I guess there was a big game, maybe even called a Supergame, this past weekend. I am referring to the Superbowl. With my lack of chat on the subject you could probably tell I didn’t give a fig. I was a little more into football last year but have since given up. I just don’t care.
I even thought to post a wrap up of some of my past recipes that scream Sunday football and parties. Nah.
Greg and I continued this past weekend declaring that the Supergame was on or that we were going to check our face page (facebook) poking fun at what an aging parent or grandparent might call both the social network site and event. Imagine what twitter might be mistakenly called. Things like that make me laugh. I can’t wait to be at that phase of life, purposely and not, confusing socially relevant items and whatnot.
How about a cookie recipe? It’s one that I’d heard a lot of fuss (and for good reason) about from Heidi at 101 Cookbooks. She’s well-known in my world and the “foodie” world for her amazing ability to share fantastic recipes, stories and photos. Pure inspiration.
Now these puddle cookies are based on only 6 ingredients with most of the flavor from nuts (walnuts were her choice but I had pecans). I have the feeling that any nut would suffice and be quite tasty. If you aren’t a fan of cookies based on nuts, don’t expect to go gaga over these. You know my affinity for treats that go well with a cup o’ Jo…not my current coffee because it is rather unsavory but now I know not to buy this brand. These are unique morsels that I think you’re going to enjoy. Have a wonderful day!
Chocolate Pecan Puddle Cookies inspired by Heidi at 101 Cookbooks
Makes approximately 18 large cookies.
Print Recipe
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups pecans or walnuts
2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
¼ tsp fine salt
2 large egg whites
½ tbsp vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 325F.
Place the pecans (or walnuts) on a baking sheet and bake for about 5 minutes or until the pecans are lightly browned. Keep an eye on these-they will burn easily. Cool and finely chop.
In a large bowl, mix the powdered sugar, cocoa and salt. Add the cooled nuts, egg whites and vanilla. Mix until well combined.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a baking mat and drop the batter (about a tablespoon) far apart from one another. Bake 11 to 13 minutes. The cookies should be puffed, cracked and matte when done. Place on a cooling rack for several minutes then enjoy.
I meant to start writing more posts-not the 5 times a week that used to be- but perhaps 3 until I started having houses on the brain. (Operation!)
Raspberry Crumb Cake
For you new readers, my husband, Greg, and I are looking for our first home. We have a small budget, according to Minnesota standards, and have been having a tough time finding anything in our range let alone something with potential. It will not be our forever home. I’m considering it incentive to stay and a poignant moment in life where 28 year old me can feel more adult. Also, creating a space that’s more me (I mean us), with projects to keep us busy instead of staring at each other on the weekend, shrugging our shoulders in activity defeat, is enticing and a very welcomed opportunity. (A: “Do you want to play another Wii game?” G: “Not really…you?”) Living in 10 different places over 7 years can have a toll on your sanity and a part of you could feel like you aren’t in the real world. Nothing screams real world like a mortgage.
My day begins with the intention to post something delicious but then I receive an email update to a decorating website and I’m off dreaming about the possibilities for our future house. I start logging in to numerous real estate sites, house design/décor sites and a few blogs that get my house hunting/decorating mojo going. Sites like Young House Love, Desire to Inspire, Apartment Therapy and the newest edition of Rue magazine. I’m more than a little obsessed with the decorating style of Tamara Kaye-Honey (page 143).
Hours pass with scribbled notes and pages of ideas about my latest house in the area that could possibly be “the one,” not about food whatsoever, and I eventually snap out of it and realize that we could never afford to remove walls and completely change the layout of our low priced future house. Adding new wood floors or designing a kitchen like the one above will cost an arm and a leg; buying new appliances will most likely remain only a dream or a goal when my student loans are paid off when I’m of retirement age. (Wish I were joking.) Simply obtaining more furniture will be a challenge (hello, craigslist) but even as minimalist as we try to be, we know that if we want visitors, spare rooms should have beds and storage of some sort.
Where most people start to fret and stress out, I see a challenge and gladly accept it. Maybe it’s the Nate Berkus Show, which I watch every week day, encouraging me to move forward. Love it.
I forced myself not to go there today and for good reason, I’ve had a few requests from friends to post the raspberry crumb cake I made over the weekend. It’s been in my recipe arsenal since June and was supposed to focus on the fresh berries of summer and farmers markets. My version highlights frozen berries for my winter cake. I wanted to make something simple, something that would take seconds to slice instead of preparing a fresh breakfast/brunch every day of our weekend and this fit the bill. The cake was even better the following day and warming it slightly took it to another level. Anything that goes well with a cup of coffee is food friend to me.
Raspberry Crumb Cake
I did notice a few hiccups in the amount of ingredients and size of baking dish…if you were to use a full pound of berries, as it calls for in the original recipe, in an 8-inch square baking pan, this thing would flow over and wreak havoc on your oven. My frozen raspberries were less than a pound and were just the perfect amount.
It’s not a super sweet confection and my recommendation to anyone wanting to add sweetness would be to make 1 ½ times the crumb topping. Greg was quite happy and declared that while it looks dense and as if it would suck the moisture from your mouth, it was actually light and tasty. He has a way with words and descriptions. I will turn to this recipe time and again. Thank you, Sandi Rose from Connecticut, whom Real Simple magazine highlighted in their July 2010 issue- your recipe was fantastic.
Raspberry Crumb Cake inspired by Sandi Rose through Real Simple magazine
Serves 8 to 10
Print Recipe
Ingredients:
Crumb Topping:
½ cup pecans*
1/3 cup brown sugar
¼ cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp cold unsalted butter
Cake:
½ cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
10 ounces frozen raspberries or fresh raspberries (or your favorite berry)
Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a food processor, prepare the topping by pulsing the pecans, brown sugar, flour and butter until crumbly. Wipe the processor carefully out and set aside the topping.
In an 8-inch square baking dish, add parchment paper for easy removal of the finished cake later. You can skip this step and keep the cake in the dish. Here’s a link for a how-to on lining the dish with parchment from the folks at the Kitchn.
In the food processor, pulse the butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon until crumbly. I tend to add half of the butter to the bottom first and the remaining butter to the top. It seems to work better so that this step doesn’t make you want to throw your processor when it will not blend the ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, milk and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined.
Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan and sprinkle with the frozen raspberries then crumb topping. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, an hour to 75 minutes but this will vary oven to oven so keep an eye on it around the 55 minute mark. Let it cool completely and then, if you used the parchment paper method, lift out of the pan and onto a serving plate or serve directly from the pan. It’s even better the second day, heated slightly with a nice cup of coffee and a chat with your significant other/best friend.
*If you want to increase the sweetness of the cake, make 1 ½ times the amount of topping.
I’m in mourning today over my beloved wood cutting board. We bought it last spring at a garage sale-a large hunk of beautiful space built to do a lot of chopping. Greg, my “wood engineer’ husband, did a few repairs but the dry air took its toll over the last month and a large crack grows ever wider as I type. A few moments of silence, please.
Alright, I need to find a replacement cutting board. I have a tiny plastic one that came with my cheapo college cooking set. That needs to go as well now that I think about it. Any recommendations?
My point of dropping in on a Friday is not for the return of “fond of” Friday but instead to share another simple lunch I recently made and loved. This recipe (along with the ones I suggest below) are not too bad on the calorie chart which is a big reason why I tried or created them. Earlier this week I discussed intently watching my calorie intake.
Any regular readers of this site know my love of a good bread salad-it’s my preferred salad. Here are a few other lunch recipes I regularly turn to:
slow-baked tomatoes with garlic, mint and goat cheese on toasted bread
halloumi cheese and tomato salad in a caper vinaigrette
pan-grilled tomato and feta salad with lemon-caper dressing
grilled bread with zucchini, goat cheese and basil (rave reviews from family on this one)
crab or tuna salad in avocado halves
panzanella caprese bread salad
Pot Sticker Salad with Snap Peas
pot sticker salad with snap peas.
Every one of these recipes was impressive in flavor, appearance and felt decadent but was actually low in calories. (Watch your intake of the bread and cheese but don’t deprive yourself.)
Before I share the new recipe, I know some of you may be saying edamame (soybeans), I’ll pass. That would be a mistake. To pass the cute little pods or already shelled frozen beans at the store is a tragedy in my opinion. These little legumes are chalk full of nutritional goodies-the fiber content sells it for me along with their perky green shade. (Fiber helps keep you feel full longer.) I think if you’re a fan of beans, especially lima, you should give edamame (pronounced ay-duh-MAH-may) a go. Time for the recipe….almost. Have a great weekend!
Edamame and Bread Salad
Serves 2
Print Recipe
Ingredients:
12 oz. frozen shelled edamame (soybeans) or get them in the pods and shell them yourself for fun times
3 slices of your favorite bread for croutons, chopped into bite-sized pieces
coarse salt/freshly ground pepper
1 ½ tbsp olive oil + 1 tbsp olive oil
dash of red pepper flakes
2 tbsp feta or goat cheese
a few dashed of white wine vinegar
2 tbsp chopped basil
Preheat the oven to 350F. Toss the bread pieces with 1 ½ tablespoons of olive oil and a few grinds of coarse salt. Toast for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden croutons.
Meanwhile, cook the edamame according to the package directions. If there aren’t any directions, cover the pods or beans with 4 cups of water, bring to a boil then reduce to medium for 3 to 5 minutes. Drain the pods and remove the beans from the shells if needed.
In a large bowl, toss the edamame, bread, red pepper flakes, feta and basil. In a small bowl, whisk 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and a few dashes of vinegar together then pour over the salad and toss. Taste for salt and pepper and then serve.
Happy birthday to my brother-in-law Ted on this Tuesday! I’m sure Hong (his loving wife) and one month old son Matthew will make this day special.
The “holy hell this winter thing will be going on months longer and I’m already tired of it” phase has set in around here.
I’m also closely watching my calories, probably making it seem worse. When I calculate calories, in the hopes of losing weight, I have to have an array of food options and spend some time actually calculating future meals. But I’ve got it down to a science and it didn’t take long. When I make the grocery list and plan a menu, I get it over with and feel better in my attempts to eat fresh, quality ingredients throughout the winter when I’m near hibernation mode.
Some will tell you that limiting your food options is an easier way to lose weight. I think those people are right but also idiots…harsh? Ok then, those people are controlling folk who won’t admit how boring and annoying that can be and are thus missing out, stuck in an endless cycle, exhausting parts of themselves that could be better spent doing something worthwhile but instead are so focused on what they can/cannot eat that it consumes them when it should be vice versa. I used to be one-some might argue that I’m still controlling…I say shush in the nicest way possible.
I’ve tried all that which is why I agree that it works….for a little while and then it becomes aggravating and the equivalent to choosing to beat your head against a wall. Funsies.
Here’s my beef: when a targeted way of eating gives you a timeframe-say 6 weeks- with very specific nutritional guidelines, it will inevitably leave you high and dry at the end of that time (now what?!). You have no other choice but to become a slave to those phases, repeating them over and over again with the same limited variety of food that worked the first time. They rarely tell you that you’re going to have to repeat those steps to maintain your results FOR-EV-ER. It gets even better when what was working before stops and you have to give even more. It’s at this point that rational people tell themselves that they can function and live on 700 calories and workout 2 hours a day.
What most call a ‘diet,’ I call a lifestyle because ‘diet’ connotes an allotted amount of time of deprivation and then you stop but one should choose to see it as an ongoing lifestyle because that’s what it will be.
These days nothing is left out or off limits when I’m trying to lose weight/live a healthier lifestyle. Here’s one of the many fish recipes I’m dining on these days and the Livestrong website I turn to to help count the calories. If you stopped by my place, you would notice that most of my recipes have the calorie count on the side with a portion total at the top. It’s so much better to have flavor and omit nothing than to tell yourself something tastes good while gagging.
Granted, if your goal is to lose weight, it’s a slow process and you have to keep yourself accountable. Even if you’re not counting calories, this dish is amazing. It took me by surprise how flavorful this simple fish dish was; I will turn to it time and again. By the way, if you want to maintain any kind of fullness, you have to have something with substance, bread, bulgur, rice, quinoa, you name it on the menu. A salad with only greens and a light dressing does nothing for me on its own. Add some substance on the side but mind the portion.
Tilapia with Lemon-Parsley Sauce
Serves 4
Print Recipe
Ingredients:
4 4 oz. tilapia fillets (or fish of your choice)
2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp butter
coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
lemon-parsley sauce (recipe below)
Lemon-Parsley Sauce:
Zest of half a lemon, grated
Juice of half a lemon
1/3 cup packed parsley leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ tsp coarse salt/a few grinds of freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
Prepare the sauce by placing the first 5 ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend until almost smooth. Add the olive oil in 3 batches, pulsing a few seconds between each batch. Set aside.
Lightly salt the fillets with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, over medium heat, heat the olive oil and butter. When the butter begins to foam, add the fish. Cook each side, flipping carefully, until each side is golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes each side. Serve immediately with the sauce.
