Granola

Yep, granola. We both enjoy yogurt (especially a nice Greek yogurt) with some granola on it, but the store bought granola are just over priced and typically not very good. After trying Alton Brown’s Granola Recipe, which was tasty enough, but not quite what we like, I scoured the internet and found this recipe. This batch turned out much better (and really, a better batch size for the two of us).

Basic Recipe:
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup wheat germ
2 Tbs. dark brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup almond (I’ve used both slivers and slices-I like slices)
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbs. flavorless oil, such as vegetable or canola
1 Tb. water

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix liquid ingredients in a saucepan, and bring to a simmer (I’m not entire sure what this step does-next time I’ll do a side by side, one with this, one without and see if there is a difference). Pour liquids over the dry ingredients, and mix together. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Coat a sheet pan with cooking spray and spread out the mixture (let it clump some-those are the best parts). Bake for 35 minutes, then check on it. It may need more time at this point, but it may be done, depending on how fast your oven is.

I also made a batch of this for my Grandparents. I put the zest of one orange (next time I’ll use two), and mixed that with the liquid and omitted the vanilla. I also put in about 3/4 to 1 cup of pecans instead of almonds. Then, after it had baked for 30 minutes, I sprinkled some chopped dried cranberries over the top and let it bake another 15 minutes to try them out a little more. The end result was a pleasant citrus and cranberry mixture.

A note on sweeteners: For the first batch (Alton’s recipe), I used a mixture of mostly maple syrup (real stuff-from an actual tree) and a little honey. It was good, but I found that the delicate perfumes of the maple were rather lost during baking. The honey is a nice, more neutral sweetener. For a future batch, I’m going to try some cane syrup we have in the cupboard, just for giggles. I wasn’t a huge fan of the sweetened coconut in the first batch we made-it got a bit over toasted, and I really didn’t miss it in the second. If I add any again, I’ll go with a non-sweetened (to not alter the grain/sweet flavor balance), and add it later in the cooking process (probably when dried fruit is added).

Pita Breads

Since we’ve been working on the great hummus experiment recently, I’ve been wanting to come up with a good, easy pita recipe (because $2 for 5 pita, while not a terrible price, gets old). Yesterday I did a side by side of two different recipes I found online. The first recipe, a Greek pita recipe, was ok. I used this recipe to make pita chips today, and they turned out quite well. The recipe is repeated here for modification:

1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 tablespoon of sugar
1/2 cup of warm water
4 cups of bread flour
2 teaspoons of salt
1 cup of warm water
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Proof yeast in 1/2 cup of water, with sugar. Mix dry ingredients, then add the liquid and bring together to form a smooth dough. Let rise until doubled, then knead briefly. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Portion dough out into small amounts-I was able to make about 12, although you could probably get 16 pita easily as well. Roll out to about 1/8″ thick, and place on a greased sheet pan. In the future, I won’t dock the bread, as I’ll be using this for chips, and in that case, pocket pita does work better. Bake for about 3 minutes on the lowest rack of the oven, then flip pita and bake for another 3-4 minutes.

To make chips, cut pita into 8 wedges and brush with oil and lay out single file on a sheet pan. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sprinkle pita with salt and pepper, and any other herbs or flavorings you care for-in the restaurants around here, zatar seasoning is popular, but it’s up to you. Bake for 6-7 minutes, then flip chips over and bake for another 5-6 minutes, or until golden brown and crispy. These go great with hummus, the cannellini bean dip, or a baba ghanoush.

The second recipe was found here. We both preferred this second recipe as soft pita for simply eating or dipping. Now, neither of us are too keen on the typical pocket pita (aside from the aforementioned chip application), as they tend to be dry and rather styrofoam-like.

Ingredients:
1-1/4 cups milk, warmed
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups bread flour.
1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon yeast

Proof yeast in milk with sugar. Mix the remainder of the dry ingredients together, then add the liquid and oil. Bring together, kneading as necessary to form a smooth dough. Let rise until doubled. Knead dough, and divide into 10-12 small balls. Roll out to 1/4″-1/8″ thick, and let rise for another 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place on a greased sheet pan, and punch down slightly with the knuckles before baking for 4-5 minutes on the bottom rack of the oven.

For the next round of pita I make, I’m going to get some whole wheat flour and substitute about 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of the bread flour for it. Hopefully that will give it some extra bite and and good grain undertone.

EDIT: We finally made these again, and used a ratio of 2 cups of bread flour to 1 cup of whole wheat flour. These were awesome. A deeper wheat flavor, and they retained more moisture too. Definitely an adjustment we’ll be keeping.

Swedish Meatballs.

This was a pantry meal tonight. Katie had never had Swedish Meatballs before, and she was pretty impressed.

We happened to have a bag of frozen meatballs, and an onion on hand. Instead of typical dry egg noodles, we used half a box of Barilla whole wheat linguini that we’d bought on a lark and had otherwise been afraid to use.

Ingredients:
1lb bag of meatballs
1 to 2 tbsp cream
1 14oz can beef broth
1/4 of a jumbo onion, probably a cup or so, sliced.
1/4cup flour (for roux)
3 tbsp butter
Allspice 1/4 tsp
Nutmeg 1/4 tsp
Garlic powder, a pinch (optional)
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Maggi seasoning (about 1tsp)
Brandy (about 1tbsp)
Parsley, chopped. Fresh or dried.

We started the meatballs off for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees in the oven to get some of the fat out.

We sauteed onion a small amount of butter, and then added more butter when the onion was just turning a little golden. The flour was added to create roux which was cooked a couple of minutes, stirring constantly.

Add the can of stock, reserving a little to avoid it being too thick/thin. Once it thickens reduce heat adjust thickness if needed, and add about a tbsp of cream and stir it in. Add the meatballs in, season the sauce with the herbs and spices to taste. Go easy with the maggi seasoning, as it is strong stuff. If you don’t have maggi, don’t sweat it, it doesn’t make or break the dish, and most recipes don’t call for it. I just happened to have it, and like it.

Simmer gently while you cook your pasta or egg noodles. When the pasta or noodles are done, drain and add them to the meatballs and sauce, and mix them in.

We served it with steamed broccoli.

Hummus Frustration = Success.

Ok. I think we’ve posted about Hummus in the past, and how we’ve had trouble hitting on something we really like.

One of the first things you learn when wanting to make hummus, is that cookbooks and cooking shows always tell you not to use canned chickpeas. In the past, we have cooked our own, often dramatically long than supposedly necessary, and still ended up with texture and flavor we didn’t like. Out of frustration I grabbed a couple cans (15oz x 2) of chickpeas, drained and rinsed them. They went into the food processor, followed by about 2tbsp of tahini. Juice of 4 small lemons followed, as did salt and garlic powder. Light olive oil was added, probably about 1 cup in all.

When it was all said and done, this yielded a surprisingly good result, and the texture was much more like what we’ve gotten in local restaurants.

This makes me wonder if in fact a lot of the local places are cheating and using canned chickpeas. It may not be ‘right’ but this result was far, far more like what we’ve had and liked in various restaurants here.

So to recap:
2×15oz cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Olive Oil, approx 1 cup
Tahini, approx 2 tbsp
Lemon Juice, probably around 3/4 of a cup – 4 small lemons.
Salt, to taste, probably 3/4 tsp or so.
Garlic powder, to taste. Probably 1/2 tsp.

Process the chickpeas and most of the tahini, then about half of the lemon juice, and some salt and garlic powder. Drizzle in oil until the chickpeas soften and start to get creamy. Check seasoning before you add the rest of the oil/lemon juice/tahini, so you can control the texture and not end up with something too runny. Add the remaining in

On the whole, not perfect perhaps, but certainly nicer than we’d managed in the past.

We topped the hummus with sweet Hungarian paprika and Turkish red pepper.

EDIT: Note. This recipe needs some water added. Most of the restaurant hummus around here is a rather softer consistency than what this recipe made. Katie did some reading online, and found several recipes that called for some water. We have a bit less than half of the hummus left in the fridge, and I added about 1/4 cup of water to it and stirred it in. Bingo. We have a much softer, wetter, scoopable hummus, rather than the slightly gooey version prior to this.

In the future we’ll definitely want to start with at least a quarter cup of water while processing the chickpeas, and try to reduce the oil some. In truth, I suspect we’ll end up using half to 3/4 of a cup of water, and less oil overall for 30 oz of canned chickpeas.

EDIT 2:
I’ve made another two batches of hummus. The end result is this. Juice of three lemons, 1.5tbsp tahini, 2 cans of chickpeas, 3/4 of a cup of water, and 3 tbsp of olive oil. This makes a very tasty hummus with dramatically less oil.

Will I still make the original recipe? Oh yes… It is wonderful, but the oil amount is absolutely ridiculous. The revised recipe doesn’t lack for oil, since most of the time it’s going to be topped with paprika, turkish pepper, and olive oil anyway.

Great Peanut Butter Cookies

Chris is a huge fan of peanut butter cookies, but I’ve always been disappointed with the results from the traditional recipes. I poked around online until I found this ridiculously simple peanut butter cookie recipe.

Ingredients
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix ingredients. Roll into walnut sized balls and smash down with a fork. Bake for 13 minutes.

Peanut Butter Cookies-Fresh from the oven

We also did this with splenda and we both like it better. It was more cookie-like, better texture. For that, we only used 3/4 cups of splenda instead of the full cup of sugar. Baking time is the same.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

So tonight we decided to slum it a little, and I threw together a tuna noodle casserole. We have a bunch of cans of tuna from a Sam’s trip we made when we moved in, so we decided to reclaim some cabinet space, while cooking something that fits the unseasonable cool, rainy day. I started from the Cooking for Engineers recipe (an awesome website, check it out), but quickly deviated into a different creation.

Tuna Noodle Casserole
Sauce:
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
2 1/2 cups milk
Casserole Base:
1 tbsp butter
1/2 white onion
1 bunch green onions
2 stalks celery
6 oz mushrooms
1 tsp dried thyme (3 tsp fresh, if you have it)
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp garlic powder (only if it’s decent, otherwise mince a garlic clove, and add to aromatics)
24 oz egg noodles (yep, from the freezer section)
4 cans tuna (20 oz), drained
1 cup shredded cheese (we had cheddar, so we used it)
Bread Crumbs, to top
Method:
Use a standard white sauce method for the sauce (melt 4 tbsp butter, add flour, make roux, add milk, stir until thick).
Melt remaining butter in saute pan. Finely dice the veggies, and add them to the butter. Saute until limp (if you can get some gold on them, so much the better, but I was getting impatient). Cook noodles according to package instructions (I pulled them a little early, so they wouldn’t turn too mushy). Add veggies to thickened sauce. In a large bowl, dump the tuna, sauce, and noodles, and stir to combine. Add half of the cheese. Adjust seasoning. Pour into greased baking dish, and top with remaining cheese and breadcrumbs. If you are so inclined, you can melt some more butter and toast the breadcrumbs first, but we were just not motivated to do that tonight.
Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, until bubbly around the edges and toasty on top.

Now, for full disclosure, we only used 3 cans of tuna, but we both think that an additional can would have been a good idea. Far better than the typical “cream of ____” base for a casserole-much less salt, and a much cleaner flavor.

Dinner Rolls

On I whim, I decided to pick up my copy of The Joy of Cooking and starting flipping through it. I stubbled upon a recipe for some no knead dinner rolls, and decided to give them a try. They turned out quite well. Best still warm from the oven, they remind me of a better version of the brown and serve rolls you can find at the store.

Ingredients
1/4 cup warm (tepid) water
1 pkg yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
1 cup hot water
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 stick butter
1 egg
2 3/4 cup AP flour

Method
Mix warm water and yeast, and let proof. In a large mixing bowl, mix sugar, salt and butter, and pour hot water over them and let melt. When the mixture has cooled to lukewarm, mix in the yeast mixture and the egg. Add flour until it forms a loose dough. It will be sticky at this point. Let rise until doubled in a greased bowl. Punch down and divide into muffin tin. Let rise again. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. When rolls are doubled, bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden brown and delicious. If the rolls are browning too fast on top, put a sheet of aluminum foil over the top.

In the future I think I’ll sub out half of the water for milk. That may make it even more soft and tender.

The rolls-one didn't survive long enough to make it to picture taking...:-)

Truffles, once more

For my last day working at the hospital, I decided to make a big batch of truffles for everyone. Nobody every said I was too bright. I followed the instructions of times past-using 60% dark chocolate chips for everything (hey, it was on sale). The flavors this time around were chocolate, coffee, raspberry, and mexican hot chocolate (vanilla, cassia cinnamon, and some cayenne and ancho). I used a mixture of coffee liqueur and strong brewed coffee for the coffee truffles, and I think in the future I’ll just use coffee. The raspberry had Chambord in it, and was quite nice. The ganache centers were quite soft, so I had to work pretty quickly. In future if I make them during the summer, I’ll make the ganache a little harder, as my hands tend to be warmer in the summer, unlike my perpetual handcicles in the winter months.

Clockwise from left, raspberry, mexican hot chocolate, coffee, chocolate.

They went over VERY well at work, and by the time my shift was over, there were only about a dozen left for the night shift.

The full batch

Low sugar chocolate chip cookie

Since both my mom, and Chris’ mom are diabetic, we’ve been trying some low and sugar free recipes. We’ve made a few recipes with varying levels of success, but I’ve found we have better results using the splenda for baking blends at half amounts. With this in mind, we pulled out one of our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes, Alton Brown’s Chewy cookie recipe as a base.

Ingredients
2 sticks salted butter
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tbsp splenda sugar blend for baking
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp splenda brown sugar blend for baking
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (more or less-we always use more)
2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (the higher cocoa, the better)

Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Melt butter, and once it’s cooled some, add the sugar blends and mix until smooth (it may take a while). Add the beaten egg and yolk to the mixture and stir in, along with the vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients, then add to the wet. Mix until mostly incorporated. Add the chocolate chips, and mix in. Portion onto parchment lined cookie sheets, and bake for 12-14 minutes, until golden on the edges.

One thing to mention is that cookies baked with splenda don’t spread as well as full sugar cookies, so you’ll want to smush the cookie down a little so you get a cookie shaped cookie, rather than a bombe shaped cookie.

They turned out well, a little more crumby than a typical cookie, but in the future, I may try AP or cake flour instead, just for giggles.

St. Louis style Pizza

If you’ve ever had a St. Louis style pizza, you know they’re different. Generally, people either love it, or hate it, without much middle ground. I’ve only had St. Louis style pizza at Imo’s, a St. Louis chain that has a location in the KC area.

What is St. Louis style pizza? Basically, its a thin crust pizza, very crunchy, that utilizes a pasteurized-process cheese known as Provel. Yes. Process cheese. I know. Ick. Well, actually, Provel is pretty good for processed cheese, a darn sight better than the typical American cheese slices.

Provel is essentially a mixture of Swiss, Provolone, and white Cheddar, with a slight smoke flavoring.

St. Louis style pizza sauce is generally pretty sweet, but in this case I used sauce I had in the freezer. It was made with a 28 oz can of tomato puree, a couple tbsp of double strength tomato paste, 1 onion minced, and Penzey’s pizza seasoning – and possibly a couple pinches of sugar. If you don’t have a pizza sauce seasoning blend, basically you’ll want to start with a pinch of salt, 1/2tbsp dried crushed oregano, a pinch of time, and and pinch of basil.

The interesting thing about St. Louis pizza is that the pizza crust is unleavened, which means there’s no yeast, no rising time, no waiting.

Dough:
2 cups + 2tbsp AP flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp oil (olive, canola)
2 tsp corn syrup (I used dark)
1/2 cup + 2tbsp water.

Mix ingredients until a stiff dough is formed. I found I needed more water, but not much.

Roll it out on a floured board, as thin as you can without breaking it.

Put it on a pizza stone or pan. I think ours is 18″ or so.

Preheat oven to 450.

Top the dough with around 1/4 cup sauce, and about 2 cups of Provel (I think I used around 1 cup of Provel, and 1 cup of mozzarella, since Katie isn’t a big fan of the Provel). Other toppings included fresh basil, oregano and thyme, as well as about 15 or 20 slices of turkey pepperoni.

Bake at 450 for about 10-13 minutes, so that the crust browns on the bottom.

Oh, and unless you want to be a St. Louis pizza pretender, cut it into squares, not those wedge shapes everyone else uses.

Our St. Louis style pizza