix the flour and baking powder in a small, separate bowl, and add it to the large bowl while gradually incorporating the milk. Mix the batter until it is smooth, then pour it into the prepared pie crust. Combine the ingredients for the chocolate sauce in a small bowl, and stir until it is smooth and the cocoa powder is completely incorporated. Pour the chocolate sauce evenly over the batter in the pie tin. Bake the tart at 350 degrees F for 35-40 minutes, until it is firm in the center when lightly touched.

Spicy BBQ Chicken Sandwich

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 04:01:13 +0100

Lately, I've been up to a whole lot of nothin'. Being unemployed was kind of relaxing at first, but now I feel about ready to have some structure in my life. At the moment, my job is finding a job. Hopefully I'll be promoted soon to the position of having a job. Until then, I get to enjoy having lots of time to make myself lunch.

Barbecue sauce is weird, because it's made out of things that seem like they shouldn't go together but actually totally should: tomato sauce, vinegar, and molasses. If you take a chance, mix those things together and slather them on some meat, your faith will be rewarded with deliciousness. If you take it a step farther and make the meat into a sandwich, you get deliciousness in a portable form. Meaning that you can take it outside and walk around with it, saying hi to the people you meet with barbecue sauce dripping down your face. That's never a bad thing.

Ingredients:
*makes a bunch of barbecue sauce and a sandwich

Spicy Barbecue Sauce:
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1/3 cup full flavor molasses
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp pureed chipotles in adobo (buy a can of chipotles in adobo and puree in a blender. Yes, you'll have a lot of extra, which you can freeze and use to make things spicy when you feel so inclined)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Barbecue Chicken Sandwich:
2 boneless skinless chicken thighs, thawed
4 tbsp spicy barbecue sauce
a sandwich roll or a hunk of sourdough baguette
a few slices of monterey jack cheese

To make barbecue sauce, mix tomato sauce, molasses, vinegar, sugar, pureed chipotles, cayenne pepper, and salt in a saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the sauce thickens slightly. Store sauce in an airtight container in the fridge to use within a few days or freeze it to use some other time.
To make the sandwich, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Cook the chicken thighs unseasoned in an oven safe dish for 25 minutes. Pull the chicken out of the oven and pour 2 tablespoons of barbecue sauce over it. Return to the oven and cook for 5 more minutes. Pour the remaining 2 tablespoons of barbecue sauce over the chicken and cook for 5 more minutes, until the chicken is fully cooked. Cut the cooked chicken into bite-size pieces. Put a few slices of monterey jack cheese into a sandwich roll and toast the roll to melt the cheese. Then put the chicken in the middle of the roll and eat your sandwich. You may need a fork.

Blackberry Strudel

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 03:25:54 +0100

Whip some cream and put it on top of your strudel...

But hold on a minute. Before I tell you how my friends and I pulled off the diamond heist of the century only to end up in the interrogation room at the Davis Police Station, let me take you back to the beginning...
~enter flashback~

It was a hot and beautiful day in June. The sun was sifting through the green leaves of the redwood trees onto a
patch of wild blackberry bushes, all thorns and not a berry to be seen. Inside the plants, processes were taking place. Biological processes, involving Science. Several weeks later, mysterious white blossoms appeared everywhere. Green berries began to swell and ripen in the sun. They became darker and darker until they were completely black.

That's where I came in. See, I was looking to take my mind off my status as an unemployed food service worker when I came upon this patch of blackberries just minding their own business in the woods. I picked them and took them home with me and made them into strudel. And I don't regret it! The strudel was so flaky and gooey and delicious I didn't care that it burped a bunch of blackberry goop onto my cookie sheet while it was baking.

Ingredients:
*serves 4

1+1/2 cup blackberries
1 cup powdered sugar
4 sheets storebought phyllo dough, thawed.
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/4 cup granulated sugar
whipped cream for serving

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, mix together the blackberries and the powdered sugar. Set aside.

On a parchment lined baking sheet, lay out one sheet of phyllo dough. Brush the phyllo with melted butter, and sprinkle about a tablespoon of granulated sugar on it. Put a second sheet of phyllo on top of the first, and brush it with butter and sprinkle sugar on it. Repeat until all four sheets of phyllo dough are stacked up and have butter and sugar on them.

Now spoon the blackberries into a line in the middle of the sheets of phyllo, reserving the blackberry juice left at the bottom of the bowl for another use (like blackberry ice cream). Fold the sides of the phyllo over the middle to encase the blackberries, then fold the ends of the phyllo up and roll the whole thing over so that all the seams are on the bottom. You should have a long thin envelope full of blackberries. Brush melted butter on the outside of the strudel, then bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes, until the strudel is golden brown.

Allow to cool, then serve with whipped cream.

Chocolate Walnut Cookies

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 19:50:52 +0100

The cookies I make are like a story I tell over and over, changing slightly with every retelling to highlight the parts which seem the most relevant. Little adjustments to the recipe can yield cookies that are chewy or crunchy, sweet or buttery, nutty or chocolatey, or anything else I can imagine.

When my roommate's sister came to visit, I decided to make chewy, chocolate cookies studded with chocolate chips and chunks of walnuts. We ate them while enjoying Sean Connery's voicing of the dragon in the movie DragonHeart. They were tashty cookies, very tashty indeed.

Ingredients:
*makes about a dozen large cookies

1/2 cup butter
2 tbsp vegetable shortening
1/4 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1+1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup cocoa powder
6oz semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Cream together the butter, shortening, and sugars in a large bowl. Add the vanilla and egg. In a small bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and cocoa powder. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until it is completely incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Drop large teaspoonfuls of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake at 375 degrees F for about 10 minutes, until the cookies have spread and darkened slightly at the edges.

Noodles with Bacon and Avocado

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:55:58 +0100

I love me some noodles. I've mentioned this a few times before, but I'll reiterate. Noodles are good. Noodles make me happy. Noodles with bacon? And avocado?– Make me even happier.

I used chow mein noodles, but this isn't Chinese food. I used avocado, but this isn't Mexican or even Tex-Mex. I used bacon, but this isn't... wherever bacon originally hails from. Wikipedia says either Germany or Hungary. This is what I would call Californian food, because California is a place where good food from all over the world comes together and ends up being eaten by me. Sometimes I'm awfully glad I live here.

Ingredients:
*serves 1

2 oz dry chow mein noodles, cooked according to package instructions
2 strips of bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 clove of garlic, crushed
a pinch of chili powder
1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 carrot, thinly sliced
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp light brown sugar
1 green onion, sliced into thin rounds
1/2 avocado, cubed
fresh mint, chopped for garnish

In a medium saucepan, heat water and cook the chow mein noodles. Drain and set aside.
Cook the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until it is fully cooked. Keeping the heat on, remove the bacon from the skillet onto a paper towel and pour off most of the bacon grease, leaving a thin film. Cook the ginger, garlic, and chili powder in the bacon grease for several minutes, until the garlic and ginger turn golden. Add the bell peppers and carrots, and saute them until they soften slightly. Add the lime juice, soy sauce, brown sugar, and cooked chow mein noodles. Stir and cook until most of the liquid is gone. When the noodles are almost done, add the green onion. When the noodles just start to stick to the pan, pour them into a bowl or plate. Serve with cubed avocado and fresh mint.

I'm Back... With Limes

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 21:45:42 +0100

It's been almost a year since I posted, and I guess all I can say is I got distracted by life. Over the past year, I graduated college, stopped working at the dining hall, and figured out that I still don't know what to do for a living. This summer reminds me so much of last summer that I can hardly believe a year has really gone by. The thing is, it's not like last summer at all, because everything's about to change. In about a month, when my lease is up, I'll be leaving Davis and moving back to Berkeley to live with my parents. Right now, I'm trying to enjoy my last month in Davis and think of ways to stay connected to all the people I've met here.

Anyway, I recently came into possession of some limes and decided it was time to revive this blog with some lime bars. They came out just the way I like my lemon bars: with a buttery crust and a gooey filling topped by a thin crispy shell dusted with powdered sugar. The difference is that they have a greenish tint and that indescribably lime-y taste that pops up in everything from pies to pad thai. The recipe is adapted from Ina Garten's recipe for lemon bars.

Ingredients:
*makes one 8x8 pan

crust:
1+1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (from 1 sleeve of graham crackers)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup melted butter

filling:
2 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup lime juice (from 2 grocery store limes)
2 tsp lime zest
powdered sugar for dusting

Crush graham crackers in a food processor, or if you haven't got a food processor (heh), put them in an unsealed ziplock bag and crush them with your bare hands. Add sugars, flour, and melted butter. Mix well, until the crumbs clump together readily. Press the dough into the bottom and around the sides of a greased 8x8 pan to form a crust. Chill for 20 minutes in the fridge, while preheating the oven to 350 degrees F. Then bake the crust for 10-15 minutes until it is set but not browned.

While the crust is in the oven, mix eggs, sugar, flour, lime juice and zest in a medium bowl until the batter has a smooth consistency. Pour the batter into the prebaked crust, and return to the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, until the filling is set and has begun to brown slightly. Allow the bars to cool, then sift powdered sugar over them and cut them into squares.

Maple Cream Wafers

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 05:07:30 +0100

    It's still about 90 degrees in Davis, and feels a lot more like summer than fall. Sadly, much though I would love to pretend it's still summer vacation, it isn't. I have reading to do and papers to write, and pretending I don't won't make them go away. The cool thing for me right now is that I'm actually learning how to say things in Italian, like "non mi piacciono gli asparagi" (I don't like asparagus).

    Since I can't change the fact that I have classes and homework now, I'm trying to get in the spirit of fall however I can. I've been scoping out a pomegranate tree in my neighborhood for a few weeks now, waiting until the fruit is ripe so I can snag some. Until then, I have these cute little maple cookies to keep me happy. My thinking when I made them was basically that I wanted to make maple shortbread. Then I had the idea to make maple frosting and sandwich the cookies together. It was a good decision.

Ingredients:
*makes about 12 sandwich cookies

1/2 cup softened butter
2 tbsp good quality maple syrup
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour

Cream together the butter, maple syrup, and sugar. Mix in the flour until the dough is smooth with no white streaks. Chill the dough for 20 minutes before baking.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Roll teaspoons of dough into balls, flatten them slightly and space them about 1 inch apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 8 minutes, until cookies are slightly golden at the edges. Fill with maple frosting.

Maple Frosting:
3 tbsp softened butter
1+1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp milk

Cream together butter and sugar. Incorporate the maple syrup and milk. If frosting is too thin, add more powdered sugar. If too thick, add more milk.

Simple Marinara

Sat, 09 Oct 2010 07:28:54 +0100

I think it's time I added cayenne pepper to my list of favorite things, which includes pesto sauce and this song. If overused, cayenne just makes you reach for a glass of milk to neutralize the spiciness. However, if added judiciosly to vegetables, it brings out their natural sweetness. Lately, whenever I'm deciding what spices to add to a dish, my first thought tends to be cayenne pepper. For me, it gives just the right amount of heat to a dish without overpowering the other ingredients.
My goal in putting cayenne pepper in a marinara sauce was not to make it spicy, but to bring out and amplify the taste of tomatoes. I was very happy with the way it turned out, just the way I imagine marinara sauce tasting when I think about it.

Ingredients:
*serves 2
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
1 can of diced tomatoes
1/4 tsp dried thyme leaves
1/4 tsp dried oregano leaves
salt and black pepper to taste

In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the olive oil until it spreads to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the cayenne pepper and crushed garlic, and cook, stirring, until the garlic is golden. Add the tomatoes and bring to a boil. Boil until some of the liquid is gone and the sauce is slightly thicker. Stir in the thyme, oregano, salt, and black pepper. Simmer the sauce for about 5 more minutes.

While cooking the sauce, prepare 4 oz of angel hair pasta according to package directions. Serve the marinara over the pasta.

Spicy Mustard Chicken

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 01:06:55 +0100

Classes have started once again. This is my last year of college, which means I'm both eager to get out of here and terrified of ceasing to be a student. I've invested so much of myself in my education, it's a big part of who I am. When I was a kid, there were a lot of things I thought I'd have figured out by now. Reality is so different from what I expected! I keep wondering how I can be done when I still haven't got a real plan for the future. Although I love the idea of never writing another term paper, it's a sad thought that I may be leaving Davis soon, and all the friends I've made here.

In the meantime, though, I plan to make the most of the coming year. And I plan to cook and eat well.

Roasting is a very simple, delicious way to cook chicken. All it takes is a little patience, since you basically just put the chicken in the oven and leave it for an hour. This roasted chicken thigh, baked with a homemade spicy mustard sauce has crackly skin and tender, juicy meat. Make sure you use bone-in chicken thighs or drumsticks with the skin on for the best flavor and texture.

Ingredients:
2 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp ground mustard
pinch cayenne pepper
pinch black pepper
coarse sea salt or kosher salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Put the chicken thighs in a metal pan in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. Mix white wine, olive oil, mustard, cayenne pepper, and black pepper in a small bowl. Pull the pan from the oven and brush the mustard sauce onto the skin of the chicken. Return the chicken to the oven and raise the temperature to 400 degrees F. Bake for another 15 minutes, until the chicken is fully cooked.

Reese's Pieces Cookies

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:24:56 +0100

To me, one of the coolest things about baking cookies from scratch is that once you have a basic cookie recipe, you can customize every batch you make by tweaking it. I love chocolate cookies, and I'm crazy about the crunchiness of m&ms baked into regular cookies. So when my friend had his birthday last week, I decided to take the chocolate and the crunch and combine them, using reese's pieces for a peanut buttery twist.

Ingredients:
*makes about 18 cookies

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp milk
1+1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup reese's pieces

Melt the butter in a microwave or a double boiler. Add the granulated and brown sugar and stir until slushy. Stir in the vanilla, egg yolk, and milk. Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl before adding them to the liquid ingredients. Incorporate the chocolate chips but leave out the reese's pieces. Chill the dough for an hour before baking.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Drop round teaspoonfuls of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Arrange reese's pieces on top of each dough ball. Bake at 375 degrees F for about 8-10 minutes, until the cookies are crisp on the outside.