Marching Through

So...before our big 24,24,24 dinner, we had managed to be somewhat consistent writing posts. After a week of hogging the computer before finals, and now starting to write final papers, I realize that if I don't post now, half the month will go by without a word from either of us. As I've mentioned before, while I'm busy and stressed I take a lot of baking breaks. So, given the chance we wont be doing much posting or commenting for the week, I thought I'd give you a glimpse of what I would be and have already been doing.

With the cultural rise in interest in vegetarian, vegan, organic, and local lifestyles, there are now a lot more alternative recipes for sweets that are more 'friendly' to some of these different groups. When I was sorting through the pantry, I found a can of pumpkin I had reserved in anticipation of a Thanksgiving pumpkin shortage. It slowly migrated to the back behind cans of tomatoes, but was rescued to make a fudgy dark chocolate, vegan friendly cookies. For some time, as I spotted vegan bakeries popping up around Columbus, I was quite skeptical as to how, without butter, or eggs, a cookie could be a cookie, a brownie a brownie, etc etc. Then, I was fortunate enough to try half a cookie here, a brownie there, and even a piece of cake. Although my attempt with these cookies is nowhere near as good as any of those yet, and I would perhaps rethink the whole wheat flour choice in favor of whole wheat pastry flour or a whole wheat and oat flour combination, they were very rich, chewy fudgy chocolate cookies, perfect for a 3 am pick-me-up.

Double Dark Chocolate Cookies
1/4 Cup Sugar
2 oz dark chocolate chunks (about 1/2 of a 3.5 oz bar chopped)
1/3 cup + 1 tbsp pumpkin
1/4 Cup Maple Syrup
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp dark cocoa powder
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar to coat.
1. Preheat oven to 350. Combine sugar, pumpkin, vanilla and maple syrup until smooth.
2. In separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. Combine well.
3. Add dry mixture to wet mixture. Add chocolate chunks, fold to combine.
4. Scoop rounded tablespoons. Roll into balls, and dip in sugar to coat top. Place dough onto baking sheet lined with parchment paper and slightly flatten (these don't spread hardly at all). Cook 10-12 minutes.
5. Remove from oven. Cool on wire rack. Enjoy when cooled completely.

Moving away from the vegan friendly cookies, I've been using flax seed as an egg substitute quite frequently lately.  This somewhat middle ground bar cookie works well as a nice good morning breakfast treat. I think after a disappointing purchase of a bland, tasteless, cardboard like oat bar  from a campus coffee shop, I'm trying to make up with my own renditions. The fact that I don't spend much time rolling out the cookies, and they bake 30 instead of 8 minutes, is a plus too! The orange zest gives the bars a unique taste to compliment the incredible chewy but crumbly texture of the oat bar and bursts of tart sweetness from the cranberries. This was my second attempt at these (the first were gone too quick to get pictures), so I hope you can maybe find some use for them.

Cranberry Orange Oat Bars (Adapted from Quaker's Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Recipe)
1/2 Cup Butter, softened
1/2 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 tbsp ground flax seed dissolved in 3 tbsp water
1/2 tsp Orange Extract
1-1/2 Cup Old Fashioned Oats
3/4 Cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp fresh grated Orange Zest
1. Preheat oven to 350. Combine butter, sugars until creamy and pale brown in color. Add flax seed dissolved in water and orange zest. Mix well.
2. In different bowl, combine flour, oats, baking soda, and orange zest. Mix well.
3. Add dry mixture into wet mixture. Add cranberries and mix well.
4. Spread mixture in square 9x9 ungreased baking dish.
5. Bake about 30 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean.


The last in my series of baking so far has been these guys:

Look pretty boring, I know. Looks more or less like the same recipe for the cranberry orange ones, huh? Wrong. Suffice to say, unlike the chocolate cookies, these are most definitely not vegan, or vegetarian friendly cookies. Besides the butter, and eggs in these, the nice pieces you see are not some dried fruit. Nor are they some nice toasted nuts. Nope, instead, what you see my friends, is some nice, sweet, smokey and salty, candied bacon. Yup, this is when you realize you've gone perhaps too far. Suffice to say, once I pulled these out of the oven, I quickly decided that was enough baking for a little while. Now off to find some hungry stressed colleagues to feed all these to!

Maple Bacon Oat Bars
Use recipe for Cranberry Orange Oat Bars (above)
Substitute1 egg for flax seed dissolved in water
Substitute maple flavoring for orange extract
Substitute 1 cup (about 5 slices) of candied bacon for 1/2 cup dried cranberries
*Optional, once spread in pan, top with 1/4 cup pecan pieces.

For the candied bacon, you can do a Google search for more precise directions from a number of bloggers, but basically, coat thick slices with brown sugar or maple syrup, and place on some sort of non stick surface or roasting rack for 20-30 in 350 oven.

Enjoy!

Good Morning Love

Daniel & I are always torn about what to do around Valentine's day. Do we go out for a nice dinner and fight the crowds, stay in and make a nice dinner together. Or do something else entirely. Maybe we're not the only bloggers in the world who face this dilemma, but whenever it comes up, I typically favor some sort of compromise, usually a baked one. 

No matter what your plans are for the day, a nice freshly baked breakfast treat is a nice way to show anyone that you care and were thinking about them first thing in the morning. I've included three baked treats on the post, but feel free to check out any of these other recipes:

Pumpkin Cranberry Scones or Biscotti  

Or if you're interested in something a little more savory:

Baked Eggs or Toast from Freshly Baked Bread 

Roasted Pepper & Bacon Fritatta  

Savory Cheddar Bacon Scone

Traditional English Scone

 2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 Cup Raisins

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup white sugar (reserve 2 tbsp)

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with nonstick slipmat or parchment paper. Next, combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and into a bowl.Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the raisins, sugar (except for reserved 2 tbsp), and enough milk to mix to a soft dough. Knead lightly. Using 1/4 cup measuring cup, measure out scone and place on baking sheet. Brush with milk to glaze and sprinkle with remaining sugar. Bake  10 minutes then cool on a wire rack. Serve with butter, jelly, or clotted cream if you're lucky enough to find it!

Cranberry Pistachio "un"Coffee Cake (no topping)

1/2 granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup butter or margarine
  2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 Cup FlaxseedMeal
1/4 cup pistachios
1/4 Cup Cranberries teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp Flax Seed Meal Dissolved in 6 Tbsp Water (or two eggs)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon  baking powder 
1 teaspoon baking soda
Preheat oven to 350*F (175*C). Grease a 9 inch square baking pan.
Combine sugars and butter. In separate bowl, combine flours, flax seed meal (not the one dissolved in water), baking powder, soda, and salt. Add dissolved flax seed and vanilla to sugar/butter mixture.  Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Mix in buttermilk. Add pistachios and cranberries. Stir until just combined. Mixture should be lumpy.
To the remaining crumb mixture add the rest of the ingredients from the buttermilk to the baking soda and stir by hand to combine. Mixture will be slightly lumpy.
Pour into prepared baking pan. Bake for 20 or 30 minutes or until tested done when wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Serve warm.

Double Chocolate Biscotti

4 oz semisweet chocolate chopped finely

1 cup packed brown sugar

1-3/4 Cup All Purpose Flours

1/3 Cup Dutch Processed cocoa

1 Tsp Baking Soda

3 Eggs

2 Tsp Vanilla

1/2 Cup Mini Chips*

Preheat oven to 300. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. In food processor or magic bullet, pulse chocolate and brown sugar until fine. In bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda. In separate bowl, beat eggs and vanilla. Add flour and chocolate mixture to eggs. When dough begins to come together, add chips. Continue mixing until a stiff dough forms. 

Divide dough in half. Roll each half into one long log (about 1 ft), and place on sheet. 

Bake at 300 for 35-40 minutes until firm. Remove from oven and let cool 10-15 minutes. Transfer logs to cutting board (carefully) and using serrated knife cut along the bias to make cookies between 1/2 and 1 inch wide. Place cookies, one cut side down, back on sheet. Bake 15 minutes on each side (30 total), until crisp and dry. Let cool. Ice with chocolate frosting or a chocolate glaze

*consider trying nuts, white chocolate, or experimenting!!

Enjoy

Sweet Pick Me Ups

Daniel and I have noticed (and are very very appreciative :)) of the rise in comments on our blog lately, so I thought it may be a little time for some reflection. Not too long ago, Eat Live Travel Write posted about why she began her blog, and although we've only been doing ours for a few months, its quickly become a part of our routine that is enjoyable and rewarding. It's interesting what our original thoughts about how the blog would shape up were in comparison to what it looks like. 

Because I like to bake, and Daniel likes to cook, we somewhat assumed my posts would mainly be baked goods or desserts, and Daniel would post on the never-ending experiments in the kitchen when he gets a chance to cook. Looking back, I realize that we are at the brink of the holiday season, and I haven't posted a single solitary sweet so far. As I began writing a post on this super-super-sweet Caramel Cashew Tart from a recent issue of Bon Appetit, I felt a slight twinge of guilt however. I know that I'm already overwhelmed trying to decide what to desserts to make for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm even lucky enough to have a few birthdays throw in the mix (my dad was a Christmas eve baby) with the extra excuse to make more, and am still feeling stressed at the decision. So, fear no more, you will not get a desert from me. Not today anyway.

Instead, I thought I'd offer you not one, but two breakfast treats to hold you over until your turkey, ham, tofurkey, etc., has finished or to please your out of town or overnight guests. The pumpkin scone recipe is still under construction. I've struggled with the pumpkin scone for sometime, as I would like a traditional scone texture, but would still like it to...I don't know...taste like pumpkin. These come pretty close to what I've been searching for. They're a little more chewy than the traditional scone, but either way they still pair nicely with a cup of coffee. I didn't want them overpoweringly sweet, so I dusted mine with a little bit of granulated sugar while they were still warm. Alternatively, you could of course add a cinnamon and powdered sugar glaze or a nice frosting swirl to achieve some extra sweetness.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Scones

3/4 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oat flour

1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1/2 cup dried cranberries

3 tbsp chilled heavy cream plus more for glaze

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1 egg yolk

Preheat oven to 375°F. Prepare baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine first 10 ingredients in large bowl, blending well. Using back of fork or pastry cutter, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add cranberries and toss to distribute evenly. Whisk heavy cream ,pumpkin, and egg to blend in small bowl. Gradually add pumpkin mixture to dry ingredients, stirring minimally until evenly moistened.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Gently knead to bind. Pat inf 3/4-inch-thick round. Cut the round into 6 wedges. Arrange scones on prepared sheet, spacing at least 1 inch apart. Brush scones with cream to glaze* (optional).

Bake scones until puffed and brown and tester inserted into centers comes out clean, about 22 minutes. Serve warm. 

The second breakfast treat pictured above are part of a batch of pumpkin biscotti from Simply Recipes . Suffice it to say, these were amazing. Daniel I think was a little bored with my overzealous use of pumpkin this fall, and he was not excited about the infamously dry hard biscotti, but these were quite tasty. The link to the recipe is posted above. I did have to bake mine a little longer and leave them out a little to dry, and of course I had to alter the spice's a little (or double the cinnamon, ginger, and cloves), but the cookies were quite tasty and the recipe was quick and simple getting them into the oven. 

Hope these ideas come in handy as you get ready!!

A Holiday Pizza; AKA Early Ideas for Leftovers

I'll admit, I'm one of those stubborn people who complain about Christmas items showing up in the store before Halloween is over. And rightly so, in my opinion. I love Christmas. I'll never forget how shocked Daniel was to experience just how much my Mom, Sister, and I love Christmas.  And, now that Halloween is over, I'm ready to be in the Holiday mood. I wont start playing my Christmas movie marathons until it gets a little closer, but I'm already looking forward to an evening with Jimmy Stewart and claymationed Rudolph, not to mention the baking and candy-making marathons.

Anyways, on to the recipe before I get too excited. With the holidays on my mind, I reflected that it seems as if its been a little while since we blogged about a unique pizza creation. So, while I should have been thinking about school and reading, I decided to try a new 'Thanksgiving-esque' Pizza. Naturally, I decide this under our new 'eat from the pantry' policy, which I more or less failed at. Already. One week in. Oh well.

Originally I wanted to do something that included turkey, cranberries, kale and pumpkin. While at the store, I forgot about the turkey, could only find dried cranberries, and the decided to allocate the kale for another meal. I did however find some tasty Brussels sprouts and portobello mushrooms to make up for the green and 'meaty' portions of the pizza. Ideally, I think it would be fun to try and make it again with some Thanksgiving leftovers, maybe making a tart with a stuffing crust instead, but for a weeknight 'fun' meal, this worked pretty well.

Coming home, and still not working on school, I set to roasting the Brussels sprouts, soaking the cranberries in hot water, sauteing the mushrooms with some butter and sage, and making a savory pumpkin sauce with onions, sage, and garlic. Combined, the steps did eat up some time, but I could have easily done most of them in advance before heating up the pizza stone and putting the pizza together. Although Daniel came home and looked at it somewhat hesitantly, overall it turned out well. I look forward to trying it again and hope it may serve as some inspiration for you to use your Thanksgiving leftovers!

Dawn's Thanksgiving-esque Pizza

Prepared pizza dough; recipe available here.

Toppings:

1/4 Cup Dried Cranberries

1/2 Cup Warm Water

2 Handfuls Brussels Sprouts (8-10)Rinsed

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper to Taste

1/2 Portobello mush room cap; chopped

1/2 Tbsp Butter

1 Tsp Dried Sage

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Sauce:

1/2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1/2 Small Onion

3 Cloves Garlic

1 Handful Fresh Sage, sliced thinly or 2 tbsp dried

1 Cup Pumpkin Puree

1/4 Cup Dry White Wine

1/2 Cup Chicken Stock

1 Tbsp Dried Thyme

1/4 Tsp Smoked Paprika (Optional)

Salt & Pepper to Taste

1. Preheat oven to 400. If doing in one cooking session, place pizza stone in as well to preheat. If using dried cranberries, place cranberries in small bowl with hot water. Let stand until ready to top pizza.

2. Toss Brussels sprouts with olive oil and season with salt and paper. Place on roasting sheet. Roast for approx 30 minutes, carefully stirring every 5-8 minutes. Sprouts should be brown on the outside with a few crisp black spots.

3. Meanwhile, in small saute pan, melt butter over medium heat and saute mushrooms 5-7 minutes, adding sage midway. Season with salt & pepper. Set aside.

4. In medium saucepan, add remaining olive oil over medium-high heat. When the oil and pan are warm enough, place diced onions and minced garlic in and saute until onions are transparent and garlic begins to brown. Deglaze pan with white wine, stirring constantly. Add pumpkin, stock, and spices. Reduce heat and simmer 10-15 minutes until you achieve an appropriate consistency.

5. Once brussels sprouts are done, set aside until cool enough to handle. Increase heat to 475. Once cool enough to handle, cut brussels sprouts in half.

6. Once oven is heated, place cornmeal on pizza peel. Toss pizza dough to desired thickness and shape. Add pumpkin sauce and arrange toppings. Top with shredded cheese if desired (Parmesan & Fontina Cheese recommended).

7. Place cornmeal on pizza stone. Carefully slide pizza onto stone and cook 8-10 minutes until crust is golden brown in color.

8. Carefully slide pizza onto peel and remove from oven. Allow to cool 3-5 minutes before slicing.

Enjoy!