Category: Easy Peasy - DragonWarden

Cardamom-Walnut Crescents

12/4/2018

Taken from this recipe, in terms of ingredients and method, this was not so different from the perennial favorite Mexican Wedding cookies. But the texture was quite different once baked, because the fat (butter, in this case) wasn't creamed evenly throughout the batter. I had joked to my mother that it looked like I was making a batch of mini-croissants; it turns out I wasn't too far off, because even though the dough came together, the food processor maintained little granules of the cold butter so that they baked into very lightweight cookies that crumbled in your mouth.

For the dough:

1/4 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup walnuts halves
1/4 pound unsalted butter, chilled and cut in to 1/2-inch pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/8 teaspoon salt

For the vanilla sugar:

1/3 cup sugar
1/4 vanilla bean

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Combine all dough ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until the dough resembles coarse meal. Then process continuously until it begins to gather together.
Roll 2 teaspoons (or a little over half a tablespoon) dough at a time into half moon shapes. Arrange on an ungreased baking sheet, 1 inch apart. Bake until firm to touch, about 18 to 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine the vanilla sugar ingredients in a food processor until the vanilla bean is pulverized.
When cookies are done, let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack. Sift the vanilla sugar over them immediately. Continue cooling for 15 minutes. The cookies may be stored in an airtight container up to 5 days.

If you are lazy like me, you can just substitute powdered sugar for the vanilla sugar. Be aware, though, that this cuts down on the sweetness. This was perfectly fine for me, though. If you want to be even more super-lazy, forget about the crescent shapes and just form little half-domes like the mexican wedding cookies.

I also liked to up the cardamom and orange zest amounts, but you can certainly adjust to your taste. To help with the spreading, you can chill the cookies after they're formed on the baking sheet in the fridge for a half hour before putting in the oven.

Roasted Rhubarb

4/26/2017

This is really a fantastic go-to for when you want that tart rhubarb taste but have no time to make a whole rhubarb pie. Of course, then the challenge becomes what to pair the roasted rhubarb with - I tried to use a plainer recipe such as the magic custard cake, but the rhubarb taste is so strong that it frankly overpowered the cake. So, just be aware that while delicious, the roasted rhubarb needs a strong partner!

1/2 lb rhubarb
1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice or juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tsp vanilla

Set oven to 375 F.
Slice the rhubarb into about 1" pieces. Toss with everything.
Spread on a baking sheet and roast for about 10-15 minutes, until it is soft but not mushy.

Note: I personally preferred a little less sugar, maybe around the 1/4 to 1/3 cup range, but some might be put off by how tart the rhubarb becomes once you cut the sugar down that low.

Hummus

4/23/2017

Hummus, I'm beginning to think in my vast inexperience, seems to be rather like stone soup - you pretty much put whatever you want into a chickpea paste base "to taste" (there's probably hordes waiting in the wings to burn me for that comment). But after visiting half a dozen pages on the merits of texture vs silkiness, Greek tahini vs Arabic tahini, whether olive oil belongs in the hummus before or after, etc I'm pretty much just tossing whatever is nearby in until I'm willing to lick the spoon (or my finger) clean.

1 can chickpeas
1/3 cup tahini
2-4 cloves garlic (to taste)
juice of 1-2 lemons or 2-4 tbsp of lemon juice (to taste)
1 tbsp of cumin or paprika
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tsp of salt (to taste)
olive oil (to drizzle or to taste)

Drain the chickpeas and reserve the liquid in a bowl. Put the chickpeas and garlic into a food processor and blend until coarsely ground. Scrape down the sides/redistribute as needed.
While the food processor is running, pour in the lemon juice and 2 tbsp of the chickpea liquid. Scrape down the sides/redistribute as needed.
While the food processor is running, add the tahini. Scrape down the sides/redistribute as needed.
While the food processor is running, add the spices and salt. Continue to add the chickpea liquid one tablespoon at a time until you achieve the consistency you want.

Note: There were some arguments over whether olive oil should be added during the making of the hummus or just drizzled atop it afterward. I made it without the olive oil, and it turned out fine, but some may find it irresistible to at least throw in a tablespoon or two during the making of it.

James Beard's Zucchini Bread

7/6/2016

I received this recipe in my inbox one day, and it was a perfect opportunity to use up some of the mystery vegetables lying around the kitchen. I actually don't know what the squash-family veggie it was that I ended up putting into the bread, except that it definitely wasn't a zucchini. Nevertheless, even with such liberties taken - and, after I couldn't find either my loaf pans or my muffin-sized liners, falling back to my cupcake tins out of desperation - I could see why the recipe had a 4 out of 4-spoon rating. Nobody in my entire family stopped at just one cupcake, and my dad even accused me of lacing it with opium! *eyeshifts*

3 eggs
1.25 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated raw zucchini
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Yield: 2 loaves or about 18-20 cupcakes

Beat eggs until light and foamy. Add the sugar, oil, zucchini, and vanilla and mix lightly but well.
Whisk together flour, salt, soda, baking powder, and cinnamon. Add to the egg-zucchini mixture.
Stir until well blended, add nuts, and pour into two 9 x 5 x 3 inch greased loaf pans, or distribute into cupcake cups.
Preheat oven to 350 F. For loaves, bake for 1 hour. For cupcakes, bake for 25 minutes.

There's now a much more thorough treatment of this recipe on Jen Reviews - Cozy, Crumbly Zucchini Bread Recipe, chock full of high-res photos! It's a great guide for anyone who has any questions about the many details that I admittedly elide here for the sake of reading and baking brevity.

No-Bake Cheesecake

12/22/2015

I had pinned this article from Epicurious from back in forever, and had honestly forgotten about it altogether. It wasn't until I offered to make a cake for my mother for the holiday potluck and trawled through my Pinterest board (and quietly panicking when I realized I almost never pay any attention to cakes) when I stumbled across this recipe again.

Since it was for the holidays, I added some green to help complement the red, and had a grand old time carving and essentially playing with the fruit. With a ready-made crust and store-bought whipped topping, this is a quick and easy recipe, though I usually opt to make my own graham cracker crust and whipped cream.

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream (or 1 1/3 cup for a more NY-style sour cheesecake)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 lemon zested
8 ounces prepared whipped topping, thawed
1 prepared graham cracker crust
1 pound fresh strawberries, hulled and halved lengthwise

Beat the cream cheese until smooth with an electric mixer. Gradually beat in the sugar. Beat in the sour cream, vanilla, and lemon zest until just combined.
Fold in the whipped topping. Scrape mixture into the piecrust. (There may be some filling left over. If so, reserve it to be decoratively piped onto the top of the pie.) Chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours.

Notes: Half of those who tried this mentioned that they preferred a thicker graham cracker crust than I usually make for other tarts to go with this cheesecake.

If you're going to use kiwis, find some that are firmer/not-quite-ripe. They will be easier to slice using a mandolin, and they'll be so thin that their not-so-perfect state of ripeness won't be as much of an issue. Also, turn the fruit 180 degrees after each slice; otherwise, the trailing end will start to get ragged after a while depending on the sharpness of your mandolin, particularly if the fruit is already softer than ideal.

Whipped Cream / Topping

12/22/2015

I highly recommend reading through Bon Appetit's do's and don'ts of homemade whipped cream. It's a succinct guide of the common pitfalls of making your own whipped cream, tips on how to recover if you've misstepped, and what effects different ingredients have. Otherwise, I've simply copied the most common steps below for easy reference.

1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp confectioner's sugar or granulated sugar
(optional) additional 1 tbsp of sugar for sweeter whipped cream

Chill the bowl and whisk, either in the freezer (for about 10 minutes) or the refrigerator (for about 20 minutes).
Pour the heavy cream in the bowl. If using granulated sugar, add it now.
Using an electric mixer, beat the cream until soft to medium peaks form. If using confectioner's sugar, add it now.
You may wish to switch to a hand-whisk to continue beating the whipped cream to the desired stiffness. Or else use the electric mixer in short bursts, to avoid over-beating the cream.
Chill whipped cream until ready to use. You can "refresh" it just before use by hand beating it for about 10-15 seconds.

Pseudo-Bento-Anything-Goes-All-In-One Ramekin Pot Pie

12/2/2015

Much like the Post-Thanksgiving Scraps Turkey Shepherd's Pie, pretty much this is just to give some general guidelines and you can just go nuts with what you actually throw in. I know, I know, baking and bakers are all about precision, but this once, let your inner child loose and put as much of your favorite stuff in as you want. This is just to give you an idea of the possibilities.

mushrooms
marinated artichoke hearts
deli meats
tomato sauce
shredded mozarella cheese
Pillsbury croissant roll dough

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F. Using a pair of kitchen shears, cut up the mushroom and artichoke hearts and line the bottom of the ramekin. If you like your mushrooms cooked, pop the ramekin into the oven for about 5-7 minutes. The olive oil from the marinated artichokes should help to keep the mushrooms moist.
Once you have the ramekin back, use the shears to cut up the deli meats and stuff them in. Layer over them some tomato sauce, and then the cheese.
Unroll the Pillsbury croissant roll dough, and press together the pre-cut seams so that there is a single sheet of dough. Place over the ramekin top and trim the edges with the shears, making sure there's enough overhang to cover the edges of the ramekin. Press all the edges down, and then poke some holes in the top for venting.
Stick in the oven for about 12-15 minutes, according to the Pillsbury dough's intsructions. (If you wish to have a crusty top, set the oven to broil for the last two minutes.)

Post-Thanksgiving Scraps Turkey Shepherd's Pie

11/27/2015

This is the Frankenstein of all frankenstein mash-ups, and was born literally out of the seemingly incompatible states of being both restless and lazy at the same time. This took up the last of the Thanksgiving scraps, and though it initially was supposed to include marinara sauce and some crescent roll sheets on top, when I discovered the marinara sauce had gone bad, it was an abrupt appeal to some garlic herb butter and an egg to make it a sort of reverse shepherd's pie instead of the original pizza pot pie I had imagined. And it turned out AMAZING.

Yes, I did not include a whole lot of concrete portions, but that's the beauty of using leftovers. Everything's already been cooked and don't really need extra fussing with, and you're totally free to put more or less of anything according to taste (or what you want to get rid of).

However-many-ramekins-you-have's worth of:

stuffing
turkey
garlic herb butter, stock, or gravy (for moisture)

To cover (can use any one of these):

eggs and shredded cheese
crescent roll sheets
puff pastry

Set the wire rack to the middle of the oven. Set oven temp to pre-heat to 425 F.
I lined a baking sheet in case there were drippings, set the ramekins on top, then started layering the food in. You can put them in any order you want. For the cover, you can either crescent roll sheets, puff pastry, or like in this instance, an egg and some cheese. Tip - make a little well in the middle of the top layer so that the egg yolk has somewhere to sit once you've cracked it in. Otherwise, the egg white makes it slippery enough that the yolk tends to slide off toward the edges.
Pop everything in the oven for about 12 minutes (which keeps the yolk runny - if you want a more solid yolk, add a few more minutes). If you'd like a nice bit of browning on top, switch the oven to broil for one minute - keep an eye on it, though, because it will burn easily at this point!

Rhubarb Pie

10/18/2015

Other than a reference to a character named "Rhubarb" in Strawberry Shortcake, I had never encountered the vegetable in either print or person until I was nearly 30. But it was pretty much love at first taste, and since then, whenever winter rolls around I keep an eye on the store shelves for the elusive (in Southern California climes, that is) veggie.

I play around with this recipe a lot, sometimes throwing in strawberries (as seen in the photos) or adjusting the amounts of sugar and flour depending on what I'm using. It's become a nice, very simple general recipe for these soft-cooking "sour" fruits that nevertheless still gets multiple requests from friends and family through the year.

1 double deep dish pie crust
4 heaping cups of chopped fresh rhubarb (see notes at bottom if using frozen rhubarb)
1 cup white sugar
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
(optional) 1 egg + 1 tsp water
(optional) sugar

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Roll out the bottom pie crust and lay in the deep dish pie pan. Trim the edges.
Combine sugar and flour. Sprinkle 1/3 of it over pastry in pie plate (this will help the juices from soaking the bottom crust into soup). Heap rhubarb over this mixture. Sprinkle the remaining sugar and flour over the rhubarb. Cover with top crust and crimp the edges. (Optional: brush an egg wash of one whole egg and one teaspoon of water over the crust, and sprinkle with sugar.)
Place pie on lowest rack in oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Cover the edges of the crust with a heat shield and reduce oven temperature to 350 F, and continue baking for 40 to 45 minutes. Let it cool and set. (The center will be very soupy when hot, but as it cools, the flour will help it congeal. This pie may be served hot if you simply can't wait - which my family has done many times - but it's probably best when it's warm or just slightly above room temperature.)

Notes: The sugar level has been adjusted for a less-sweet pie. The original recipe called for 1_1/3 cups of sugar and exactly 4 cups of rhubarb. If you're using frozen rhubarb, try to defrost it first and then squeeze the extra water out of it, then add an extra tablespoon of flour to help thicken the sauce.

The Puff (Quiche - from The Cypress B&B)

10/3/2015

This recipe is from the now-sadly closed Cypress B&B in Florida. A beautiful little cottage in a beautiful area, the hosts were gracious enough to give me their recipes for some of their most popular breakfast items, including the delicious glazed mango pecan muffins.

While this is called "The Puff", I liken it most to a crust-less quiche, and due to all the varieties of cheeses, stays fabulously moist in the center instead of becoming all baked-out egg. And due to the large quantity, is a great way to just get a bunch of breakfasts out of the way if you're looking forward to a busy week!

12 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1/2 lb shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 lb shredded monterey jack cheese
1 pint cottage cheese
2 cups of your favorite fillings (breakfast meats, rotisserie chicken, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, sauteed onions, etc.)

Servings: 12

If you need to pre-cook any vegetables or meats, do so now and then set aside. (See note below.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat eggs until they are light and fluffy.
Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together. Gently mix this and butter into eggs.
Add remaining ingredients and stir gently until well blended.
Pour into a 9"x13" baking dish.
Bake for 35 minutes.

Note: This earns the easy-peasy rating if you go with some pre-cubed or cut up sandwich meats and throw in a bag of frozen veggies.

Also, I really, really hate soggy over-cooked veggies in my quiches. I've discovered that for certain veggies such as asparagus and cauliflower, what works great is the ice-bath after a blanching, which stops the cooking process in its tracks. I try to boil them to JUST the point before they're just-right, and then when they're in the oven, they take that last step so that there's still a little crunch left to the asparagus and the cauliflower isn't just mush when the quiche is done. Mushrooms I sometimes don't bother cooking at all - the oven takes care of them well enough.