Lemon Poppy Pancakes

Taylor loves pancakes so on his birthday, I made him some. I found the recipe from Naturally Ella via Foodgawker.



Mix dry ingredients.



Add to wet.



Mix up batter. Heat and butter a pan.



Add pancakes to hot pan. Num num num num num....



Flip onto a plate in a stack.



Top with jam. Call it a birthday.

Cooking with Matcha

A few weeks ago, I met the one-woman power house behind Matcha Source, a website for all kinds of excellent information about matcha as well as a full-service matcha source (tehehe). The matcha lady handed me a book called New Tastes in Green Tea. Though I was scared at first, she encouraged me that cooking with matcha would have great outcome - both in terms of taste and with the added health benefits of the powder.

I skimmed through until I found something that perked my interest. The croquettes! It's hard to go wrong when you fry something. All that labor of rolling things into balls is offset by the fact that, if you don't burn them, it'll all taste great.

I boiled some potatoes and sauteed onions and peas.  The recipe called for meat as well, but I skipped it.



Then I added the matcha powder to the vegetables. Strange! But I kinda liked the feeling.



I then added the mixture to my boiled, drained, and fork-mashed taters. I had to really work things through with the  fork to smooth it all out.



I kept thinking back to my matcha friend. Her skin and hair were so good; something to do with the matcha I am sure. I hopped over to her site for a minute while I was cooking to get pumped. I suggest visiting it if you're cooking with matcha!

Back at the range, it was time for me to heat some oil, set up my dipping bowls for frying, and get to forming croquettes.



I wasn't in the mood to deep fry so I pan-fried, making sure to roll the croquettes around every few minutes.



I set up a plate with a paper towel on it to drain the buggers off et voila! Matcha croquettes.

Sneak Peek! Bake Out!

Joy the Baker and I baked out earlier this week... could a new series and a budding friendship be on the horizon? Bounce over to her blog to check out the full story.  Here's a pretty pic she took.

Michel Roux's Cucumber Coulis

When I got Michel Roux's book on sauces a few weeks back, I was a touch intimidated.  I mean this man is a genius! A true great. It seemed very technical. It seemed pro. It seemed to daunt me. I'd flip through and salivate but then think I don't know if I can do that. Luckily, last night, I finally got my shit together and, in the midst of breadless Passover, I made Roux's cucumber coulis and really jazzed up a matzoh dinner.

The recipe seemed easy enough - with just a handful of ingredients that I forgot to snap a photo of in their true states. But here's what things looked like as I started to blend them up with my stick blender. That's cucumber, red chile, parsley, and sage.



Yummy! Then I started streaming in some olive oil to smooth things out.



And here it is in it's finished state before I added it as that special something to dinner.



This took a total of about 90 seconds from start to finish - and it really sauced up a boring Pesach meal. Check it out.



Nova on matzoh never looked so good. I jarred the rest of it and plan on using it for the next few weeks atop some flaky white fish... in a tomato and basil salad.. and on crab cakes. Wait, is that Kosher?

Pizza

I have been obsessed with making pizzas lately. Get dough from Trader Joe's and then experiment with toppings willy nilly! My latest creations were truffle mushroom garlic and zucchini onion and red pepper.

More Pops... now in Macaron.

What is with all these pops lately?? Bakerella made macaron pops. Too far or juuuust right?

Pie Pops

The beauty, the mobility, the grace... and I bet the taste. Pie Pops. Goo goo gah gah.

Mix My Granola

If you read this blog even once a month, you know what a granola fanatic I am. From making it to rating it, there've been many an ode to the stuff. So, when I found Mix My Granola a few weeks back, I knew it'd be turning up on the blog whether I liked it or not.  MMG is one of those ideas to which you say <why didn't I think of that!?>.  The concept is simple: customized granola.  MMG puts ingredient selection in the hands of the consumer - allowing everyone to get exactly what they want.  I remember so many batches of granola I've encountered with coconut - YUCK ... for me. But YUM for others.  I always want more dried fruit and not as many nuts.  I like tons of cinnamon... flax seeds... MMG told me I could have it all.



Visit the website and you can start mixing your own.  Start with a base - cinnamon, organic, low-fat, French vanilla or muesli.  I naturally selected cinnamon.  You can then select the other ingredients, divided into categories: fruits, nuts and seeds, extras and enhancers.  The sky's the limit and there's no adding too much.  You can add doubles of ingredients if you want, all fruits, all nuts.. whatever your granola heart desires. And there's a pretty great variety of everything from which to choose.  Have you heard of chia seeds? What about adding some gotu kola powder?  It's an anti-inflammatory that helps circulation!  But things don't have to get too health.  The extras section is filled with gummy bears, chocolate bits and - my favorite - sesame sticks.

So after you've selected your ingredients, all you do is plug in your shipping address and pay (my granola came out to about $13 for roughly 15 oz). A few days later, a tube of granola arrives to your door! The customized nutrition facts are right there on the back with your ingredient list.



The only extra ingredient they add is love.  Awww how sweet. And in the end my granola was pretty tasty! It didn't have that baked together, crispy crunchy quality that comes when you bake all of the ingredients at once but I did love the fact that everything was in there because I wanted it to be!

Chanukah Latkes

One of the wonderful parts of Chanukah is the latkes. Of course I could make potato pancakes all year round but I could make a giant turkey all year round too and never do.  It's the same with latkes. On the seventh night, I decided to make sweet potato latkes.

I grated 2 sweet potatoes, 1 pink lady apple and 1 yellow onion.  To the grated mixture, I added 1 egg and 1 white from another.  I added about 1/4 cup of flour, a pinch of baking soda, cinnamon, salt and pepper.  I mixed up the ingredients, formed them into patties and sautéed them in canola oil.  It made about 12 latkes - all of which were consumed.

Kabobs

Last night I marinated tuna in soy, balsamic vinegar and honey for about an hour. I roasted red and yellow peppers and mushrooms. Then I seared the tuna and put them on kabobs.  Accompaniment was a simple salad of spinach with shaved fennel plus fronds as well as fingerling potatoes roasted with thyme.  I tossed them in a balsamic reduction that a Culinista had left at my house last week.  

Neighborly Neighbors

When new tenants moved in across the hall from me at the beginning of August, I wanted to make friends. And so, like always when I want the make an impression, I made brownies. Two weeks later, the couple returned the Tupperware... filled with tomatoes and cheese. The orange tomatoes, I was told, came from the boyfriends parents kitchen garden in Hadlyme, CT.  Taylor described them as "very sweet and delicious, almost like candy." I'd say he was about spot on. The cheese came from Beltane Farm, which is known for is Swiss-style goat cheese made from oberhasli and la mancha goats milk. A neat little block with a thin vein of ash down the middle, the goat cheese was as beautiful as it was tasty. Soft and pungent.  Taylor described it as a lonely, cloudy day - in a good way.  Who knows... but when I got around to trying it, the day was, in fact, lonely and cloudy in mood and forecast and the cheese seemed to compliment that well.

Fried Green Tomaters

Yesterday, after being at Soho House all day, I needed some fried food. Huh? You might say... Well, I'd been eyeing the fried items on the menu all afternoon (not to mention Hugh Jackman in the pool with his kids). From calamri to julienned zucchini, bowls of golden bron were dancing around me.  My friend and I decided to attempt fried green tomatoes. It ended up being easy and satisfying!

First slice your tomatoes.  Sprinkle them with salt and pepper.



Then arrange four bowls in a line. Fill them with milk, flour, beaten eggs and cormeal (or breadcrumbs). Get some oil hot in a fry pan. Dunk each tomato into each bowl, order listed above. (Pay no attention to the bigger bowl in pic below) Fry until golden brown!



Et voila!



We served them with some boiled corn, a green salad, baguette with roasted garlic...



And, since the fried calamari really was calling our names all day, we decided to make some of that as well!

Leftover Salad

Last Sunday, I cooked meals for the week.  I followed my company guidelines and pulled off a pretty impressive roster of dishes... smoked paprika mac and cheese, quinoa tofu sunflower salad, tabbouleh, spicy mushrooms I learned from La Palapa... the list goes on.  So when I was cleaning out my fridge this week, I came across the remnants of ingredients.  A few cucumbers, tomatoes, basil, mint, a bit of red onion, a few radishes, a few chunks of carrots, the leaves of some celery and a red pepper.

A little spent from a little too much sunshine while kayaking on Georgica Pond, I couldn't muster the energy to incorporate the ingredients into several dishes - using the onion, celery and carrots would have made a great base for a sauce for example.  Instead, I decided to make a beloved dish from my youth - something only a salad-eating, health-oriented mother could instill in me so permanently that I find myself craving it often - Leftover Salad.   Leftover salad is exactly what it sounds like.  Chop up all the left-over vegetables and herbs that you have in the fridge and toss them together.  It's new every time since you'll always have a few different ingredients on hand.

Always colorful and healthy, this is a perfect way to use those odds and ends.  I like to make different salad dressings (a simple balsamic, a creamier variety and possibly a cheese-laden one) to keep the salad exciting.  Pack your veggie-chop in a few different plastic containers and toss each one with a different dressing when you are ready to eat it. Bring one container to lunch one day and offer another serving for dinner as an accompaniment to grilled lamb or shrimp. Healthy and economical. Ooooo buzz words!

Mission to Mars Mac n' Cheese

Last week, my buddy James forwarded me information about a Mac n' Cheese contest, offering $5,000 to one lucky, talented chef with a damn-good recipe. Since $5000 is nothing to sneeze at (his words, I liked), I decided to enter. I'd been cooking with hot smoked paprika the previous day and it provided inspiration for my rendition of Freakin' Awesome Macaroni and Cheese also know as Mission to Mars Mac. Marvel below.

2 pints - cherry tomatoes
2 tbsps - olive oil
1 tsp - balsamic vinegar
1 lbs - orrechiette
6 tbsps - butter
3 tbsps - ap flour
2 1/2 cups - whole milk
1 lbs - Australian white cheddar
1/2 lbs - Emmenthaler
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 cup - plain bread crumbs
2 tsp - cayenne pepper
2 tsp - hot smoked paprika
s + p

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Slice cherry tomatoes in half. Toss in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.
3. Spread in a shallow baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, cook orrechiette in a big, oven-proof pot of boiling water. Follow directions on box (cook for 10-14 minutes). When cooked, strain pasta and then return it to pot.
5. While the pasta cooks, melt 3 Tbsps butter in a sauce pan.  Add 3 Tbsps flour and stir continuously for 3 minutes (3-3-3!).  Add the milk sloooowly and stir until slightly thickened - another 3-5 minutes.
6. Cut the cheese (wink) into one-inch cubes and add half the Swiss and half the cheddar to the milk mixture.  Stir until incorporated. Add the mustard, 1 tsp cayenne and 1 tspe hot smoked paprika. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
7. Add 1 Tbsp butter, the sauce and the remainder of the cheese to the pasta in the oven-proof pot. Stir until incorporated.
8. Remove tomatoes from oven, turn oven down to 350 degrees F.  Distribute the tomatoes in an even layer over the pasta.
9. Melt (in microwave is fine) the rest of the butter (2 Tbsps) and mix in with the bread crumbs and the remainder of the cayenne and hot smoked paprika.
10. Distribute the bread crumbs over the mac n' cheese n' tomatoes.
11. Bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes before serving.

The top should look like the surface of Mars. Smoked Paprika = Mars dust!

Blueberry Cream, Berry Sauce

On Sunday, I cooked like a Culinista®, making enough meals to last the week.  I was using my most favorite kitchen tool - the Cuisinart hand blender - for butternut squash soup and since I had it out, I decided to make blueberry whipped cream as well.  Fruity whipped creams is something I learned to make quite a lot of in Sweden.  Simply pour the berries of your choice into a bowl, add a little sugar, then heavy cream and blend until thick!  It's super easy and super impressive.  I also made berry sauce - just toss a few pints of berries with cornstarch (1 tbsp per pint) and sugar (to taste) and boil until thickened and the berries have released their juices.  Let cool and serve over the whipped cream.  Heaven!

TV Dinner

With Lars & Katarina gone to Spain, it's been me + my three housemates/coworkers at Appelfabriken the passed week. We've been managing everything from weeding to watering the greenhouse, from baking 10 rhubarb crumbles for the weekend to meticulously labeling all of the new vinegars, saft and jam produced.

We've also been running the house- meals, cleaning (the Russian girl truly is a godsend), laundry, closing windows, opening windows, cats... You get the point. I decided to surprise everyone with dinner one night (it's usually a group effort) so I drove to the store (big minivan, no rearview mirror) to pick up my ingredients. Simple. Tomatoes, cucumbers, lox, cream cheese, homemade thick bread. When I returned, I sliced the bread and began toasting. I peeled and sliced the cucumbers, sliced tomatoes and put the lox on a platter. I found a nice bowl for the cream cheese. I picked a huge salad from the garden- Bibb, arugula and purple lettuces.

When I returned from the garden and had plated it all, I called everyone to the living room. We're home alone- I figured a TV dinner wouldn't hurt! Everyone loved the lox/cream cheese/veg/toast combo- a surprising percentage had never had it... But I think they loved the TV factor just as much! It looks basic, and it IS but I'm telling you they RAVED!

Elderflower Part II

Those elderflowers I picked were put to good use. After soaking them with lemon, sugar and water for days, we strained them and boiled the reserved water down to saft (a light syrup/juice) and a very limited run of syrup. Check out the sweet bottles in the shop!

Fläderbloms = Elderflowers :-)

A Berry Good Idea

At the height of blueberry season, the prices are low so now is the time to freeze all of your favorite berries for wintertime smoothies! I love the way my smoothies taste and my good friend - a gastrointerologist - loves all the fiber in them. I squeeze a cup of fresh orange juice every morning, but on the mornings that I want a vitamin rich breakfast in a cup to go, I make a smoothie. I take my oj - pulp included, place it in a blender and add a handful each of FROZEN blueberries, strawberries and raspberries and blend. I like my drink the consistency of frozen slush. And sometimes I'll add a spoonful of protein powder to keep me satiated.

Glacial Mochas Renamed for Beryl ... Jill's Mom!

A couple of years ago, I noticed that the "Glacial Mochas" at our neighborhood coffee shop, Coffee Emporium, were the purist version of other shops' Frappachinos. And the way I ordered it - skim milk, pure cocoa instead of frappe mix- the drink was actually low calorie! We figured out that the 16oz. drink that looks like a coffee milkshake has only 100 calories (compared to 350-500 in Frappachinos). As people started seeing me with the drink, they ordered the "Glacial Mocha ... Beryl's way". Soon, the low calorie version was renamed the "Beryl Mocha".  Here's how you can make your own at home!

Start with 2 shots of espresso. Add a very heaping teaspoon of Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Premium Hot Cocoa. Now add 1/2 cup of skim milk (preferably from your local dairy). Pour into blender. Fill your 16 oz. cup about 3/4 full of ice and put in blender. Blend until frothy! Yum! Careful, though ... it's pretty addictive.

Elderflower Syrup

Disclaimer: this post is a tease. We aren't finished with the entire process of making elderflower syrup but today we began.... By pulling over on the side of the road and pillaging a field of elderflower trees. Because of mans law in Sweden, what's on the road is ours for the taking. We picked 6 grocery bags of flowers.
When returned to Appelfabriken, we washed them and covered them on sliced lemons and sugar and boiling water. Now they'll marinate for four days....