In search of… the perfect scone recipe, part 1

I love scones.  [skawns?  skohns?  whatever.]  I even love the blueberry scones from Starbucks.  I’ve tried making them at home a few times, but never with satisfactory results.  So now I’m on a scone mission.  Which brings us to:

Perfect scone attempt number one

Recipe: Oat and maple syrup scones (from Smitten Kitchen)

Modifications: I halved the recipe; I can’t bear to waste food so I knew I’d be eating them no matter what they tasted like.  Instead of cutting them into circles with a biscuit cutter, I just patted the dough out into a round shape and sliced it into wedges.  I used salted butter, because that was what I had (and I also cut down on the salt to compensate).  I also sprinkled the tops with coarse sugar — I love that sweet crunch.

Verdict:  They were really just OK.  They didn’t rise much at all; maybe I didn’t use enough baking powder?  As for taste, I thought the oat and maple combination would be delicious, but the oats just seemed to make the scone dry, and the maple flavour was pretty much nonexistent.  So dry, flat, not-that tasty scones = 2.5 out of 5 stars.  Although the crunchy sugar topping was delicious.

Before baking:

so much promise!

After baking:

Next time, I’ll try a cream scone and see if I have better luck.  Please recommend your best scone recipes in the comments!

And… we’re back

After some prodding encouragement from my dear friend S. tonight, I’m going to do my best to revive this blog. Bring on the defibrillator.

Let’s ease back into this with something simple, shall we? I made this very easy Vietnamese-ish noodle salad yesterday, inspired by the latest issue of Fine Cooking magazine, and discovered that it’s a great way to clean out the crisper drawer, since you can use pretty much any crunchy vegetables you have lying around.

First, get your noodles going. Boil some water in a medium pot, then add 2 to 3 ounces of rice noodles per serving — thin, wide, whatever you like. Boil until cooked but still al dente; thin noodles may only take 2 minutes, really wide ones can take up to 8. Once they’re cooked to your liking, drain and rinse in cold water.

While the water is boiling and the noodles are cooking, make your dressing. For each serving, combine the juice of half a lime, a scant tablespoon fish sauce or soy sauce, a healthy pinch of sugar, a tsp or so of minced ginger, a minced small clove of garlic, and a squeeze of sriracha or other hot sauce. Taste, and add more soy/sugar/lime/hot sauce as desired.

Then prep your veggies. Thinly slice some radishes, cucumber, red pepper, or other crunchy veggies. Cut a couple of leaves of lettuce (ideally romaine or iceberg) into ribbons. If you want to add carrot, use a vegetable peeler to make ribbons, or just slice it really thinly. There are no rules here. Cucumber, lettuce, and carrot are more traditional, but use what you’ve got: celery or broccoli stalks or jicama or daikon or onion or whatever.  Toss in some coarsely chopped mint leaves and cilantro.  (If you don’t have mint or cilantro, don’t worry.  Your salad will still be tasty.)

Toss together noodles, veggies, and dressing. Top with some chopped peanuts (salted or unsalted) or other nuts. You can also add some cooked chicken or tofu to make it more substantial.

C’est tout! Enjoy!

my latest invention

I was craving a fall cocktail, and apple cider was on sale today, so I came up with this concoction. Deadly but so, so tasty:

Apple Cider Martini

Dribble a very small amount (about 1/2 teaspoon) of brandy into a martini glass, and swirl it around to coat.

Over ice, shake:
1 1/2 ounces vodka
1/2 ounce vanilla vodka
2 ounces apple cider

Strain into the brandy-kissed glass, and top with some fresh-grated nutmeg.

I don’t have a picture because I drank most of it before I had a chance to pull out my camera. Oops!

blast from the past

I’m sitting on the couch, watching a movie (C.R.A.Z.Y.), and all of a sudden I get hit with an intense craving for something sweet. Last night when this happened, I was a bad girl and ran out to get some Timbits. Tonight, I thought I should at least make something homemade. But I needed it to be really quick, which eliminated pretty much anything that involves an oven. Suddenly, I was hit with a flash of inspiration. Back in my university days, there was one sweet treat I could always rely on to deliver the perfect combination of speed and sugar: the no-bake fudge cookie.

Of course, that university recipe is long gone, so I placed an inquiry with Mr. Google. I discovered that most people make this cookie with peanut butter, and without coconut, which, if you ask me, is a key ingredient. The peanut butter sounded like a good idea, though. So I cobbled together a few recipes to create this, the ultimate no-bake fudge cookie recipe. Trust me, you can go from the couch to eating a still-warm cookie in about 15 minutes flat.

This is a smaller recipe than most you’ll find on the internet; it makes 12 decent-sized cookies.

First, get your dry ingredients together:
1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
1/4 to 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut (you can omit this or replace with nuts if you’re crazy and don’t like coconut)
1/4 cup peanut butter (plus a pinch of salt if you use unsalted hippie pb like I do)
1 tsp vanilla

Lay a piece of parchment or wax paper on the counter.

Then, in a good-sized saucepan, combine:
1 cup sugar
3 tablespooons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup milk

Over medium heat, whisk that together until the butter is melted, then bring to a boil.

Boil for exactly one minute without stirring. Exactly.

Quickly dump in your dry ingredients, conveniently prepared earlier.

Stir together until combined, then using 2 spoons, drop in 12 little mounds on your parchment/wax paper.

Tap down gently with your fingers to make sure they’re packed together.

Wait a few minutes for them to cool, then eat.

Yum.

when hormones attack

There’s this thing that happens, every 28 days or so, when my hormones kick in to high gear and I nest, rather maniacally. I start giant cleaning and organizing projects, or I cook endlessly. Sometimes it lasts for just for a few hours, or an afternoon, but this month, it’s been a full two days, with no end in sight.

This weekend’s been productive, to put it mildly.

I hauled out my KitchenAid mixer.

I made cookies, and baked bread.

I made pizza dough, and assembled two cute little pizzas for dinner. Here they are before baking:

The one on the right is mushroom, red pepper, onion, sundried tomato, anchovy, and parmesan. The one on the left is ricotta cheese, fresh peach, and black pepper — topped with prosciutto once it came out of the oven.

I polished my silver jewelry, hung some art, cleaned my bathroom, did laundry, went grocery shopping… you get the idea.

Then this morning, my friend S. came over for brunch. I decided to treat her to stuffed French toast, using the bread I made yesterday. I mixed together some ricotta cheese and apricot jam with a few dashes of ground cardamom and cinnamon. Then I played surgeon and cut a pocket into the side of a really thick slice of bread, and stuffed in the cheesy apricot-y goodness. The slices got dipped in a standard French toast mixture (eggs and milk plus a bit of vanilla) and fried in some butter.

Here’s what they look like when you cut them open.

Served with some fruit salad, maple syrup, and coffee, we had ourselves a damn sweet brunch. Yes, literally.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get my calzoni out of the oven.

Saturday night treat

Yep, a special dinner, just for me.

This afternoon I went out wandering in search of a bit of exercise and some groceries. I hit up a few organic markets near my apartment, and eventually meandered over to my favourite Italian grocery store. Where I scored this lovely veal chop:

I decided to cook it really simply, inspired by Mark Bittman. I rubbed it with a halved clove of garlic and a bit of olive oil, then sprinkled it with some dried rosemary (I didn’t have any fresh, but the dried stuff is from my mom’s garden, at least), salt and pepper. I broiled it for about 4 minutes each side, in my trusty little cast-iron pan. The fat on the edges browned and crisped beautifully.

I served it with roasted white and sweet potatoes (tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper) and a beet salad. I found some beets in the freezer from last August — definitely time to eat them. I made a vinaigrette with some olive oil, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, and salt and pepper, and tossed in the beets while the potatoes were cooking, so they’d absorb a bit of flavour. Then to serve, I topped them with some nice chunks of feta cheese and some candied walnuts I’d made while ago that were languishing in my fridge.

Behold!

Oh, and I can’t forget my pre-dinner drink:

That’s a cucumber gin and tonic. I’d been planning to make a much more complicated drink involving rose syrup and soda, but when I reached into the fridge for the can of club soda I was sure I had in there… yeah, you guessed it. No club soda. So I just added some gin and tonic water to the cucumber I’d already muddled. It sure was tasty.

The end.

dinner bell

I should start where I started: the pre-dinner, sip-while-cooking drink:

(Yes, I’m a lush.)  A whiskey sour: put lots of ice into a shaker, then add 2 oz whiskey (any kind, I used Jack Daniel’s), the juice of half a lemon, and a teaspoon or so of powdered sugar (or 1/2 oz. or so of simple syrup if you’ve got some hanging around).  Shake for all you’re worth.  Strain into a martini glass, and garnish with a maraschino cherry.   Make sure you get all your knife work out of the way early if you’re going to drink this on an empty stomach.

Dinner!

Onion/cheddar/bacon/mushroom friche (quitatta?) and some spiced roasted potatoes.  And a salad, so I can pretend I’m paying attention to my health.

The potatoes are easy: chop up a few potatoes. toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, and your spice(s) of choice — I used chipotle powder.  Roast at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes, tossing every once in a while and doing your best to get nice crusty brownness on all sides.

The friche/quitatta (really, I’m making this up as I go along — I figure I should be allowed to make up the name too):  fry up some bacon (I used four slices, chopped) in a medium oven-safe pan.  When it’s done, drain it on paper towels, pour off most of the fat, then add some sliced onion and mushrooms to the pan and cook until they’re nice and brown.  Meanwhile, whisk together three or four eggs, some milk (I used what was left in my carton, about 1/3 cup), a big spoonful of sour cream, the bacon, some grated cheddar, and salt and pepper.  When the onions and mushrooms are ready, take them off the heat for a minute or two, then pour in the egg mixture and stir it up gently.  If you’re smarter than I am, you’ll have saved a bit of cheese to sprinkle on top.   Throw it into the oven with the potatoes until it doesn’t wiggle when you shake it, about 20 minutes.

Salad: you’re on your own.  Seriously, you can do it.

what’s for dinner?

This is what:

Salmon fishcakes, glazed carrots, and a green salad, plus a negroni.

Fishcakes are stupid easy, and I make mine with canned salmon, which makes them stupid easier.  Steam or boil a good-sized peeled potato (cut into chunks), then mash it with some pepper.  Add a big can of salmon, drained, (skin and/or bones removed if they gross you out), and mash it in with the potatoes.  Taste for salt; canned salmon is pretty sodium-heavy so you probably won’t need to add any.  Get your hands in there and form them into little cakes, as big or small as you want.  Dredge them in flour, then fry them up in a bit of oil over med-high heat.  If you’re feeling extra-greedy, serve them with tartar sauce.  Or you can be virtuous and go with a nice big wedge of lemon.

While that was all happening, I made the carrots.  Slice a couple of carrots on the diagonal, and put them in a little pot with a good splash of water, a smaller splash of maple syrup, some salt and pepper, and a tiny dribble of vinegar.   Cook over high heat with the lid on for a few minutes, then take the lid off and let the liquid boil off until the carrots are glazed and tender.  If the water boils off before the carrots are cooked, add another tiny splash of water, cover them again for a minute, then remove the lid and boil off the extra liquid again.

The salad is just some red leaf lettuce tossed with blood orange olive oil, some rice vinegar, and some coarse salt and pepper.  No recipe required.  You’re welcome.

And the crowning touch, my drink of choice lately: the Negroni.  In an old-fashioned glass, pour a scant ounce (or a generous ounce if you’re feeling a bit lushier than I was tonight) each of sweet red vermouth, campari, and gin over a nice pile of ice.  Finish with a twist of orange.  Fancy bartenders twist the twist over the glass and set the orange oils alight to caramelize them.  I have no idea how they do this with only two hands, and I didn’t feel like setting my kitchen on fire tonight, so I went with the straight-up twist.  Lame, I know.  Maybe next time.

a bird in the hand

Tonight, for the first time in my life, the piece of meat on my dinner plate is there entirely because of me.

My dad phoned me yesterday to see if I wanted to go out to the country and go chicken hunting with him. [an aside here: I am still unclear as to what exactly these "chickens" are. All I know is that they're some type of grouse, perhaps ruffled, but not actual prairie chickens, which are endangered. Up north, they hunt ptarmigan, which they also call chicken. Neither Pa nor wikipedia are any help at all in figuring this out.] I’ve never really hunted before, except for one half-hearted attempt to get a rabbit a few years ago. But the land where my dad hunts is beautiful, and the day promised to be sunny and lovely, so I agreed.

This morning, I realized what it means to go hunting. I’ve been around hunters all my life, and I have no problems with it at all. I eat wild meat with gusto. But when I’m the one doing the killing, it becomes a bit of a different story. I wondered whether I’d be able to pull the trigger, how I would feel about the inevitable goriness of it, how disappointed I’d be if we didn’t see anything — or if I shot and missed. Chickens aren’t the smartest of animals, nor are they that cute, so I figured I’d be OK, but I really wasn’t sure.

It was a perfect fall afternoon. We quadded out to the land, rode in to the woods a little ways, and stopped to get the guns out and loaded. My dad had just finished giving me a refresher on how to shoot, when about 30 feet ahead, I see a chicken, calmly walking along, head bobbing, paying absolutely no attention to us. (I told you they were stupid.) We’d been there not ten minutes, not enough time for me to really start thinking about what we were there to do. I raised my gun, sighted, fired… and hit. Right where I wanted to. My dad ran over and dealt with the final dispatch, yelling, good shot! And that was that. I had killed an animal, with no regret or second thoughts.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around in the woods, trying unsuccessfully to find more chickens. We rode back to the house; I finished cleaning the chicken, packed it up in a ziplock bag, and brought it back to the city with me. Half of it (legs, breastbone, neck, and heart) is currently simmering for soup. The breasts I sauteed with mushrooms and onions and a bit of beer. They were delicious.