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Best Basic Cheesecake

October 28, 2011 by 9 Comments

DON’T CLOSE THIS WINDOW.

I know, fear of cheesecake is strong, but I’m here to tell you it is one of the easiest things you’ll ever make. Easier than a no-bake box number from the store. Easier than a brownie mix. Easier than falling off a cliff. Easier than, well… look. I’ll just show you.

But first…

This is my wild man. (The one behind him is also a wild man, but I am referring, specifically, to the man in motion in front.)

His hair is always a little crazy. No amount of water or mousse or hairspray or prayer or anything short of a head shaving will make it lie down and that’s how we like him.

His grin is always huge and his ability to find or be found by mischief is near legendary. He’s a dog lover, a fruit monkey, a silly little man and wow can he talk. He’s not a man of few words. I have no idea where he got his gift of gab.

He has always been a noise maker. When he was little he beat-boxed and this year he discovered that he’s a real, honest-to-goodness drummer. This kid is a metronome.

Between the hair and the antics and the drumming, he reminds me of a kinder, gentler Animal.

My boy has put a smile on all our faces since the day he was born eight years ago. This year, his birthday fell on the first day of a family road trip and we were unable to do our usual “choose the meal, dessert and movie” that is usually bestowed upon the birthday boy. He did, however, have an ice cream cake courtesy of a sweet auntie, but that didn’t stop him from regaling us with what he was going to have for his birthday feast on the fourteen hour drive back home. It went something like this,

“I’m gonna have tacos and haystacks and home fries and tortilla chips. And I’m going to have celery and carrots and Ranch dressing and venison and pizza and hamburgers and hot dogs. And tortilla chips and pretzels and potato chips and dip and beef jerky. And a salad.”

After we managed to negotiate down to tacos and a salad, I asked, “What would you like for dessert?”

And my talker, Young Master Verbose as we sometimes call him, said one word in a reverential whisper,

“Cheesecake.”

Five minutes -and some meaningful looks- later he was back off and running,

“Can I have it be a plain one with lots and lots and lots and lots of berries? How about a big strawberry right in the middle? I think we should put some raspberries and strawberries and blueberries and cherries and apples and pears and blackberries and plums and grapes and…”

You get the idea.

Then my oven broke. (Yep. That again. I’m sorry. I write real-time. Most of the food on here makes it online within a week of being served to the family, so you get life as I get it, for better or worse.) And Leif had to wait again.

He was pretty patient, all in all.

And then today. I finally sliced into his cheesecake in all its plain cheesecake with berries and berries and berries. My slightly bigger every day eight year old sat down and dug into his cake and I sat down and dug into admiring him.

I’m pretty keen on this little guy.

And obviously, I’m not the only one…

Now, let’s talk cheesecake, shall we?

Can we agree on what a great cheesecake is? It’s creamy, smooth, rich, and sweet-but-not-too-sweet. I like a little bit of a crushed cookie crust, but that’s optional* and can be included or omitted. To top or not to top? I like it plenty naked. The cake being naked, not me. I don’t eat cake naked. I mean honestly. If you’re eating a wedge of plain cheesecake you’re going to be happy enough. In my book, though, the perfect foil for this ultra rich and creamy cake is, as Leif wanted, a nice tart berry topping. Anything else must be approached with extreme caution at the risk of overdoing the sweet factor.

*Duck! The cheesecake mafia is going to smack me down on this one. I know, a “pure and proper” cheesecake has no crust, but shoot me. I like the homestyle crust. My recipe is flexible enough to omit the crust if you’re a crust hater, though. Stick with me people.

Please. I beg you. If you love cheesecake and you’ve been afraid of making one or failed at it before or even if you’re a cheesecake veteran, make my cheesecake. It is, in a word, sublime. It is everything a cheesecake is supposed to be -crust or not- and you will not be disappointed.

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Best Basic Cheesecake with Berry Topping

The gentle orange flavour of this silky, rich cheesecake makes it perfect for eating pure and pristine or topping with berries or ganache or whatever your imagination desires.

Ingredients

    For a Cheesecake with a Crust:
  • 1 sleeve graham crackers crushed (about 10 crackers, or 1 cup crumbs)
  • 6 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 3 tablespoons raw sugar
    • For the Cheesecake Itself:
  • 4 (8 ounce) bricks cream cheese, softened to room temperature
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 4 tablespoons Grand Marnier (or another orange liqueur ~or~ 1/2 teaspoon orange extract mixed with 4 tablespoons of orange juice)
  • 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
    • For the Berry Topping:
  • 2 cups fresh raspberries (or the same amount of frozen raspberries, thawed)
  • 1 cup strawberry jam (preferably freezer jam)
  • 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Instructions

Put a kettle of water on to boil. Arrange the oven racks so you have one in the center and one 6-inches below it and preheat oven to 300°F.

Line a springform pan with parchment paper then butter both the paper and the pan generously. Place the pan on a rimmed baking sheet and set aside.

To Prepare with a Crust:

Toss all the crust ingredients together with a fork, then press firmly and evenly into the prepared pan.

To Make the Cheesecake Batter:

Put the cream cheese into a food processor and pulse until smooth.

Add the eggs and sugar and process again until smooth, stopping once or twice to scrape the sides down.

Again, scrape the sides down, then add the Grand Marnier (or extract and juice) and vanilla and process until smooth.

Carefully pour the batter into the prepared pan and put the baking sheet with the pan on it on the center rack. Put an empty bread pan on the rack beneath it and fill with boiling water from the kettle. Bake for 55 minutes, or until the outer 2/3 of the cake is set and the inner 1/3 is still jiggly. Turn the oven off, prop the door open a couple inches and let it cool to room temperature. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the cheesecake and refrigerate for several hours or overnight before attempting to umold.

To Unmold the Cheesecake:

With plastic wrap still in place, undo the clasp of the springform pan and push the base up through the outer ring to free the cheesecake. Place a platter on top of the cheesecake and invert it. Remove the base and parchment, then place a cake plate face down on the bottom of the cheesecake, invert again, remove the plastic wrap and Ta-Da! One cheesecake, ready to slice!

To Prepare Berry Topping:

Use a fork or whisk to beat the jam a little to break it up. Stir in the berries and lemon juice and top your cheesecake slices as you serve them.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/10/28/best-basic-cheesecake/

 

Filed Under: Cakes, Desserts, kid food, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , ,

Ham and Swiss Twisted Sandwiches

October 26, 2011 by 13 Comments

 

Hey. My oven’s fixed.

Can you tell?

Is it obvious?

And I want to talk about the way it got fixed, because I have a little serious bragging to do.  But first, let’s all of us hearken back to last Friday.  It was a lovely day. We all got out of bed on the right side. The boys, of their own volition, had declared the day to be computer and computer game free. It was nice-ish fall weather.

I was cooking down apples and canning applesauce like nobody’s business.

We had friends over to visit; one mama and her four little ones. Good folks. Great friends. The kids were all playing outside in a light mist, running laps, yelling, trying to catch swirling leaves and growing increasingly hungry. We had plans, folks. We were building up to a pizza and movie evening where the kids would collapse on the couches with hot slices of gooey homemade pizza in hand while watching something very Wallace and Gromit-y.

The kids kept coming into the kitchen asking when pizza would be ready. I told all four hundred thousand of them (because I’m fairly certain that’s how many times I was asked and children don’t ask more than once, right?) that I was waiting for the pizza dough to rise and I also wanted to finish the mega batch of applesauce I was processing.

The applesauce was finished and the dough was perfect, so I turned around and hit preheat on the oven and bumped the temperature up to 475°F then walked away to assemble other ingredients. The gathering together of other ingredients took about half an hour because there were eleventy thousand interruptions. (But not by children, because children don’t interrupt, right?) When I got back into the kitchen I noticed that the oven temperature display still read ’100°F’ and cold dread crept into my happy little heart because I knew exactly what that meant.

That meant I had blown through yet another baking ignitor  (See this post for more information) and I was about to disappoint a grand total of four hundred thousand children (because that’s about how many more had come into the kitchen to ask when the pizza would be ready.) I called the Evil Genius down from his lair (upstairs office) to give the oven the once over, confirm my diagnosis, and say a few well-chosen words over the oven all of which he did obligingly before retreating from the ravening hordes of 1.8 million starving children.

I went into damage control mode, rolled out the pizza dough, pan-fried an infinite amount of dough rounds, threw indecent amounts of cheese into the sauce and heated that up for ultra-cheesy dunking sauce, and served bread wedges with sauce to the all of the children of the world who had somehow managed to fit themselves into my den. Crisis was kind of averted. But if you’re expecting pizza and you’re given bread wedges (even if they are fried) and cheesy dunking sauce (even if it does have my weight in cheese) are you a happy camper? Yeah. No. They weren’t either.

When our long-suffering friends headed for home, and after I dropped my clearly under-nourished eldest son off at a birthday party where he fervently hoped there would be food, I went home to order (yet another) replacement bake ignitor. That’s where the second blow came. The price on these little fast-burning-out beasties had doubled since the last time we had replaced one. Let’s just say they wanted to charge more than a puppy at an animal rescue for the part. Not that I need another puppy…

I did a little more researching on the part and found a forum where some wonderfulblessedfabuloussweetkindadorablelovely person wrote that most horizontal bake ignitors (which was what I needed) were interchangeable provided you had someone handy who knew how to splice wires. My husband’s middle name is SpliceWires. With that piece of information on hand, I found a part for under twenty dollars (after springing for expedited shipping) that would do the job. I ordered. It arrived Tuesday morning. I dropped the package in my working-from-home-husband’s lap and begged him to use his lunch break to fix it. He -again- obliged. Having married a brilliant man makes me feel brilliant by proxy. I patted him on the back. Then I patted myself on the back. And then I made these.

What are these you ask?

Ham and Swiss Twisted Sandwiches, I say.

These were a favourite of ours for picnic lunches toward the end of farmers’ market season around here. They’re gorgeous brown, sesame-dusted-for-crunch, soft bread encased salty ham and nutty Swiss cheese sandwiches. You can make these a month in advance, wrap in foil, freeze and reheat for a fast hot meal. Or do like we did- wrap in foil or parchment, refrigerate and pack in a picnic lunch with a bottle of honey or horseradish mustard, a crunchy apple and a thermos of hot cider. Can you even imagine something more perfect than that lunch on a blanket in crisp air under technicolor trees?

The answer is no and not forty-two, in case you were wondering.

So, unless your baking ignitor is kaput and you’re waiting for your cheapola replacement to come, you really ought to bake yourself a tray of these before the snow brings down the rest of those perfect and vibrant leaves and get yourself out on a picnic blanket STAT.

P.S. The reason two of the sandwiches were glaringly not-twisty is because two of the children eating them are of the No-Swiss-cheese variety. There’s no fun in force-feeding disliked cheese on a picnic, so I left them un-twisted so we’d know at a glance which sandwich went to whom!

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Ham and Swiss Twisted Sandwiches

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ham and Swiss Twisted Sandwiches

Make lunch exciting with these golden-brown sandwich twists stuffed with salty deli ham and nutty Swiss cheese. Pack in a lunch or picnic box along with a squeeze bottle of your favourite mustard, an apple and a thermos of hot cider for a delicious, filling and far-from-ordinary meal.

Ingredients

    For the dough:
  • 2 pounds of soft, white bread dough ( This link is to is my preferred dough for these sandwiches ~or~ you can use thawed, previously frozen homemade or purchased dough.)
    • For the Filling:
  • 24 very thin slices deli ham (I like Virginia-style baked or honey-baked)
  • 12 slices deli Swiss cheese
    • For the Topping:
  • 1 egg, beaten with a fork
  • 3 tablespoons sesame seeds

Instructions

Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. Cover 5 pieces with a tea towel.

Divide the 6th piece of dough into two equal pieces and flatten the two pieces into 6 to 8 inch long rectangles.

Tear or cut two slices of Swiss cheese into strips. Arrange half of the cheese strips down the long edge of one rectangle and repeat with the remaining cheese and other rectangle.

Stack 2 pieces of ham and roll up into a tight tube, lay that on top of the cheese on on rectangle then repeat with 2 more pieces of ham and the other rectangle.

Wrap the dough around the ham and cheese, taking care to pinch the ends and seams tightly to seal.

Squeeze the ends of the two tubes together and then twist them around each other, pinching the opposite ends together when you reach them.

Transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet.

Repeat with remaining pieces of dough.

Let the sandwich twists rise in a warm, draft-free place covered gently with a tea towel, until puffy, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Carefully remove the tea towel from the twists, brush them with the beaten egg and sprinkle about 2 teaspoons of sesame seeds each one.

Bake for 18-24 minutes, or until a beautiful brown. Remove from the oven and let cool on the tray for 10 minutes.

Eat while warm or transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling before wrapping in foil or parchment and refrigerating or freezing.

To Reheat from Refrigerated:

Place foil or parchment wrapped sandwich twist in a preheated 350°F oven for 15-20 minutes, or until heated through.

To Reheat from Frozen:

Place foil or parchment wrapped sandwich twist in a preheated 350°F oven for 30-40 minutes, or until heated through.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/10/26/ham-and-swiss-twisted-sandwiches/

 

Filed Under: Bread, Comfort Food, Freezer Pleaser, kid food, Meat, Recipes

Taco Black Bean Burgers

October 24, 2011 by 8 Comments

 

It’s time for another installment of ‘Tasty Penance’, wherein I give you something tasty and healthy to make up for, oh, I dunno, maybe fried bologna sandwiches? If compensating for every marginally bad thing we ever did was as delicious as these Taco Black Bean Burgers, we’d all be apologizing and making things right all the time.

First of all, how can you possibly go wrong with taco flavours? Hmmm? You can’t!* Second of all, it’s a burger which is an automatic win. Third, it throws and is cooked in about fifteen minutes. That’s good and fast. Fourth, it has avocados and lettuce and tomatoes and onions and hot sauce. Enough said, right? And fifth…

*Unless you’re putting taco toppings on a bowl of fudge brownie ice cream. I can see how that would be problematic.

Fifth is the most important for me right now. It is made without the use of the oven.  Why would that be so important to the baking queen (that’d be me)? Because my oven. She is dead. Again. I am murder on baking ignitors, apparently. This is the fourth (or is it third? I don’t know. I just know it’s been more than two and less than six) ignitor I’ve blown out on my oven since getting it a little less than ten years ago.  Darnit.

I really hope that part shows up by midweek because I have a Pampered Chef party this weekend and because I want to get baking some of these five bushels of apples I got for experimenting. I’m a patient person. I’m a patient person. I’m a patient person. If I keep saying it, it’ll be true.

Luckily, the cook top is still working so pan frying is still an option and these burgers do not make me feel like I’m missing anything by not baking (except maybe a freshly baked bun, but I digress…) Now. Another word or several about these burgers.

  • They’re cheap. Super cheap. That makes me happy since I’m buying a new baking ignitor. Not that I’m bitter or anything…
  • Remember my Pizza Black Bean Burgers? I laid out all the reasons why I love my version of bean burgers there, so I won’t rehash it here, but I do have to say this.  The world seems to be divided into two clear camps when it comes to vegetable burgers. There’s the “Woohoo! Veggie Burgers!” contingent and the “Why a veggie burger when I can have a meat burger?!?” crew. As I am feeding a couple representatives of each of the aforementioned groups, I feel qualified to say that these not only pass muster on both sides of the fence, but are received enthusiastically. When I say enthusiastically, I mean they are hoovered at light speed. This is what I call a serious win.*
  • Leftovers make incredible snack food for late night movie viewing. I have demolished a plate full of cold taco black bean patties with hot sauce solo.

*Confession: I leave a couple little patties free of corn for the ONE hold out on sweetcorn in my crew. Stinker. He’ll come around eventually, but in the meantime, I’m still getting him to eat a vegetable burger. I’m not sweating the sweet corn.

I’m grateful that all my kids love beans. I have to tell you, though, that it wasn’t always that way. A couple of them required convincing. And while I’m not proud of how I managed it, I’m going to share my technique with those of you looking for a way to entice your children to love beans.

The method is simple and it has one step:

  1. Teach them the song.

You know which song I mean, right? The song about beans’ musical properties? Teach it to them. With gusto! And inform them that the song is correct then sit back and watch them eat. Be sure to remind them of the rules about where and when beans can be, um, played or suffer the consequences. I do believe you’ll find this to be a very effective way to encourage bean consumption whether or not you have five sons. We parents have to stick together. Go, Team Big People, right?

Have you ever done something you swore you’d never do to get your kids to try something?

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Taco Black Bean Burgers

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Gorgeous deep brown and crunchy on the outside, tender and bursting with taste, studded with corn, topped with avocados, tomatoes, lettuce onion and hot sauce, and served on soft buns, these meat-free Taco Black Bean Burgers pleased even the most entrenched picky eater in my house.

Ingredients

  • 4 cups (or 2 cans) black beans, drained and rinsed well, then drained again
  • 1 jalapeno, stem and seeds removed and roughly chopped
  • 3 tablespoons roughly chopped onions
  • 1-3 cloves of garlic, according to preference, roughly chopped
  • 2 tablespoons tomato sauce
  • 1 cup (or more) plain breadcrumbs
  • 1 cup frozen corn, thawed
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro or parsley (or 1 teaspoon dried cilantro or parsley flakes)
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
  • canola or peanut oil for frying
  • lettuce leaves, for
  • avocado slices, for topping
  • hot sauce, for topping
  • soft rolls, for serving

Instructions

Add the pepper, onion and garlic cloves to the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade.

Put the lid in place and pulse, stopping to remove the lid and scrape down the sides of the bowl, until the ingredients are finely chopped.

Add half of the black beans, all of the seasonings, salt and tomato sauce to the food processor and pulse, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary, until the mixture resembles the consistency of guacamole (slightly chunky but a cohesive paste.)

Scrape the bean and vegetable mixture into a mixing bowl and stir in the remaining beans and corn, then the egg and breadcrumbs.

Test the consistency of the mixture. You should be able to roll the mixture into a ball and flatten into a patty without it sticking to your hands. If you cannot, add one extra tablespoon of breadcrumbs at a time, stirring and checking the consistency after each addition until it does what it should. The goal is to add enough that the mixture ceases to be sticky but not so much that it becomes crumbly. I found that in each of the batches I made, I needed significantly different amounts of breadcrumbs to hold the patties together, but I never needed less than 1 cup.

Roll balls of the bean mixture according to the size of the burger you'd like: golf ball size for sliders, peach size for standard burgers, navel orange size for mega-burgers.

Place a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat and pour in enough oil to cover the bottom by about 1/8-inch. When the oil is shimmering, flatten each ball into a patty that is about 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick and slide it into the oil. Do this with as many patties as you can comfortably fit into the pan without crowding. Fry for about 3-4 minutes on each side, or until deep brown and crunchy on the outside.

Transfer the patties to a paper towel lined platter.

To serve:

Stack one patty on lettuce on the bottom half of each bun, avocado slices, hot sauce to taste and finally add the top half of the bun.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/10/24/taco-black-bean-burgers/

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Comfort Food, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, Main Dish, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian

Fried Bologna Sandwich

October 17, 2011 by 16 Comments

There are some things you just have to do when presented with the opportunity:

  • Stand up and scream when your team scored the winning goal in overtime.
  • Blow on a cut that stings.
  • Kick your way through piles of leaves on the ground.
  • Foot race your dog in a field.
  • Put your bare toes in Lake Superior.
  • Watch your kids climb a rock wall in the woods.
  • Scramble up behind them.
  • Hug your dad and stepmom really tightly before leaving for the fourteen hour drive home.
  • Walk outside in high winds just because you can.
  • Eat a fried bologna sandwich with yellow mustard on white bread.

Say what? No, really!

If you dangle a piece of plain old bologna in front of me, it’s likely to activate my gag reflexes. Let’s be honest, it’s not the most appetizing looking stuff, is it? But if you fry it in a pan, pop it on some white bread and slather on yellow mustard? Well, you’ve found one of my guilty pleasures: The Fried Bologna Sandwich.

When you fry a slice of bologna, it changes the texture from wet and mooshy to crisp and chewy. There’s nothing fancy, elevated or chic about this sandwich. It is simply comforting and delicious. While these sandwiches show up on many Midwestern and Appalachian diner menus (and I have called both regions home), I grew up eating these at my own dining room table as a treat.

Since the ingredient list is so short (just three!) I figure the enjoyment of the sandwich is based on technique. Now don’t worry. I’m not going to go all Thomas à Keller on the classic bologna sandwich; I’m just going to give you a couple tricks to enhance your enjoyment of the sandwich.

  1. Use the thinnest slices of bologna you can get that will still hold together. Thick cut bologna kind of whiffs it here. Deli bologna or the stuff that has a first name will work very well with slightly different results.
  2. Cut some vents in the slices of bologna to keep them from pouffing up in the center. Center pouf keeps that part of the bologna from crisping. Very sad. Trust me. My dad likes to cut an “x” in the center. I do one slice from the center to the outside edge (as in the radius of the circle. Dang. Did I just Keller this by saying that?) I find that one cut it makes it easier to do step five but either way will do the job.
  3. Don’t bother with oil, butter or margarine (you shouldn’t ever bother with margarine anyway, but I digress…) Have you seen the fat content on the bologna package? On second thought, don’t look at the fat content on the bologna sandwich. Just trust me, you don’t need to use fat in the pan.
  4. Actively ignore the nutritional content label on the bologna.
  5. Use whatever white bread you like. I used my homemade semolina bread and it was outstanding. Got something more “wonder”ful in mind? Go for it. I like it best untoasted, but there is room for debate there. Step away from the multigrain and health nut breads for this would you? It won’t change the fact that we’re eating a fried bologna sandwich, so let’s all just stick with the white bread for now.
  6. As soon as the bologna has been fried on both sides, immediately -and I do mean immediately- grab the bologna with a pair of tongs and pile it onto your bread. I like to hold it above the bread and let it fold itself as I lower it and slightly twist it. It gives a sandwich loft. (Shoot. There I go again.) Going quickly from pan to bread allows the bread to absorb some of that tasty, salty grease. Yes. I said tasty grease.
  7. Do not. I repeat do NOT use fancy mustard here. This is a job for grade A yellow mustard. Or grade B. The point is, don’t muck around with cranberry or horseradish or grainy mustard on this sandwich. You will regret it if you do.
  8. Accompany this with an icy cold something: root beer, water, milk, or beer.

Above all else, enjoy it. Is it indulgent? You betcha. It’s calculated to make you smile. What do you say? You want a sandwich?

Print
Fried Bologna Sandwich

Prep Time: 2 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

There is nothing fancy about this simple, hearty comfort food other than its near magical ability to put a smile on the face of anyone who eats it.

Ingredients

  • Per Sandwich:
  • 2 slices white bread
  • 2-5 slices bologna (depending on how stacked you want your sandwich and how thick the bologna is.)
  • yellow mustard, to taste

Instructions

Make a cut from a center point of the bologna through the outer edge of the slice. In other words, kind of give your bologna slice a Pacman mouth.

Lay your bologna in a cold, heavy frying pan and turn the heat to medium.

When the pan is fully heated and the bologna starts to show signs of browning around the edges, flip over with tongs or a fork. Continue cooking until well-browned on the other side.

Pile the bologna onto one slice of the waiting bread. Repeat with any bologna that didn't fit in the pan the first time (you don't have to wait for the pan to cool off, just keep in mind it will cook faster.)

Spread yellow mustard on the remaining slice of bread use it to top off the sandwich. Slice in half and serve immediately.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/10/17/fried-bologna-sandwich/

Filed Under: Comfort Food, kid food, Rebecca, Recipes, Snacks Tagged With: , , , , ,

Smoked Paprika and Chipotle Sauce | Lemons in Salt

October 13, 2011 by 17 Comments

Update: We have since found that storing this sauce in a squeeze bottle makes applying it to foods much easier. If you plan on using it as a dip, it’s still handy to have in a jar, but for putting on tacos, tostadas, sandwiches, pretzel sticks and finger tips, the squeeze bottle is your best friend!

Have you ever read a recipe and thought, “I must go make that this very instant!”? That’s what happened when I read about Smoked Paprika and Chipotle Sauce and Lemons in Salt made by her friend on Shauna Ahern’s glorious blog, Gluten Free Girl. Creamy dip/dressing/perfume -whatever you want to call it- it delivered on every high hope I had for it. But first…

Oh first…

Let me tell you a little story about delayed gratification.

There are three key ingredients in the recipe that I thought I might hold me up on getting the sauce in my mouth A.S.A.P.: smoked paprika, chipotles in adobo, and lemons in salt.

I mail ordered the smoked paprikawith no hesitation. I knew there was zero chance that any of our local places would carry it. Hello Amazon. You’re so good to me.

I grabbed a couple lemons at the little corner store in town and salted them the very day I read Shauna’s recipe. No problemo. We were on our way.

Now herein lies the rub.

You all know I don’t live in a teeming metropolis. I don’t even live near a sleepy urban center. The closest thing I have is a pretty well-stocked limited grocery store in a town off the expressway twenty five minutes away. This store has an exceptional selection of health foods, produce, micro-brew and imported beers, hispanic foods and other goodies. I figured it was my “in” to get the sauce made. There was no way they couldn’t have chipotles in adobo, right?*

*Grammar Law #1. You will always fail when you think in double negatives.

As soon as I could reasonably conjure up a reason to go to that town (chicken feed? drop off a check at the bank? stop by the other Amish store for canning lids?) I hopped on over and hit the grocer’s feeling confident that I would be leaving the store with a couple cans of chipotles in adobo. I didn’t see them on the shelf, but I still had faith. When the clerk said, “Did you find everything alright today?” I answered with a chipper, “No, but I’m sure I overlooked it. Could you tell me where the chipotles in adobo are?”

My first clue that my dreams for that evening were in trouble came when she looked at me and said, “Our what?”

Me: “Chipotles in adobo.”

Her: “I have NO idea what you mean, ma’am.”

She called me ma’am.

Me: “They’re usually in the Mexican foods section in most stores.”

Her: “I could ask the manager if you’d like!”

Me, salvaging a little hope: “Oh yes, please!”

Her to manager: “This lady would like something in something. What was that ma’am?”

Again with the ma’am.

Me: “Chipotles in adobo?”

Manager: “I have NO idea what you mean, ma’am.”

I left with my head and heart low and a firm resolution to check Amazon for chipotles in adobo and wrinkle cream as soon as I got home.

I ordered my stuff from Amazon.com and waited patiently (if you call panting at the door waiting patiently) for UPS to deliver the goods. Two days later, the man in brown dusted himself of the grass clippings that somehow stuck to his uniform when I accidentally tackled him to grab my parcel. I had everything.

And in what you might think would be a anticlimactic moment, I had the sauce made in less than five minutes. I’m here to tell you the real excitement, even with all that build up, was the first moment I tasted the sauce. I decided to be genteel and forgo dragging my finger through the blender jar. I used a very classy pretzel stick for the dunking. Then I tried another one. And a few more. Next I tried carrot sticks and the little corner of a tortilla.

Wow.

It is creamy, thick, smooth, smoky, lemony, garlicky and then at the back of it, it’s just spicy enough to make it worth eating. In the coming days, I served it as a sauce on grilled chicken, tossed with pasta, spread on hamburgers, thinned out as salad dressing, and as a chip  and French fry dip. Every single way I served it blew my mind.

This is now a regular part of our condiment repertoire. In fact, I have a designated container for “The Sauce” as it is known in our household. When “The Sauce” gets low, a chorus of voices reminds me that I need to make more.

It is that good.

If you need help locating the good stuff for this recipe you can follow the links below to my beloved Amazon. They never let me down.

Disclosure: Amazon did not pay me to say this. They didn’t even send me a free can of chipotles in adobo. I do, however, have a little agreement with them. If you click on either of the links to order through Amazon, I get a teensy commission. It’s about enough over the course of the year to purchase said chipotles in adobo.
La Moreno Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce, 7-Ounce Tins (Pack of 6)

McCormick Smoked Paprika (Paprika Ahumada), 8.5 oz Size

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Smoked Paprika and Chipotle Sauce | Lemons in Salt

Smoked Paprika and Chipotle Sauce | Lemons in Salt

This is creamy, thick, smooth, smoky, lemony, garlicky and then at the back of it, it's just spicy enough to make it worth eating. In the coming days, I served it as a sauce on grilled chicken, tossed with pasta, spread on hamburgers, thinned out as salad dressing, and as a chip and French fry dip.

Recipe used courtesy of Shauna Ahern of Gluten Free Girl

Ingredients

  • 2 cups mayonnaise (16 ounces)
  • 1 to 3 chipotles in adobo (from a can, use a bit of the sauce, too.)
  • 3 tablespoons smoked paprika
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled, coarsely chopped
  • 1/2-2 teaspoons preserved lemon peel in salt, to taste, minced (See recipe below)

Instructions

IMPORTANT NOTE: It IS possible to overprocess this sauce. If you let it go too long in the blender, the mayonnaise will 'break' and separate. You don't want that to happen, so only process 'til smooth! Oh, and I find that little tiny bits of chipotle in the sauce are quite pleasant!

Combine all ingredients in the blender jar and let it run on high until smooth. Scrape into a bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve. This stores very well in the refrigerator in a tightly sealed jar.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/10/13/smoked-paprika-and-chipotle-sauce-lemons-in-salt/

So let me talk about Lemons in Salt for a moment. Make this. Make it now. Today. And make a lot of it, because once you have it in your kitchen you’ll wonder what you did without it. The salt draws moisture from the lemons and makes them mellow and soft and deep in flavour. The salt is a bonus. When you make the lemons preserved in salt you automatically have lemon finishing salt for meals and dishes, too.

I’ve stuffed these lemon peels in the cavities of roasting chickens, chopped it up and added it to marinated salads, and my mom ate the salty lemon peels like a snack. Yes she did. Repeatedly. But we’ll talk about that later. Just make some.

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Smoked Paprika and Chipotle Sauce | Lemons in Salt

Smoked Paprika and Chipotle Sauce | Lemons in Salt

Unbelievably simple and adding incredible depth of flavour to whatever they're added, lemon peels preserved in salt are something every kitchen should have in abundance.

Recipe used courtesy of Shauna Ahern of Gluten Free Girl.

Ingredients

  • Lemon peels that have been juiced and trimmed of most pulp
  • kosher salt

Instructions

Cut the lemon peel into slices. The size and shape is unimportant, it's just to make it take up less room in a mason jar.

Add the lemon peels to a mason jar and cover with a great deal of kosher salt.

Add the lid to the jar and shake well.

Pour more salt in if necessary to cover the lemon peels. Let set at room temperature and use as needed.

Replenish the lemon peels whenever you juice more lemons.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/10/13/smoked-paprika-and-chipotle-sauce-lemons-in-salt/

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Component Foods, Condiments, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Vegetarian

Baked Cider Pumpkin Doughnuts

October 6, 2011 by 9 Comments

When I promise an all desserts week I mean it. Here’s installment #2!

There are foods that I will beat down the door and jump over an old lady to get. Doughnuts are not usually one of them. I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth (contrary to what you might think considering the number of dessert recipes I’ve posted) and so I spend my “sweet capital” very carefully. Doughnuts, in general, are  too sweet, too gloppy, too much of everything. Just too too.

Every fall, though, I like to try an apple cider doughnut. The name is irresistible isn’t it? You say cider, I drool. And they’re usually okay. Often times they’re baked rather than fried and instead of a gloppy glaze, they have gone for a roll in a bowl of cinnamon sugar. I can manage one or two doughnut holes of the aforementioned variety before I have to back off. For me and doughnuts that equals indulgence.

My kids and husband, however, have never met a doughnut they didn’t inhale. My husband, in fact, calls them DARNITS. As in, “DARNIT! I ate another one!” And so, when I saw this the other day, I decided to try my hand at doughnut/darnit making. Using Food + Words’ recipe as a leaping off point, I leapt.

Being in possession of a great deal of apple molasses is a nice thing. It’s especially helpful when you decide you’re going to morph a pumpkin/beer doughnut recipe into a cider/pumpkin one. I wanted a hint of cider in the doughnuts but not enough to overpower the pumpkin. Can you think of two flavours that scream fall more than cider and pumpkin? I can’t.

I made dough. I rolled it. I cut it. I put it on pans. And then men (both of the little and mature variety) started trickling into the kitchen. “What are you OOOOOH! Mom’s making DOUGHNUTS!” “You’re making what? Oh. OH! When will they be done?” “Wow. Did we really clean that well?” (No. You didn’t. But you all are cute. Consider yourselves lucky.)

I baked. I dunked. I rolled in sugar. The doughnuts that is. I didn’t personally roll in the sugar although after doing a double batch of doughnuts I suppose it’s six of one/half dozen of another. Doughnut humour. Somebody stop me.

I snapped a couple pictures with a child or two hanging off of one leg, another one on my back and my husband and two eldest sons dancing from foot to foot in the background saying, “Is she done yet guys? How many pictures do you have to take?” I took three pictures then stepped away.

Locusts.

That’s what they brought to mind with the speed with which they descended on those doughnuts.

When they sat down for a breather, I hazarded a bite of a doughnut hole. They were good. No. They were great. They were light and just sweet enough. The pretty autumnal orange colour of the crumb delivered on pumpkin flavour with just a hint of apple cider. The nutty brown butter that held the crunchy cinnamon sugar to the outside was the perfect finishing touch. In short? It was a doughnut of which I could eat more than two. Darnit.

Some Important Cooking Notes:

  • This doughnut dough is very slack, very soft and very sticky. When first mixed up, it almost resembles a batter more than a dough. Be patient, allow the flour to hydrate as the dough rises. It should be workable after that first rise.
  • You will want to flour everything you work with very generously -counters, rolling pins, hands- don’t worry. Keep adding flour as you work with it.
  • You absolutely need parchment or a silpat on your baking sheet. There’s no getting around it! If you don’t use one or the other you’ll have a nasty clean up job ahead of you.
  • Use unsalted butter to make the browned butter. If you use salted butter, you’ll concentrate the salt in it and the doughnuts will definitely take on super salty as a finishing flavour.
  • These are best when served fresh and warm, but there’s not a thing wrong with storing them in an airtight container for about three days. And if they make it that long you know you’re not in my house.

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Baked Cider Pumpkin Doughnuts

Yield: 12 large doughnuts and 30-40 doughnut holes (depending on size).

These doughnuts embody fall flavours with their beautiful spiced pumpkin orange crumb, hint of cider flavour and cinnamon sugar coating. Serve hot with cider or coffee for a seasonal treat.

Adapted from Food + Words

Ingredients

    For the Brown Butter:
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick/ 4 ounces by weight) unsalted butter
    • For the Doughnuts:
  • 1/4 cup whole milk
  • 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon boiled cider
  • 1 envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons) instant dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup bread flour
    • For the Cinnamon Sugar:
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Instructions

Begin by preparing the dough:

Warm milk to just above room temperature using the microwave or a saucepan. Pour into the work bowl of a stand mixer, gently stir in the boiled cider and the yeast. Let stand for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, use the batter attachment on your stand mixer to blend in the sugar, brown sugar, salt, vanilla extract, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg, egg yolks, and pumpkin puree. Mix on medium for at least 1 minute to be certain everything is evenly combined and smooth.

Turn off the mixer, switch to the dough hook, and add all of the flour at once. Start on low (to avoid the dreaded flour POOF) and gradually move up to medium high where it should stay for 4-6 minutes, or until you have a soft, sticky batter-like dough.

Butter a large mixing bowl or pan generously and scrape the dough into it. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until doubled in size (about 1 hour at average room temperature.)

After an hour, line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment or silpats and set them aside.

Generously flour your work surface and your rolling pin. Turn the dough out onto the counter and dust the top with flour. Knead for no more than 1 minute to deflate the dough.

Roll it out to about 1/2-an-inch thickness and use a 3-inch diameter round cutter to cut large doughnuts and a 1/2-1-inch thickness round cutter to cut the hole from the center. (Or use the small cutter to do a gigantic batch of doughnut holes!) Carefully transfer the cut doughnuts to the lined sheets with about 2-inches of space between each doughnut (or 1 inch between doughnut holes.)

Re-roll the scraps and cut more doughnuts. Repeat until you've used all the dough.

Cover the baking sheets with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour. Take care not to let them rise too long or the yeast will exhaust its activity before it gets to the oven and you'll lose the light texture you're trying to get.

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

To Make the Brown Butter

While the oven preheats, melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over high heat, swirling it to keep it from scorching. The butter will bubble and pop. As soon as the butter smells nutty and you can see lightly browned milk solids in the pan, remove the pan from a burner and set in a place to cool just slightly.

To Bake Doughnuts:

Bake the doughnuts in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Bake the doughnut holes in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, or until just golden.

To Assemble the Doughnuts:

Toss the granulated sugar and ground cinnamon together in a bowl. Set the cinnamon sugar next to the brown butter. Working with one doughnut at a time, dunk into the brown butter and flip to coat. Lift with a fork to allow the excess butter to drain away then drop into the cinnamon sugar. Toss to cover all surfaces with the cinnamon sugar, transfer to a plate, and repeat with the remaining doughnuts and doughnut holes.

Eat.

Darnit.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/10/06/baked-cider-pumpkin-doughnuts/

Filed Under: Breakfast Foods, Desserts, Holiday Food, kid food, Rebecca, Recipes, Snacks, Vegetarian

Mounds Bar Rice Pudding | Coconut, Almond and Dark Chocolate Rice Pudding

October 3, 2011 by 15 Comments

How does everyone feel about a week of desserts? I for one feel great. And since I’m the head honcho here (well, the only honcho at the moment) I say we’re having a week of desserts. Here is installment #1!

I’m going to be in some very deep trouble for writing this post. I just know it.

As I made this last night -stirred the pot, dipped my finger in and tasted, sniffed the steam- I became increasingly convinced that I was doing something evil. It was my Doctor Frankenstein* moment. I had created a monster. How bad could a dessert be?

*Frahn-kehn-STEEN! Thank you very much.

If I were to tell you that I had created a rice pudding that tasted exactly like a melted Mounds bar, what would you say? *

*Howzabout “Oh sweet mystery of life at last I’ve found you! At last I know the secret of it all!”?

Oh my goodness.

This is dangerous.

Deadly.

I mean, really, think about it.

Rich, smooth, coconut rice pudding topped with toasted almonds and coconut, shaved dark chocolate and whipped coconut cream… This rice pudding is seriously puttin’ on the Ritz. Are you capable of resisting it? I made double batch of it last night and let’s just say it’s no longer here.

The fact is that the boys and I ate it for breakfast. Then lunch. We’re having it again for dessert tonight. I needed to develop a strategy to deal with this*.

*”We’ve all of us got to behave normal.”

My strategy involved making everyone else eat it so a shortage in the key ingredients would develop and I’d have to cut back our consumption of it by necessity.

Never mind. I can’t do this to you. Don’t make it. Run away. Run far, far away to the land where Mounds Bar Rice Pudding has never existed. Where you’re safe. Where you only eat fruit for dessert. Where you don’t whip the cream from full-fat coconut milk into a frothy topper that could also be dolloped into your hot chocolate or hot lattes or directly onto your tongue.

Wait! Where are you going?… I was going to make espresso!

A little serious advice. When you go buy the coconut milk for this recipe, try to avoid the pre-sweetened ones and the low-calorie or lite versions. They just don’t pack the flavour-oomph necessary to deliver the goods here.  And if you go whole hog and add the whipped coconut cream, you absolutely, positively need that full-fat coconut milk or the process will fail after the first step. The other sorts cannot deliver the fluffy, creamy texture that the good stuff does.

Don’t cheat and use another kind of rice here. Arborio rice is the sort used in risottos, which makes it spot-on for rice pudding. Creamy, creamy, creamy; that’s what you get with arborio!

One last note: Don’t be scared by the forty or so minute cook time. As long as you walk into the kitchen during the commercials on Jeopardy to stir it once in a while, you’ll have this ready in time for viewing Young Frankenstein,  Psych,  Top Chef, Mad Men or whatever show or movie makes you giddy with anticipation.

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Mounds Bar or Almond Joy Rice Pudding | Coconut, Almond and Dark Chocolate Rice Pudding

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

This rice pudding, when warm, tastes like a melted Mounds or Almond Joy candy bar. Creamy coconut rice pudding, topped with a decadent array of toasted coconut and almonds, whipped coconut cream and shaved dark chocolate is how the ultimate in comfort foods meets the ultimate candy bar.

Ingredients

  • 1 can coconut milk (unsweetened)
  • 1 can evaporated milk
  • Whole milk or half and half
  • 1/2 cup arborio rice
  • ¼ cup raw sugar
  • vanilla bean, split and scraped
  • a pinch of salt
  • shaved or chopped dark chocolate
    • Optional Toppings:
  • Whipped coconut cream (see recipe below)
  • Toasted coconut
  • Toasted sliced almonds

Instructions

Pour the coconut milk and evaporated milk into a four cup measure. Add enough whole milk or half and half to measure 4 cups evenly.

Stir together the milk mixture, rice, raw sugar, vanilla bean (both the bean halves and the scrapings), and salt to a medium sized, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium high heat.

Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring frequently, then lower the heat to medium low and allow it to simmer for 45-60 minutes, or until the rice is tender and the liquid is thickened. It will continue to thicken as it cools.

Let it cool several minutes, covered, before transferring to serving dishes.

To Serve Warm (my preference):

Top the warm pudding with shaved or chopped dark chocolate, whipped coconut cream, and toasted coconut for Mounds bar pudding or add almonds with everything else for Almond Joy pudding.

To Serve Cold:

Cover the portioned pudding with plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding. Chill for at least an hour (but up to 3 days in advance) before serving. Top the chilled pudding with shaved dark chocolate, whipped coconut cream, and toasted coconut for Mounds bar pudding or add almonds with everything else for Almond Joy pudding.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/10/03/mounds-bar-rice-pudding-coconut-almond-and-dark-chocolate-rice-pudding/

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Whipped Coconut "Cream"

Coconut cream is unbelievably decadent. When you take into consideration that it is a one-ingredient (at most, two) recipe, it is mind-boggling. Rich, creamy, and smooth as silk, this cream is equally at home topping desserts, hot chocolate, stirred into lattes or just eaten with fruit. Bonus: You can serve this to your vegan, lactose-intolerant friends.

Ingredients

  • 1 can full-fat, unsweetened coconut milk (I like Thai brand.)
    • Optional: 1 teaspoon confectioner's sugar

Instructions

Put the unopened can of coconut milk into the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Do not shake the can.

Open the can and scoop the thickened coconut cream from the top of the can into a mixing bowl. (You can reserve the remaining coconut water to drink, add to cocktails or cook into other recipes.)

If you choose to add sugar, do so before using a hand mixer or stand mixer to whip the coconut cream until it is smooth and creamy.

Transfer to a covered container and refrigerate until ready to use. This is good for up to a week in the refrigerator.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/10/03/mounds-bar-rice-pudding-coconut-almond-and-dark-chocolate-rice-pudding/

Filed Under: Breakfast Foods, Desserts, kid food, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , ,