Photos of Food

Too long without an update! So have a photo of something I've recently enjoyed.

Greek yogurt (Nancy's plain flavor) with maple honey (farmers market), homemade granola, medjool dates, and fresh banana.

Breakfast Biscuits

This morning, I made biscuits to use up half a pint jar of homemade applesauce. The applesauce had been a test where I cooked the apples without the honey first, then added the honey after twenty minutes. It came out runny, no structure, just like you'd expect from boiled apples, really.

It had cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, clove, and nutmeg in it. The jar has been open since before Christmas and I already boiled it again once. I figured it would be fine if cooked into something.

So what do you do with little motivation, a need for breakfast, and a cup of thin apple sauce? Me, I make biscuits. Now, when I say biscuits, I mean drop biscuits, scones, bannock -- whatever you want to call it. They are essentially all the same thing:
2 Cups of flour
2 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
1/3 Cup of fat
3/4 Cup dairy (or any wet thing)
and whatever you want to add in, such as spices or cheese.

Today I used butter, apple sauce, and a dollop (seriously, did you think I measured?) of thin vanilla yogurt.

Drop biscuits are just a thing you learn to do. The first day I successfully made roll out biscuits, only a few years ago, I felt the achievement. I can still do roll out biscuits, but when I do, I mostly stick to classic recipe. Drop biscuits are far more forgiving. If you make them too dry, you can add a spritz of milk or water to the dough and still be able to eat them once baked. If you make them too wet, it's not a good idea to add flour, but you could if you couldn't bake them as is. Heck, if they're really too wet, you have waffle batter or pancake batter missing eggs. If you put sugar for the salt, or ginger powder instead of cinnamon, you're still probably OK. (But next time, sniff your spices, OK?)

This morning, because I was using spiced apple as the dominant flavor, I chose to make the biscuits with butter. Apples and butter are meant to be together. I cut the butter into slivers and then cut it into the flour with my hands. This isn't pastry. Fluffy flour and softened butter feel nice to manipulate. (As will all cooking, make sure your hands are washed and clean under the fingernails.) I had forgotten the leavening and salt, which should go in with all the other dry ingredients, so before the butter was incorporated, I put those in and stirred it up.

Lumpy butter still works, but you always get a better result if you have as close to a sandy texture as reasonable. If you want to add sugar, put it in with the flour. (I believe this is "scone method." As opposed to "muffin method," where the sugar is creamed with fat and eggs, and the dry is added secondary.) I forgot the sugar, too -- but the apples and yogurt were sweet enough.

Once the butter, flour, pink Himalayan salt, and baking soda were incorporated, I poured in some yogurt, around 2 tablespoons. Then in went the spiced apple sauce.

It's important not to overwork biscuit dough. Don't stir it. Don't knead it like pizza dough. You don't want chewy-making gluten to build up. Be gentle with the dough. Fold it in the mixing bowl (yes, I use a bowl -- and still get flour everywhere) like a big fluffy goose down comforter.

A well-preheated oven at 475 ° Fahrenheit, and 12 minutes later, breakfast!

They came out delicious, in case you are wondering. Fluffy, nicely flavored, just a hint of sweetness.

One-Bowl, 15 Minute, Super Easy Ham & Vegetables Dijon Pasta Salad

Emails about food make my email inbox at work a little more fun. One of the big brand's free calendars graces our wall, brightening the space with a big, colorful photo every month of something that looks mouthwatering.

For summer, I have been getting recipe emails that tout easy dinners with minimal cooking. These inevitably utilize the brand's cooking shortcut products. I understand that these have their place in the world, but they are not for me, a person who doesn't even make hot chocolate from a mix. 

The "recipe" in today's post is a hack of one of the 30-minute, Cooking Shortcut Bag recipes. The result is a slightly warm pasta salad (yum) with a crisp vegetable appeal, low in salt and without a lot of fuss.

Mine is faster and leaves fewer dishes to wash, but it requires that you, like me, are someone who has small amounts of good stuff in your refrigerator and cupboard for the components.

These were my ingredients:

• 1/3 Cup elbow macaroni or small pasta of choice, such as rotelli or fusilli
• salt to taste
• pinch oregano
• pinch onion powder
• pinch dry basil, to taste
• pinch red chili flake

If you have fresh herbs, add them to the chopped vegetable mixture instead of the pasta water.

• 1 TBL sliced red onion (I used the onion heart, which is tender and makes small pieces)
• 1/4 Cup diced red bell pepper
• 1/2 Cup chopped heirloom tomato
• 1 TBL olive oil
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• 1/2 Cup diced ham of good quality (avoid using a fatty ham steak)

• 1/4 Cup frozen green peas (if you have fresh peas, add them to the vegetable mixture)
• 1/4 Cup grated parmesan

1. In a small saucepan, bring 2 to 3 Cups of water to a boil. I use as little water as possible, enough to cover the pasta while it cooks. Add oregano, onion powder, dried basil, chili flakes, and salt. 
2. Measure the elbow macaroni by pouring one layer of the dry pasta into the bowl that you are going to use for the completed pasta salad. Elbows are plain, so I didn't want to use so much that the end salad is blah. Too much pasta makes a bland pasta salad.
3. When the water is boiling, add the elbow macaroni. Set a timer for 9 minutes. Lower the heat to medium and allow the pasta to cook uncovered.
4. While the pasta cooks, chop up your onion, bell pepper, and tomatoes. Place them in the bowl.
5. Add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and dijon on top of the vegetables. (Do NOT add the frozen green peas!)
6. Dice the ham. Add it to the bowl.
7. Grate the parmesan.
8. When the timer goes off, test the pasta for firmness. I like mine slightly past al dente for pasta salad. If you like yours firmer, 8 minutes may work better.
9. Add the frozen green peas to the pasta water. Stir for a minute.
10. Drain the water from the peas + pasta. Stir it around to get the water out of the pasta tubes.
11. Carefully spoon (I use the same fork that I will use for eating) the peas, herbs, and pasta mixture into the bowl. Some water will still be in the saucepan, and you don't want watery pasta salad. Using a fork to push the pasta out of the saucepan helps drain it as you go.
12. Gently stir together everything in the bowl until well mixed.
13. Add parmesan cheese.

Cutting up the vegetables while the pasta cooked meant that this only took me about ten minutes. I've added five more for the grating of the cheese and putting away of oil, vinegar, etc.

I put the dry herbs in with the cooking pasta to kickstart their flavor. With single serving amounts of everything, it's more difficult to get flavors to infuse or mix evenly.

I thaw the peas with the pasta to stop the cooking of the pasta without rinsing the pasta. I never rinse pasta if I can avoid it. Rinsing removes the starch in the cooking water that helps the sauce or dressing stick to the pasta. I'd rather keep a small amount of cold ingredient or sauce to toss in with the pasta in place of rinsing. I like my pasta salad slightly warm, rather than refrigerator cold.

Honey Granola with Pumpkin Pie Spice

Honey Granola with Pumpkin Pie Spice

4 C rolled oats (not quick oats)
1 Cup nuts (whole or pieces) (suggested: almonds, pecans, walnuts, filberts, pumpkin seeds)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, pinch of nutmeg, pinch of clove)

1/4 Cup vegetable oil
1/4 Cup washed cane sugar (white sugar)
1/2 teaspoon molasses
1/2 Cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
1 1/2 Cups raisins and/or other dried fruit (added while cooling)

Preheat oven to 300° F. Lightly grease a 13" x 9" pan with deep sides.

Mix oats, salt, and spices in a bowl and set aside.

In a saucepan, combine oil, sugar, molasses, and honey. Warm until incorporated. (Do not boil.) Stir in the vanilla extract.

Carefully pour the warm honey mixture over the oat mixture and fold it in.  Spread the combination into your pan.

Bake for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Check in the last 5 minutes because oven times vary.
When it is done and cooling, stir in the dried fruit. Scrape the granola loose from the pan while warm; this will reduce the amount of sticking to the pan when cool. Allow it to cool completely before storing in an air-tight container. It will keep at room temperature for up to one week.

If you like clusters, I recommend using baking parchment instead of greasing the pan. That will allow you to leave the mix until completely cool, which is how you get clusters. Otherwise, when you scrape the granola loose, you break the granola into a looser, muesli-like cereal. Increase the sugar by 1/4 Cup and decrease the honey by the same amount for a harder, sweeter granola.

Granola is one of those things that is expensive when store-bought, but can be marvelously cheap if you make it yourself -- especially if you are using up ingredients on hand. It is one of those straightforward recipes that work consistently, as long as you follow the easy instructions. Stirring every 10 minutes is vital, or else the granola will not toast evenly, and it will burn instead.

It's a superb use for crystalized honey. Honey is often expensive these days, but if you have a Farmers Market, there is often a honey vendor who sells better honey than the supermarket for a lower price. If you have a Trader Joe's store near you, their mesquite honey is perfectly suitable and as low as $10 for a 3 pound container.

Have you noticed that when you buy a bottle of molasses for holiday gingerbread, you still have most of a bottle well past New Years? Other granola recipes ask for brown sugar, but I use my brown sugar up on a regular basis. Regular sugar and molasses take the place of brown sugar in this recipe. (Brown sugar is sugar where the molasses has been returned to it after the first stages of refining.)

Pumpkin pie spice is another one of those things that shows up around the holidays but has limited use, unless you like a lot of things to taste like pumpkin pie. If you have it, it's a good shortcut for this recipe. If not, cinnamon is the vital spice in this recipe. Clove, nutmeg, ground ginger, and even cardamom are merely accents.

Oats can be purchased from the bulk section of grocery stores and co-ops for lowest cost. I usually have oats on hand, but I'm not good about eating oatmeal often enough to use my oats up fast. I'm a big fan of granola, which is full of crunchy goodness, spice, and sweet. I first decided to try my hand at granola because I was concerned that my oats had been hanging around too long, and might be getting a little stale. I had some nuts in shells left over from holiday nuts, and raisins that had been forgotten until they lost all plumpness.

I made this batch with "plumasins," little pieces of dried plum. Previous batches had dried apricots that I chopped into fine pieces. If you aren't a fan of raisins, there are a lot of options. I may try drying some backyard tree apples to use in granola later.

Chickpea Popovers stuffed with Curry Chicken Salad

For the chicken salad:

2 Cups of roasted chicken, chopped

1/2 Cup plain yogurt, or mayonnaise if preferred

2 TBL curry powder

1 Cup roasted, salted cashews

1/4 Cup golden raisins

1/4 Cup cranberries

 cilantro leaves for garnish (optional)

For the popovers:

1 Cup chickpea (besan) flour

1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs (I use medium sized eggs)

1 Cup milk

1 tsp olive oil

1/4 tsp garlic granules

1/4 tsp black pepper

spritz of lemon juice (about 1/8 tsp)

Jumbo (6 muffin) muffin tin

Cooking spray

Mix all ingredients except cilantro for the chicken salad together. Set aside. If possible, prepare the chicken salad in advance. The flavors of the spices come out more fully after a day. 

Preheat oven to 450.

In a separate bowl, gently wisk together all in ingredients for the popovers until a smooth batter forms. Grease the muffin pan; cooking spray makes this easy. Pour the batter equally into each of the muffin cups, about halfway. 

Bake at 450 for 20 minutes. Then lower the heat to 350 and continue baking for 15 more minutes. Total bake time is 35 minutes.

Pop popovers out of the pan while still hot. Turn so that the side with a depression is up, and fill the "bowl" with curry chicken salad. Garnish with cilantro.

Coffee & Creamer Cookies

Coffee with Creamer Cookies (Eggless)

2/3 Cup oil
1/3 Cup liquid non-dairy creamer or milk (flavored or plain)
2/3 Cup sugar
3 teaspoons (1 Tablespoon) ground French Roast coffee (Turkish ground)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon dark molasses
2 Cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a bowl, combine oil, creamer, sugar, coffee, vanilla, and molasses. If using a thick creamer, mix 50/50 with water to thin for a total 1/3 Cup. Stir ingredients until incorporated. Add the remaining dry ingredients and stir until mixed evenly.

Bake on a cookie sheet for 12-15 minutes. Makes 1 1/2 dozen 2" cookies.

This dough is safe (and delicious) to eat raw.

Lemon Lavender Cake with Lemon Icing

This is an easy recipe that uses plain, non-fat yogurt and safflower oil, with just a little butter to fill out the flavor notes. I used culinary lavender from Lost Mountain Lavender Farm in Sequim, Washington. If you are a fan of lavender, you can experience the best-smelling festival around: the Sequim Lavender Festival, which happens each year in July.

Though our lavender is spectacular here in Washington, our citrus is less  wonderful. For this reason, I had something called "volcano lemon burst" on hand instead of actual lemon. Volcano Lemon Burst comes in a plastic lemon-shaped container; it's a blend of water, lemon juice, and lemon oil. Since I didn't have any lemon zest or lemon oil for this recipe, it was a good choice for this cake. You could use fresh lemon and its zest, if you have them.

The other ingredients are available year-round, allowing a taste of summer any time the winter blues get to you.

Cake Ingredients:

1 TBL unsalted butter

1/4 C oil

1 C white sugar

2 medium eggs

½ tsp vanilla extract

2 C all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½  tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 C plain yogurt

1 ½ TBL dried lavender flowers

¼ C lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 12 Cup bundt pan.

Cream butter, oil, and sugar. Add in eggs and beat until mixed, about 1 minute.

Mix dry ingredients except for the lavender. Add the dry mixture into the oil-sugar mixture, alternately with yogurt. Do not overmix. Fold in lemon juice and the lavender.

Bake for 1hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool completely before removing it from the pan. When cool, drizzle on the glaze. (See recipe below.)

If you cover the cake (such as putting it in a cake carrier or covered container) before the icing sets completely, the icing will wrinkle slightly.

     

Lemon sugar glaze

For the sugar glaze:

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

2 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon lemon juice

A pinch of dried lavender flowers

Prepare the glaze:

Combine the powdered sugar, milk and lemon juice in a small bowl. Stir with a rubber spatula until the glaze is smooth and of drizzling consistency. Spoon the glaze over the top of each slightly cooled cake, letting some run down unevenly on the sides. Sprinkle the lavender decoratively over the tops of the glaze and serve.