Apple Cranberry Crisp

What do you do when apples are 69 cents a pound? You make apple crisp, apple pie, apple anything, that's what! I added a half bag (6oz) of fresh cranberries, and replaced the regular white flour with Trader Joe's light whole wheat flour. With all the brown sugar and butter, you can't even tell it's healthy! Err...

Thanksgiving Part II : Potato Croquettes

Maybe because I'm getting older, but Thanksgiving dinner didn't totally do it for me this year. I had a whole list of these extravagant dishes to make (homemade pie, pumpkin soufflé, fresh cranberry relish) but as I always say, when it rains it pours and so I spent (or wasted) the beginning of the week running around. Anyway, the weekend isn't over, so I plan on spending the next few days trying to revamp the same old leftovers. First up, are potato croquettes, inspired by Bitchin' Kitchen's recipe.

Scallion Pancakes

Warming up the kitchen for Turkey Day! I tried this recipe but be warned - you will need almost twice the amount of flour the recipe calls for. Instead of 1 1/4 flour, start with 2 cups, and go from there. Instead of lard, which I believe the original pancakes are made from, this uses oil, so the dough is more like a pizza dough, instead of a flaky pancake. Not as greasy like the ones from the restaurants, but cripsy on the outside and fluffy on the inside with a subtle scallion flavor.

necessity (boredom/hunger/desperation?) is the mother of invention

I wanted to try caramelizing some onions. Yup, this is a pretty normal Sunday for me, guys. Like the dinner rolls from my last post, they require a lot of time and patience. Too high, the onions are half raw / half burnt, too low, you'll be waiting for ever. These were done in about 45 minutes. With no burger to top, I toasted a piece of 12 grain bread, spread on some cream cheese and topped with the onions. It tasted so good, I almost felt guilty. Almost.

What foods have you thrown together in a moment of desperation?

beginner dinner rolls

Every year, stores and TV commercials seem to start with the Christmas music and shopping earlier and earlier. This year is no exception. Instead of grumbling about it, I've decided to embrace it and try to recreate some of that magical Christmas feeling that was so easy to have as a kid, but has sharply declined each year. The holidays are all about baking and while I plan on trying my hand at cinnamon buns, a perfect pie crust and something (anything) with pumpkin in it, I stumbled upon this recipe and thought it good practice for working with yeast.

There is no milk needed, which was good because my cat decided to drink the last of mine, and no buttermilk needed as well (who really has buttermilk on hand?) The dough came together very easily, you only need a bowl and a spoon. The hardest part was waiting... first 2 hours in the fridge, then an 1 1/2 half after you make the individual rolls. But they were worth it - nice sturdy mounds of bread-y goodness, spread with cold butter and raspberry jam. I quickly down 3 in a few minutes. Now all I need to learn is to let the dough have its time to rise...

baked cheese rangoons: who needs fried?

It's been one of those weekends. An attempt at french onion soup was satisfying in taste (sweet and buttery) but lacking in color . But these - my new addiction - came out very nicely. The deep fried ones from your local chinese takeout are so good but so bad, so I looked for a baked alternative. Hardly any fat is needed. Two ingredients: wonton wrappers and cream cheese. Some people use duck sauce, but I like my condiments to be made out of real food and not chemicals, so I tried a mix of Sriracha sauce and apricot jam. The result: the best sweet and spicy sauce I've ever had. No joke.

roast chicken

My first roast chicken - I bought the Halal version because it says it's free of antibiotics. The downside was the head was attached and the poor thing just looked so sad and pathetic, I almost became a vegetarian right there. But um... back to the recipe! I based mine off Thomas Keller's which is so simple it seems almost wrong. Making sure the chicken is very dry after washing, and not adding extra liquids or basting during roasting, he says, makes for a crispier skin. But I couldn't leave well enough alone, and threw some root vegetables in the pan, and stuffed the chicken with garlic and lemon. A weird fact, the lemon turns the garlic an unnatural bluish green! The skin still came out very cripsy the white meat very juicy and the dark meat falling off the bone. A pretty successful first try, if I do say so myself.