Everyone needs a little wake up reminder every once in a while – I received mine, earlier this week, when I managed to give myself a pretty bad cut on my thumb while cooking, which resulted in a trip to Urgent Care. Fortunately, I didn’t end up needing stitches – but I was given a tetanus shot and told to take it easy on my hand the next few days. Unfortunately, this happened right before the monthly Diablo Valley Pagan‘s Meet & Greet – which means that I was scrambling that day, trying to come up with something easy and simple to bring with me.

Of course the whole week was kinda meh – the thumb was just the crappy icing on a crappy cake. We had a whole week straight of storms – and rainy weather never really brings out my happy-happy side, nevermind the fact that a certain young Miss Thing was having issues with a homework assignment this week. It got finished, but there was some last minute cramming getting in there – I think that was partially a parent-fail, since she was supposed to be writing a court room dramatization – and we never watch court room dramas really, so she was kind of clueless about the whole dealio. Thank goodness for “A Few Good Men” – lol!

We’ve also developed a new obsession – one of my sisters had mentioned that we might like a show called Dexter. Which – er… ah… we ended up liking. A lot. So much that we’ve been up very late in the evenings all week watching it. Causing us to have many short-sleep-ed nights. Okay, the show is CRACK. Can’t-Stop-Watching-Episode-After-Episode-CRACK. <cough> So, erm… yeah, there’s been a lot of Dexter watching going on – which has been kind of at odds with my Be-More-Productive resolve. The next week promises to be pretty durned lame, too – lots of late night evenings for Mr. Man. Some big hubaloo at work this week. It’ll be okay, just not really looking forward to it.

Speaking of things that I’m not sure I’m really looking forward to – I’ll be attending Pantheacon, next month – which I’m pretty nervous about. I’ve never been to a convention, but I’ve heard a lot about them – and can make some educated guesses about what it will be like… Which only makes me nervouser. I don’t like going to the mall on the weekends because it gets crowded – and now I’m going to spend an entire weekend packed in to a hotel with thousands of other people. I’m probably crazy. No, I’m definitely crazy. Anyways. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll run in to friends from San Diego – there are quite a few people that I’ve lost touch with over the years that it’d be nice to talk to and get proper contact information on. One of the bizarre Pagan Cultural problems is that your real name and the name that you actually go by in the community can often be pretty different – which can make it hard to facebook stalk… er… find them again. Well actually – that can also be a problem for any internet handle -> real life association. I’m rambling, but you probably get the idea.

I’m sure I’ll have an awesome time though – and I’m probably just being my normal worrying too much self about the whole issue. But aside from the people and crowds, I’m actually a little concerned about food for the Con. Supposedly there’s limited (re: Expensive and not very good) dining, no refrigeration – and forget trying to find anything local/sustainable. My sister says that we’ll be taking a cooler – so I’m trying to come up with some ideas that would be good for quick, grab and go snacks and meals that will still be vaguely healthy. I would prefer to have things available that don’t need refrigeration or reheating – which will be a neat trick, I’m sure. I have a couple of ideas – but if anyone wants to suggest some, I’m all ears. I don’t, however, think I’ll be bringing these absolutely decadent Samoas with me – since then I’d probably never want to come out of the hotel room, lol.

Every time Girl Scout Cookie time comes along, I always think to myself that I should try making Samoas – because they are like my Kryptonite. I love them and always order several boxes. Then of course, they’re gone and I don’t get any for the rest of the year. Which, let’s face it – is probably good for my waist line, but still a sad, sad thing. Last weekend, my neighbor stopped by with her daughter who just recently entered in to Daisy Scouts, with a big glossy flier and an order form. Of course I ordered some, but they don’t get here for weeks and weeks. So late in the afternoon on the day of my DVP meeting, with a big ol’ cut on my thumb, an aching arm, and only a couple of hours to spare, I decided it was a perfect time to try and make Samoas to take to the meet & greet. Have I mentioned I’m crazy? I just barely got them dipped, drizzled and set before I had to dash out the door… but even still, they turned out so delish that I knew I had to post about them if I had any leftover.

Fortunately, although we had a few new faces and a decent-ish turn out, I ended up with enough leftover to take some pictures of when I got home (if maybe not the prettiest ones). They actually go together pretty quickly – and are a more-than adequate substitute if you happen to be outside of Girl Scout Cookie Season and craving some caramel coconut goodness. The real trick to making these decadent treats though, would definitely be to use the best ingredients you can – especially the chocolate. I ended up using some terrific flake coconut that I had in the pantry, with some lovely dark Valrhona Chocolate bars that my nearby Trader Joes carries. If I’ve said it once, I know I’ve probably said it a milli0n times – when making anything with only a few ingredients it’s even more important that you use the finest ingredients you can lay your hands on. Your tastebuds will thank you.

A couple of other quick notes – next time, I would probably pre-bake the crust. I didn’t this time, and although I loved the tenderness, it did make them harder to dip – since the bars kinda wanted to crumble a little bit. Post-dipping, they held together fine, since the chocolate provided more structure for them – I also might consider using shredded coconut next time – mostly because cutting the bars was a pain with the big flakes of coconut, and I imagine it would be easier with finely shredded coconut instead. Which is really too bad, because I loved the taste and texture of the flakes. I also tempered the chocolate – unlike the time I made Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Cookies. If you don’t want to bother, it will probably be fine to simply melt the chocolate and dip. You will have to keep them in the fridge to make sure they stay set up, but they’ll still taste good. For the record, although tempering was a pain, I’m glad I did since it made for a more finger friendly snack at the Meet & Greet – and I’ll probably temper from now on.

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/2 cups Sugar
• 3 sticks Butter; softened; divided
• 1 cup Sour Cream; Room Temperature
• 2 cups Flour
• 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
• 2 cups Unsweetened Flake Coconut
• 1 cup Chopped Pecans (optional)
• 10 oz Fine Quality Dark Chocolate; coarsely chopped in to chunks
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt; divided

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350°
• Place the 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar in a heavy bottomed pot over medium-low heat
• Cook the sugar without stirring until the sugar begins to melt, liquefy and caramelize, at which point you can gently swirl the pan around
• Once the caramel is completely liquefied and golden dark brown in color, remove from heat and add the butter.
• Stir to combine (careful – the caramel will spit and hiss)
• Add the Sour Cream, vanilla, and 1/4 tsp of the kosher salt. Stir to combine.
• Set the caramel aside to cool
• Line a 9″x13″ pan with Parchment Paper
• In a medium sized bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, and remaining 1/4 tsp of Kosher Salt
• Add the remaining two sticks of softened butter to the flour mixture and mix together to form a soft dough
• Press the crust mixture evenly in to the bottom of the parchment lined pan
• Stir the coconut and pecans (if using) in to the caramel, then spread evenly over the crust
• Bake for 45 minutes, or until crust is set
• Cool Bars completely before cutting
• Cut the caramel bars in to squares
• Temper the chocolate
• Take 2/3′s of the chocolate and place it in to a medium sized bowl
• Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water
• Stir the chocolate and use a candy thermometer to heat to around 105°
• Remove from heat and stir in the reserved 1/3 of the chocolate chunks until they melt to bring the temperature down to 88°
• Monitor the temperature and try to keep it at or close to 88° while dipping and drizzling, returning to the saucepan of water when neccessary (do not heat above 89-91° or you’ll have to add more chocolate to start the temper over)
• Dip the bottoms of the bars in the chocolate and place on a sheet of wax paper to set
• When all bars have been dipped, drizzle with remaining chocolate

It has been such an awesome week for me. Although it’s been very busy, I’ve actually been managing to find time to hang out with some of my nearest and dearests over the last few days, with plans to do more. It’s kept me away from the computer a lot – but it feels good to be out there renewing connections and catching up. I’ve found that I will sometimes fall in to that trap of talking to or running in to friends and then saying ‘we should get together soon!’, and then never actually following through on that. So I’ve been trying to be more pro-active about following through, making plans and touching base with the people who are important in my life. And – if you’re reading this, and are wondering why I haven’t contacted you recently – try to remember it’s a work in progress, and maybe contact me instead!

Aside from my blooming social-butterfly-ness, I’ve also been pretty busy around the house – preparing for the holidays, getting the drywall in the den patched up and preparing to paint the remainder of the den (Bright Purple!), dealing with Miss Thing and her new OMG-You-Never-Let-Me-Do-Anything-Ever Attitude. (well, technically, it’s not a new attitude… it’s just been a lot-lot-lot more … ah… active… lately)  and busily procrastinating getting family pictures done (or getting my holiday cards in the mail). I still have some holiday shopping to take care of – because I’m lame like that… lol! But I still have time to get it done. I hope.

In other holiday related news, I lost the fight with Mr. Man and Miss Thing on the whole Holiday-Tree thing, which I’m still pretty disgruntled about. I was hoping to convince Mr. Man and Miss Thing to consider trying out some more Eco Friendly alternatives, but I was outvoted. Both Miss Thing and Mr. Man are convinced that only a green, pine-needle-laden monstrosity will do, despite my best efforts. It’s very disappointing, since I would very much like to put forth our time and effort in to finding and making our own holiday traditions. (Preferably Eco Friendly ones) It’s frustrating to feel so little control over how my holidays are spent and to be the lone voice trying to convince my family to be more eco friendly. <sigh> But I’m not going to let it get me down – I’ll just keep working on ‘em for next year. Maybe if I keep plugging at it, I’ll wear them down.

Part of my new found zeal for environmentalism probably stems from the fact that I’ve been working on reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by  Michael Pollan. I mean, I’ve always tried to be green, but I’m going through this book and really developing an appreciation for how far I still need to go. It’s been a real eye-opener, and I feel really lucky to live in an area where it’s easier to support these ideals. At any rate, it’s made me even more appreciative of the services I use to obtain local food, FFTY, Planet Organics, and Spud! All of which have made it much easier for me to make informed choices about where I’m getting food for my family. In spite of the fact that I think I’m going to become heartily sick of apples by the time spring fruits roll around… although perhaps less so with this apple cake recipe.

Initially, I had intended to take this cake over to a friend’s house for dessert, which is why I don’t have any in-process pictures. For one, I was rushing to get it baked, and for two – I figured it would probably be a little tacky to show up with a slice missing out of the cake (lol!).  Unfortunately, the cake hadn’t cooled enough to frost before I had to go, and I ended up having to leave it at home. When I was finally able to frost it and taste it, I realized the lack of in process photos would have to be overlooked, because this cake is pretty darn awesome, and needed to be posted.

To be honest, I basically riffed off of the Carrot Cake recipe I’ve posted about before – with a few modifications. And I think I like this apple version better. Although, if nothing else, it gives me something easy to try and use up the never ending supply of apples I get in the winter from FFTY, since we’re still not really apple fans. (To clarify – apple the fruit, not apple the tech… my next computer will be a mac, darn it! and I’m fairly fond of my iPhone) I’m going to try and come up with an alternative to the pineapple next time, however. I happened to have a couple of cans of pineapple sitting in the bottom of the pantry, but since I don’t really intend to buy any more once those are used up it would probably be a good time to find something different to use. I’m open to suggestions – so far my idea was maybe some kind of combination of buttermilk (for tang) and more apples (for bulk)… thoughts?

Cake Ingredients:

• 3 Cups Flour
• 2 Cups Sugar
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tbs Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Ground Ginger
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 and 1/2 Cups Safflower Oil
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tbs Vanilla Extract
• 1 cup Pecans; chopped
• 2 cups Apple; finely grated
• 1 cup crushed Pineapple
• 2 tbs Brandy
• 2 tbs White Wine
• 1 tbs butter
• 1/4 cup Dried Cranberries

Cake Method:

• Preheat the Oven to 350°
• Butter and Flour two 9″ Round Cake Pans
• Melt the butter in a small skillet over medium heat
• Toss the Pecans in the melted butter and cook until fragrant. Set aside.
• Plump the Cranberries by heating them together with the brandy and white wine. Set aside.
• In to a large bowl, sift together the sugar, flour, baking soda, salt and ground ginger
• Add the oil, eggs, and vanilla and Beat well (batter will be very thick)
• Gently Fold in the Pineapple and apples until batter is moistened
• When combined, stir in the Pecans and Cranberries (including soaking liquid)
• Divide the batter between the two cake pans
• Bake on the middle rack of oven for 45-50 minutes, or until knife inserted in to the center of cake comes out clean
• Cool cake completely before Frosting

Frosting Ingredients:

• 8 oz Cream Cheese, softened
• 6 tbs butter, softened
• 2 and 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Frosting Method:

• Cream together the butter and Cream Cheese
• Beat in the powdered sugar, a little bit at a time, until desired consistency is reached
• Stir in vanilla
• For best spreadability/consistency frost cake immediately

Oh huzzah! It’s the weekend, it’s Saturday, and I’m staring down the barrel at what I’m expecting to be a whole week of sleepy days, since Miss Thing has vacation from school all this week. I’m sure it will go by entirely too fast, but for the moment at least, I’m enjoying it. Although I suppose I should get up marginally early-ish on Thanksgiving proper to start the Turkey… although I technically don’t have to. The couple of people we wanted to invite over had plans already, so it’s looking like it’s just going to be Mr. Man, Myself, and Miss Thing for dinner on Thursday… So we can eat whenever we want, Neener neener!

I still haven’t managed to convince Mr. Man to let me get creative with Thanksgiving Dinner, which makes me a little sad, but I’ve kind of given up now that it’s getting so close to the actual day. I guess I’m just not as big on ‘traditional’ meals as he is (whatever that means). But we should still have a nice holiday meal anyways. It’s hard to believe that it’s already the end of November. This year has just flown by. Pretty soon we’ll be heading in to the new year, and Delementals will celebrate it’s One Year anniversary. But I’m probably getting ahead of myself. For now, I’m just enjoying the fall seasons fruits and veggies and trying to figure out what to get Mr. Man and Miss Thing for holiday gifts. It’s actually even started to get a little chilly lately, which makes me feel a little more in to the season. It’s hard to really get in to the holiday season when it’s still shorts & sandals weather outside, lol.

The last time I placed an order with Spud, they had fresh cranberries, and I’ll be honest – I had some vague notion of maybe using them for thanksgiving, but I hadn’t actually sat down and planned anything out yet – it was mostly a “oooo… they have cranberries!” kind of purchase. I was going to wait to use them, but when rearranging some things I noticed that a couple of them looked a little ah… less than fresh. When I realized that the drawer that contained the oranges was over flowing from my recent FFTY delivery, it seemed like the perfect time to make a Cranberry Orange bread.

I started off with a recipe for Orange Yogurt Bread that I found on a site called Pinch My Salt. I made a few changes though – (aside from adding cranberries, obviously), namely I opted to use Sour Cream instead of Yogurt, because I was out of Yogurt, I swapped out some of the sugar for brown sugar, reduced the total sugar just a little bit and I doubled the batch so that I could have two loaves of bread. The results were pretty incredible. Although, sadly – there wasn’t as much orange flavor as I might have hoped in the finished product, the bread did turn out moist, dense and delicious – almost like a pound cake, really. Next time I think I’d try to maybe double up the orange juice and reduce it – to see if I could get a more concentrated orange flavor (I’d also probably have to reduce the sugar at the point… ) but simply as is, it’s very good – and would be great to make the night before for an easy and quick breakfast (such as oh… I dunno for Thanksgiving?)

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/3 cups Butter, softened
• 1 and 1/4 cup Sugar; divided
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 cup Sour Cream
• 1 cup Orange Juice (Fresh squeezed, if you have it)
• 4 eggs
• 5 cups of Flour
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt
• ½ pound Fresh Cranberries; coarsely chopped

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350°
• Grease two 9″x5″ Loaf pans
• In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt and set aside
• Toss the chopped cranberries and 1/4 cup of the sugar together in a small bowl and set aside
• In a large mixing bowl, cream together the Brown Sugar, Sugar and Butter until fluffy
• Add the eggs, one at a time, until well combined
• Mix in the sour cream, and then add the orange juice
• Add the Flour mixture, a little at a time, until just combined (do not over mix)
• Fold in the cranberry mixture
• Divide the batter between the two loaf pans and bake for for 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean
• Cool in pans for a few minutes, and then transfer to wire rack
• Allow to Cool completely before slicing

Not that I’m in any hurry for the cold weather, and the loss of seasonal tomatoes – but I gotta say, I’m more excited about this fall season than I can remember being in a long time. Normally I look forward to the shorter days and loss of my favorite summer fruits and veggies with a sense of dread and resignation, but this year – I’ve been super excited about all the things I can make with the new fruits and veggies I’ve been receiving  in my box each week. Arugula, Rapini, Winter Squashes, etc… Things that I’ve either never had before or never cooked with very often (or even tasted!). It’s very exciting to have new challenges to play with.

Just before my mother came to visit, I received my second sugar pumpkin of the year from FFTY. (The first one was made in to a pumpkin soup while I had the flu). However, knowing that Samhain was just around the corner, I decided to hang on to it and use it to make something for circle. Fortunately, winter squash can hang around for weeks and weeks and weeks, so hanging on to it was no big deal – except for that I had found a recipe that I really wanted to try. I mean, really really wanted to try. I was perusing winter squash (not specifically pumpkin recipes, but hey) when I first started seeing some winter squash showing up in my box – and I came across this recipe on another site. Since then, I’ve been dying to make them. Samhain seemed like the perfect opportunity, as anything pumpkin would be in keeping with the season so I jumped at the chance.

And, hoo-boy, were they worth the wait. They were perfect blondies – a little gooey, with a fudgey texture. The pumpkin flavor was prominent, with subtle hints of spice and little nibblets of crystalized ginger. Exactly the perfect flavors for the holiday. Unfortunately, they were so gooey that they were sticky – so they weren’t quite as finger friendly as I might have hoped. Aside from that though, they were perfect – and a biiiiig hit. I managed to sneak one lone little survivor home for Mr. Man to have, but the rest were completely devoured.

When I was younger (and not as interested in cooking) I had several misconceptions about Pumpkins, in specific – and winter squash in general. The biggest of course, was that the only thing you ate pumpkin in was PIE, and the only way to make Pumpkin pie was to buy pumpkin in a can. I remember when a neighbor of mine was talking about making pumpkin pie, and how she roasted the pumpkin and I was like… “Wait, wut…? You can do that? You can MAKE YOUR OWN pureed pumpkin?” I know. I know. I’ve since learned differently – Now that isn’t to say you can’t use canned pumpkin for this recipe, because you can. However, it is soooooo easy to make your own pumpkin, and can be done up several days ahead of time. (Or longer, if you find a big one and freeze it in batches)

Some other notes and take-aways from this recipe are: The Crystalized ginger is yummy, but next time I might sprinkle it on top rather than mix it in. The ginger pieces that ended up on the bottom of the pan kind of melted and stuck to the pan, which contributed to the almost-not-finger-friendly situation. I would also increase the white chocolate by another cup or so – because I would have liked a little more white chocolate. I might also tweak the brown sugar levels. I loved the brown sugar and molasses flavor, but I also think that switching completely to brown sugar was a contributor in the almost-not-finger-friendly situation as well. Although, thats a tough call. If you don’t mind a little sticky, I say leave it because it is durn tasty. And lastly, I *gasp* did not puree my pumpkin pulp. Since I was using a stand-mixer, I just tossed in the tender pumpkin chunks and creamed them with the butter and sugar, which seems to have worked just fine.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Flour
• 1 and 1/4 cups Brown Sugar
• 1 cup Roasted Pumpkin (or 1 cup Canned Pumpkin); see below for directions on Roasted Pumpkin
• 2 sticks (1 cup) of Butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp Vanilla
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt
• 1 tsp Ground Ginger
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp Ground All Spice
• 1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
• 1 cup Good quality White chocolate; cut in to chunks
• 1/4 cup Crystalized Ginger; cut in to 1/2″ pieces

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350°
• Line a 9×13 baking pan with Parchment paper
• In a medium bowl, stir together the Flour, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon, all spice and cloves. Set aside.
• In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until fluffy
• Add the roasted pumpkin (or canned pumpkin) and cream together
• Add the egg and the vanilla and beat until combined
• Stir in the flour mixture until just incorporated
• Stir in the White Chocolate Chunks and the Crytalized Ginger
• Spread evenly in to the parchment lined baking pan and bake for 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center of pan comes out clean.
• Cool completely before cutting and serving

Roasted Pumpkin Ingredients:

• 1 Whole Sugar Pumpkin (or other cooking pumpkin)

Roasted Pumpkin Method:

• Preheat Oven to 350°
• Place the whole pumpkin on a baking pan
• Roast the pumpkin in the oven until tender* (cooking times will vary depending on the size of your pumpkin)
• Set aside until cool enough to handle
• Remove Skins, Seeds and Stringy-Pulp-like-Matter and discard (or save the seeds for roasting)
• Puree and use Cup-for-Cup in place of Canned Pumpkin
• Keeps in fridge for several days to a week or freeze for longer storage

*I generally just poke it – it’s done when the skin is browned and interior feels squishy and tender

It is definitely fall now – and I’ve had the flu to prove it. We’ve been dealing with plague here at Casa la Del – which is why I haven’t posted since last week. (sorry!) Shortly after Miss Thing had her event on Sunday, she came down with a cold. Of course, she recovered in about a day and a half. However, they must have rallied their forces and brought in reinforcements because when the little germy buggers got to me, I was down for the count. I’m now in day six of my recovery, and am still not a happy camper. This is one very un-nice flu. Fortunately, Mr. Man seems, (so far atleast) to be fighting it off – which given everything he’s been juggling at work lately is what we like to call A. Very. Good. Thing.

As if having the flu wasn’t bad enough this week though, it seems like I must have really done it to someone’s cornflakes, because I’ve had just one of those weeks where nothing seems to go right. On Thursday, the day before my dentist appointment that I’ve been trying to do for three months, (it’s a long story), I get a call from the dentist office saying that there’d been a mistake and that they no longer accept my insurance and that I’d need to find another provider. Who I’ll probably also have to wait another month to see. And spend another day or two trying to find out of the pages and pages of dentist listings from my insurer – most of whom SUCK. Needless to say I was… uhm… angry. And I was so sick I had to skip the Full Moon this month with my sisters. That was very disappointing. And Miss Thing has been … uh… rhymes with Witchy… I mean uh, Grumpy! She’s been very uhm… grumpy this week. Oh – and my Facebook account has been locked since Saturday Night. I’ve been getting a ‘site maintenance’ error… From what I hear they’re having Database issues and I’m one of the “lucky” account holders affected.  So yeah. Bad Week.

At any rate – having several days of lying around in misery in bed meant that I didn’t get to use up these bananas (or much of anything else, really) that I received in my most recent FFTY box as I’d intended. I had lofty plans of pie or other some such thing, which naturally didn’t happen, so when I finally was feeling atleast marginally human I found myself looking at four smallish bananas that had definitely seen better days… or, in other words, that were absolutely perfect for banana bread.

But not just any banana bread – no, not this time. You see – ever since I visited Boston, and tried the King Pancakes at The Friendly Toast, I’ve been dreaming of Peanut butter, chocolate and Bananas. I rarely get bananas in my box, so I’ve been biding my time – waiting. I knew that if I was patient, sooner or later – the bananas would come, and I would get my chance to explore that heavenly flavor combination again. And boy, is it heavenly. I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Banana Bread on this site, which I used as a starting off point – but naturally I had to make some modifications. Minor things – but they really elevate this bread from yum to sublime.

Fair warning – this is definitely a dessert banana bread. It’s rich, dense and sweet. Mr. Man of course, didn’t care for the chocolate, saying that he felt that it drowned out the Peanut Butter Flavor, but Miss Thing and I both thought the chocolate was the feature that really elevated it to something special. Next time though, I think I would recommend dividing this in to two smaller loaf pans. I used a 9″ loaf pan, and it really was too much batter for the pan. The edges that kind of ‘muffined’ over the sides ended up quite a bit overdone before the center was. Other than that small flaw though, this is probably my new favorite banana bread.The only thing I have to say besides that is… Thank you, Thank you very much.

Ingredients:

• 2 and 1/2 cups + 5 tbs Flour; divided
• 4 smallish over-ripe bananas (about 1 and 1/2 cups Mashed)
• 3/4 cup Natural Peanut Butter
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbs Brown Sugar; divided
• 1/2 cup Plain Yogurt
• 10 tbs unsalted Butter; divided and softened
• 2 eggs; room temperature
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt (use less if using salted butter/PB, table salt or sea salt); divided
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbs Fine quality Chopped Chocolate (optional); divided
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbs Chopped Pecans (optional); divided

Method:

• Preheat Oven to 350° and butter or grease one 9″ loaf pan
• In a small bowl, prepare streusel topping. Mix together the 2 tbs of chopped Pecans, the 2 tbs of Chopped Chocolate, 2 tbs of Softened Butter, the 2 tbs brown sugar, the 5 tbs of Flour and a pinch of kosher salt until combined in to soft crumbles. Set aside.
• In another bowl, stir together the remaining flour with the baking soda and kosher salt. Set aside.
• In (yet) another bowl, stir together the yogurt and mashed bananas. Set aside.
• Cream together the remaining sugar with the remaining butter until fluffy.
• Add the peanut butter and beat until combined.
• Scrape sides of bowl, and add eggs one at a time until combined.
• Mix in the Yogurt Banana mixture, scraping sides again as neccessary.
• Add the flour, a little at a time until just combined (do not overmix)
• Stir in the remaining chocolate and pecans
• Spread batter in to the prepared loaf pan
• Top with reserved streusel mixture
• Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until knife inserted in center of loaf comes out clean
• Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then remove loaf from pan and transfer to wire rack
• Cool completely before serving

I think that fall is finally arriving. The weather outside has been cooler – the kind of weather that people like to live in California for. Sunny, with a breeze – warm enough for short sleeves and jeans, but not swelteringly hot. It’s allowed me to crack open the oven and try baking a little bit again – I’m afraid I’ve been pretty anti-oven for the last several months due to the heat. I know, I know – just a few months ago, I kept complaining about how I sure would like the weather to warm up… and now I’m complaining that I want it to cool down. What can I say? I’m fickle.

But the timing for the weather cool-down couldn’t be better in another respect too – not only have I grown tired of the heat, but Mr. Man has suddenly taken an interest in Kitchen Chemistry – also known as bread baking.  On the night we went to see District 9 (a movie I really, really didn’t like, btw – but I’m probably a cretin), we were left with a little time before the movie – so we browsed around in the nearby book store, and I had a chance to take a peak at The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. We only had a few minutes, so I didn’t end up buying it – but when I got home, I ordered it from Amazon, eagerly looking forward to reading it. When it arrived, I sat down to start reading it… And well, let’s just say Ladies? Don’t ask your Math-Geek husbands for help with your baking book unless you’re prepared to let him read the book first. I ask one little question about the math, and then suddenly, he’s read the whole book and takes over the kitchen to make bread. Don’t get me wrong – it’s really good bread. And I’m think it’d be awesome if Mr. Man spent more time in the kitchen with me. But I can’t help being a little disgruntled that I didn’t get to finish reading my book. And that he got to bake from it first. And that he will probably be better at baking bread than me – because he totally gets the math more than I do. And stuff. And things. meh.

But not too disgruntled. I mean – the bread was pretty darn awesome. We’ll probably do a post about it when he’s feeling a little more confident with his technique. Or when I finish reading the hundred and some pages on technique and get to making bread myself. Or something. Anyways – all of that was just a really long segue to talking about how it’s been cool enough to bake, and that I have been. I usually end up making desserts out of the fruit that I receive in my weekly FFTY box – I don’t often have an excuse for making something that is simply a sugary-confectionary delight. Miss Thing of course, complains mightily about this – having a preference for chocolate and such, but on Friday for the Diablo Valley Pagans Meet & Greet, I decided to get a little creative – and try making some chocolate dipped confections. I ended up making two different kinds – chocolate dipped shortbread, and chocolate dipped peanut butter sandwich crackers. Both of them turned out excellent – and hopefully I’ll be posting the crackers recipe for the Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers soon.

Initially I was a little skeptical about this recipe – I can honestly say that this is the first cookie recipe I’ve ever made that had cornstarch as an ingredient. But they ended up being quite lovely. Tender and golden. Firm enough to dip in the chocolate, but still soft in the middle. I can envision all sorts of variations on them in the future. I used the recipe from Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything” – as a jumping off point, with a few small variations to make it my own. Mr. Man likes them dipped in milk – he says that the cookie would soak up the milk, and the chocolate would create a “cup” to hold the milk soaked cookie all together. I ended up running a little late when I was making these and didn’t end up tempering the chocolate before dipping – if you have the time and/or inclination, I highly recommend it, because otherwise the chocolate won’t really set up properly – but if you don’t, just keep them chilled and they’ll be fine. As I’ve mentioned before – when you’re making a recipe that only has a few ingredients – I highly recommend using the finest ingredients you can lay your hands on.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks Unsalted Butter; softened
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 and 1/2 cups Flour
• 1/2 cup Cornstarch
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1/4 tsp Kosher Salt
• 12 oz High Quality Dark Chocolate; cut in to chunks (optional)

Method:

• In a small bowl, stir together the flour, cornstarch and salt
• In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until combined
• Add the egg yolk and vanilla, scraping sides of bowl if neccessary, and beat until combined
• Stir in the Flour mixture, a little at a time, until combined. Dough will be sticky.
• Begin preheating the oven to 275°
• Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes
• Line two baking sheets with parchment paper
• Working quickly, take tablespoon size pieces of dough and roll in to balls and place on parchment lined cookie sheets
• Bake for 30 minutes, or until firm (if they’ve browned – you’ve probably overcooked them)
• Allow to cool completely on baking rack, then if desired prepare chocolate for dipping
• Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (Temper chocolate – if desired)
• Dip shortbread in the melted chocolate and set on waxed paper to set (if tempered – chocolate should set at room temperature – otherwise, refrigerate)

Sunday morning saw me up at far, far earlier than I would have hoped – For some unknown and no doubt, evil reason – Miss thing’s team had decided that we needed to be up, dressed and presentable (and in Miss Thing’s case pretty-fied) by 8:30 for team pictures. On a Sunday. Did I mention it was evil? Oh – and I’d been up until 3:00 am the night before. Special, no? At any rate, when I came back from the hour long photoshoot, plus the obligatory hour or so of socializing and team bonding for the giggle of girls, I had to try and come up with something to make that I could bring to Mabon.

Initially I’d planned to make some sort of seasonal fruit dish with fruit from my recent FFTY box – but Miss Thing begged and begged and begged for something with chocolate in it – Brownies or Chocolate Cake or some such thing – to which I said no, but we finally managed to agree on Chocolate Chunk Muffins. Of course, I couldn’t let it go at just that. A recent post on Local Lemons for a Quick Bread that used Brown Butter had been kicking around in my head for a while, inspiring me and getting me thinking about ways that I could incorporate brown butter in to baked goods – and these muffins seemed like a good time to try it out.

And hoo-boy, was it ever a good idea. The Browned Butter added an interesting, carmel-y, nutty flavor. It was subtle, but unmistakable, and definitely something I want to try experimenting with more. It took a simple muffin recipe and made it special. The muffins ended up being used as part of the Circle for the Cakes portion – and I received many compliments on them. I hadn’t been paying much attention to things lately – the busy-ness has eaten my attention span, so I didn’t realize that we were currently in a Mercury Retrograde (although I’m totally not surprised) so things became a little snarled around circle. First one of my sisters ended up having vehicular issues and needed a ride. Then on Friday, I also developed vehicular issues. Don’t worry – everything is fine – although, vaguely humorous aside… we lost our power steering after watching District Nine on Friday. We hadn’t done anything different or unusual – we just got back in to the car after the movie and it wasn’t working. We managed to get home, and only drove sparingly over the weekend. On Monday I took it to the dealership and was told that somehow, we’d lost a belt. No damage that they could see – no reason for the missing belt was evident, no belt was left behind in the parking spot (that we saw) on Friday… the belt just got up and walked off, I guess.

Obviously, with no power steering, and no real idea of what was wrong with the steering, I didn’t want to chance driving very far – when I mentioned to the sister who was hosting the ritual that I was having transportation issues, among other things that were floating around the group – we ended up making a last-minute venue change for Mabon. To my house. Wooopsy! (I volunteered… and yes, I know I’m certifiable. It’s cool.) So directly after making these muffins, Mr. Man, Miss Thing and I started running around, raking up the worst of the debris that accumulates around a lived-in house, and did some light cleaning in preparation.It all worked out, and I think that everyone had a good time and oh yeah, muffins – they enjoyed the muffins.

I was a little short on time while I was making these – and one thing that I learned would be that next time I will brown the butter a few hours (or even a day or two) before I actually need it – because it was a teeny bit of a bottleneck. If you’re like me and working under a little bit of a time crunch – I found that it helped to pour the butter in to a wide, shallow dish (such as a plate) to increase the surface area exposure, and then place the butter in to the freezer for a few minutes. I still had a couple of small liquidy spots, but it really helped a great deal, and got me moving again. Initially I was planning on transporting the muffins, so I used paper liners – but that was simply a matter of convenience for transport – if I’d been making them for staying home, I’d have probably greased the muffin tins instead.

Ingredients:

• 12 tbs Butter
• 1½ cups Sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1 cup Milk
• 4 cups Flour
• 2 tbs Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt
• 8 oz Bittersweet Chocolate; coarsely chopped in to chunks

Method:

• In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat until butter develops a nutty smell and turns a golden brown in color (there will be browned solid bits floating around in it – which is good)
• Remove the butter from heat and transfer to a bowl or dish.
• Place the browned butter in to the refrigerator (or freezer if in a hurry) to re-solidify (These steps can be done several hours to several days beforehand)
• Preheat the oven to 375° and grease (or line with paper) 2 muffin tins
• In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and kosher salt
• In a separate bowl, lightly whisk together the milk and eggs
• Cream together the browned butter and sugar until well combined
• Alternate between the liquid ingredients and the flour mixture until combined
• Stir in Chocolate pieces
• Spoon in to muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden and toothpick inserted in to center of a muffin comes out clean

On Friday last week, I made up a batch of No-Knead Bread, baked it, and set it out on the cutting board, just like I usually do whenever making bread… However – the strangest thing happened. Normally when I do that, the loaf of bread slowly disappears, as if by magick. Shrinking little by little over the course of the next day or two. However, this time, the loaf just sat there. Not disappearing, not doing anything clever at all. By Monday I had to accept the fact that this loaf of bread was defective in some way, and that it had become stale. *gasp* I know, I know! Bread that actually lasted long enough to go stale – the horror! the shame! (Actually, it might have something to do with the fact that we were super busy all weekend, but hey – let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good story…)

So what do you do when you end up with a whole loaf of stale bread? Make bread pudding of course! So I set out with a chainsaw bread knife and hacked my way through the loaf and got busy. It’s been a while since I’ve made bread pudding and it seemed like a great way to NOT put more stuff in my freezer (I already have plenty of things in the freezer I need to use up, thanks). A friend of mine says that if I don’t have room in my freezer, I probably need to throw some stuff out. lol – I can’t say he’s wrong, but I’m just … well – I might be able to use that stuff! Eventually. Sooner or later… Erm. So anyways – bread pudding… moving right along…

I had a couple pounds of peaches from this week’s FFTY box sitting on my counter that needed to be used up as well, so I threw them in with it. All told, it ended up making a fair amount. I think next time I might halve the recipe – just because I don’t think that Mr. Man and Miss Thing really like Bread Pudding as much as I do – and we’re likely going to be eating it up for a little while. But it would be perfect for a potluck or something, though.

If you have the time, it’s really much better to let everything sit overnight. The bread really gets a chance to absorb all the liquidy goodness. I was impatient this time, and baked it after only soaking for a couple of hours. It was still good, but I know I shoulda waited. What can I say? It was late – Mr. Man and I wanted a midnight snack – and it was just sitting in the fridge, begging to be eaten. It wasn’t my fault!

Ingredients:

• 8 cups 1″ Stale Bread Cubes (Sourdough makes an excellent choice for this – as does No-knead bread)
• 4 cups Peaches; cut in to 1″ pieces
• 4 cups Milk
• 2 cups Heavy Cream
• 6 eggs
• 1 cup Sugar
• 2 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
• Butter (for pan)

Method:

• Place the bread cubes and peaches in to a large bowl and set aside
• Whisk together the eggs, sugar and salt until lightened in color
• Add the milk a little at a time and whisk to combine
• Gently stir in the cream and vanilla
• Pour Milk mixture over the bread cubes and peaches and stir to combine, pressing bread down to get the floaters if neccessary
• Cover and refrigerate for a couple hours Minimum (overnight is better!)
• When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350° and butter a 9″x13″ baking pan
• Bake for 1 hour, or until edges of bread pudding are beginning to set and top is golden

I’ve mentioned roasted carrots a couple of times in various posts, but to be honest – they were always devoured too quickly for me to get a good picture of them to post about them. I came across this method for making roasted carrots on a blog called Pottery Monster a while back, and since the first time I’ve made them it’s become my absolute favorite way to eat carrots. Every week that we’ve received carrots in our FFTY box, I’ve made this recipe – and it always leaves me wanting more, and is likely the reason that there haven’t been nearly as many carrot inspired dishes floating around, since in the dark times, before roasted carrots, I didn’t think that carrots were that special. But I’ve learned the error of my ways now… They may not look like much, but they are durned tasty.

It’s been hard to make anything in the oven lately – it has just been ridiculously hot lately. We’ve had the air conditioning on and the house locked up tight for most of the last week. It’s been a big de-motivator for cooking, even if it hadn’t been such a busy week. I’ll get motivated… sooner or later. Of course, next week isn’t looking too terribly calm either… Miss Thing goes back to school again, (booooo!) and then I have a doctor’s appointment, and I need to get Leeroy & Jenkins in for another vet visit… Nevermind Team Practice every night – although thankfully they drop to only three times a week soonish.

With all the busy-ness going around – these carrots are a perfect thing to have on hand – assuming they last very long. (when I make them they seem to disapear in about two seconds) While they do take a while to roast, the prep is super easy and the ingredient list is very, very short. And the results? Delish. Even Miss Thing, who hates all carrots and everything to do with carrots, admitted that these carrots are ‘okay’. In fact, if I ever manage to make it down to the farmer’s market again this season (I’ve had the last couple of weekends get completely hosed, what with the teenage invasion and everything else thats been going on…) You’ll notice though, that I don’t give specific measurements for this dish – mostly because you don’t need them. You can pretty much use however many carrots you happen to have on hand. They do reduce a bit in size when cooking, so it might be good to keep that in mind.

Ingredients:

• Carrots
• Olive Oil
• Kosher Salt

Method:

• Preheat Oven to 400°
• Wash the carrots
• Lightly coat the carrots with the olive oil
• Sprinkle liberally with kosher salt
• Spread out in a single layer on a baking sheet
• Roast until thick ends of the carrots are soft (about an hour)
• They will keep in fridge for atleast a couple of days – assuming they aren’t devoured immediately like they are at our house.

Last night, Mr. Man and I were discussing dinner options – and to be honest, coming up a little bit blank. Pasta? No, we had that the other day. Quinoa? Nah… not in the mood…  and so on and so forth. Finally Mr. Man is like How about Pizza? He even offered to go pick it up, as I was getting the beginnings of a righteous headache – but given all the fresh veggies I still have from this weeks FFTY box, it seemed like a bad idea to get take out. It did however, give me the idea to pull out the jar of No-Knead starter I always keep in my fridge and make pizza.

Amazingly, my starter managed to survive the two weeks we were in Boston, with no serious effects, (Sadly, I can’t say the same for the basil that had been living on my windowsill). I refreshed it last week, and it rose up quite nicely – although it’s really been too hot to bake very much. I didn’t have any Marinara sauce made, but trust me – you won’t miss it. The cherry tomatoes were perfect all on their own.

I’ve found myself making a lot of dishes like this lately – just a handful of fresh, quality ingredients, thrown together and prepared simply – it’s better than you’d think, especially right now when so many things are at their peak freshness. Good Food doesn’t have to be terribly fussy or complicated.

The last time I made pizza I learned quite a few lessons, so this time around it was much easier and faster to make. From start to finish dinner was done in under an hour – and that was including taking the prep photos! For starters, I prebaked the crust a little bit, which made for a more substantial and less doughy crust than last time. It also meant that the parchment paper was exposed directly to the broiler in shorter bursts, so it didn’t catch on fire this time, always a plus. (I’m a big fan of not-being-on-fire.) The crust did turn out a little more like a cross between a flatbread and a pizza, but I don’t really care, because what I call it is ‘pretty durn tasty’.

This time, I also skipped the whole making-a-sauce step, opting instead to go with a brushing of olive oil over the lightly baked crust, and then putting the cherry tomatoes cut-side down to cook. The result exceeded my expectations. I was shooting for an Margherita style pizza, and I daresay I nailed it. Of course, I did make a few modifications. I didn’t have fresh mozzarella, so I used the regular run of the mill mozzarella I already had. (The good stuff gets used up quickly!)  I also opted to shred it, because I like having an even amount of cheese rather than large chunks. Technically, Margherita pizzas are vegetarian, but I threw a couple slices of chopped up prosciutto on there just for fun. For you veggie eaters out there, you can skip it and I think it will be just as (well, okay almost as) good.

Mr. Man and I adored it, and Miss Thing thought it was ‘okay’. I think she was mostly just a little weirded out that it didn’t have a traditional sauce on it. Served with a light salad, it was delicious and right up my alley in the simple-fast-easy-delicious category. Now that I’ve realized how quick and easy I can throw together a pizza as long as I have my No-Knead starter in the fridge, I may never want to buy pizza again. (Okay, not never, but probably even more rarely) Not only was this almost as fast as ordering out (+/- 15 minutes), it was much better than most of the places that will deliver around here. It’s a win-win.

A couple of quick notes – I’m pretty sure that Parchment Paper is not recommended for broiler use, and if you use it, you assume all risk and liability and yadda yadda. In other words, I did it and it turned out great, but if you do it and you set your house on fire, it’s not my fault. So be careful. It cooks fairly quickly, so I would caution against leaving the room in any case. Personally, I sat in front of the oven with the light on and watched it like a hawk the entire time. YMMV. If you choose not to use parchment, you can go the whole corn-meal and pizza peel routine, thats up to you.

Also, this method of pizza baking requires a cast iron skillet or flat griddle, or a pizza stone. If you don’t have one, you can probably still make a nice baked pizza-like-substance, but for the best chew and texture of the crust you should really use cast iron or stone. I used this Cast-Iron Griddle, and I’m pretty happy with it. I like that I don’t have to worry about it shattering as much as I would a stone at broiling temperature – although I use stoneware for most of my bread baking, so it’s a toss up.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of No-Knead Dough, rested atleast 24 hrs (or other prepared and rested pizza dough)
• Flour
• 2 cups Halved Cherry Tomatoes
• 4 cloves Garlic; minced
• 1/4 cup Fresh Basil; finely chopped
• 1-2 tbs Olive Oil
• 3-4 slices of Prosciutto; chopped
• 1 cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
• Kosher Salt

Method:

• Before beginning prep of other ingredients, prepare the pizza dough.
• Spread flour out on the counter and knead in just enough flour that dough holds it’s shape (amount of flour will vary depending on how slack your starting dough is)
• Shape in to a round disc, and dust with additional flour
• Cover with a towel and leave to rest while preparing the other ingredients, or about 20-30 minutes
• Set the top rack of your oven next to the broiler, and place your baking surface (Cast Iron or Baking Stone) on the rack
• Preheat Broiler for atleast 20-30 minutes
• Prep Ingredients (if neccessary)
• On a sheet of Parchment Paper (please see note above!) roll the dough out to the shape best suited for your baking surface (round for skillet, rectangle for stone/skillet, etc…)
• Place parchment paper and dough on preheated griddle, baking stone, skillet (etc) and broil for 2-3 minutes, or until crust begins to brown. Please watch carefully!
• Remove browned crust and parchment paper from oven.
• Flip crust over and broil for an additional 2-3 minutes, or until crust begins to brown. Please watch carefully!
• Remove browned crust and parchment paper from oven
• Brush crust lightly with Olive Oil
• Place Cherry tomatoes, cut-side down on the oiled crust
• Sprinkle garlic and basil evenly over the tomatoes.
• Sprinkle liberally with Kosher Salt (or to taste), then spread the prosciutto and mozzarella over the tomatoes.
• Return to broiler and broil pizza for 2-4 minutes, or until cheese begins to brown and melt Again, please watch carefully!
• Allow to cool for a few minutes before cutting