Banana Muffins with Crystallized Ginger

I know, it's been a week -- a long time to go incommunicado in blog-land. I swear, I have a good reason: I'm busy! Very, very, busy. Also? Very, very stressed: lots of decision-making looms ahead, and being the type of person that can't even decide what to eat for lunch most days means that making real decisions is extremely difficult. But I asked for it, and it's the best type of decision-making to do, choosing between wonderful things. It could be much worse. Good thing I had some banana-nut muffins to soothe me through last week; without them, I would have simply melted under the pressure.
I mentioned this when I made the Red Fire Brownies, but I'll say it again: although I'm not the type of person to throw a recipe together from scratch, by my lonesome (with plenty of references, I admit) I'm trying to work on that. I want to be confident in the kitchen, and confidence requires experimentation -- at least in this case. So after making those delicious, almost-fudge brownies, I had to forge ahead and try another recipe of my own creation. It didn't hurt that the brownies were a complete success. I'd been eying Molly's delicious-sounding "Glenn's Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Candied Ginger" for quite some time, but I wasn't that interested in a bread. I wanted something more compact, something easy to eat with one hand while walking to work in the morning, something that required only four large bites to consume. I wanted a muffin. Muffins are one of my favorite types of baked goods, aside from popovers, scones, croissants -- oh, I can't pick a favorite. I like all baked goods equally, especially those made for consumption in the morning, when the dew hasn't yet dried and the air is heavy with promise. But don't get me wrong: these muffins are just as delicious at midnight as they are at six in the morning: they've got a perfect, crunchy exterior that lifts away to reveal a moist, chocolate-filled interior. Crumbs are non-existent: you'll gobble what little there is of them right up, using the last bite of muffin to squeeze them off of your plate. They're absolutely delicious, and I'm not kidding when I say that you'll make a batch and soon regret not doubling or tripling the batter. The chocolate and nuts are ordinary additions to most banana muffins (or to banana bread, for that matter) but the ginger brings out the sweetness of the chocolate and provides a wonderful contrast to the bits of walnuts strewn about in the muffin. These three ingredients dot the inside of the muffin with an array of pleasing tastes and textures, and the banana provides a smooth underlying note of sweetness, enveloping the entire muffin with a mildly fruity, pleasing taste.

Banana Nut Muffins with Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger
Begin by bringing all ingredients to 70º. This prevents them from seizing up when they're mixed together. Cold eggs, especially, tend to "freak out" when they're beaten with sugar and butter, making your batter tough. Besides, it's nearly impossible to cream cold butter: I dare you to try it. If you succeed, your muffins won't: they'll turn out rough and brittle, scattering crumbs every which way while you try to eat the darn things.
Preheat the oven to 400º and grease a muffin tin with six spots. This recipe makes only six glorious muffins, which is why I recommend doubling or even tripling the size; however, I'd caution against using just one muffin tin for multiple batches without cooling it down completely between sets. These have just the right amount of crunch in their crust, and putting the batter into a hot pan would give them too much of a hard outer shell, in my opinion.
Now we're ready to get our hands dirty. Start by creaming 1/2 a cup of sugar with 1/2 a stick of butter (that's 1/4 cup for all of you with fancy butter like mine) and 1 large egg. In a separate bowl, mash 1 large, ripe banana and stir in 1-1/2 tablespoons of milk. Speaking of ripe bananas, you can take ripened (to the point of nearly rotten) bananas and chuck them right into the freezer until you're ready to bake with them. Simply remove them from the freezer a bit before you're going to bake and allow them to thaw. The fruit will slide right out of the jacket in a slippery mess. Once they are completely thawed, the bananas are very easy to mash.
In a third bowl, sift together 1 cup of unbleached all-purpose flour, 1/2 a teaspoon baking powder, and 1/4 a teaspoon baking soda. Mix half of the flour mixture into the creamed butter, sugar, and egg; then, add the bananas and milk and stir until just combined. Stir in the remaining flour. Be sure not to overmix the batter -- that makes the resulting muffin tough and unappetizing. Once the batter is combined, fold in 3 tablespoons of crystallized ginger, reserving an additional tablespoon to top the muffins, along with 1/3 a cup of chopped walnuts and 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of chocolate chips. I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chips with fantastic results -- they've got a slightly flowery taste and are cloyingly mellow. Next time I make these, however, I'm going to use another Vosges bar: Black Pearl, which has hints of ginger and wasabi. As you may know, I am partial to chopped chocolate -- chips are too uniform for my taste -- and I'm excited to try another one of these delectable savory/sweet chocolate combination bars with these muffins, which are already crammed to the gills with flavor. I only hope that it isn't too overpowering.
After folding in the nuts, chips, and ginger, spoon the batter into your muffin cups. Be sure to fill them nearly to the brim: I like the tops of muffins best of all, and you can only achieve a tasty, puffy top by nearly overfilling the muffin cups. Top the muffins with a sprinkle of sugar and a healthy pinch of crystallized ginger. Bake in the 400º oven for about 25 minutes, removing when they just begin to brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few stray crumbs clinging to its sides. Allow to cool for 5 minutes while still in the pan, then remove and finish cooling on a wire rack. They're absolutely drop-dead-delicious with coffee or tea, by the way.
You can purchase crystallized ginger, also known as candied ginger, at many stores. Spice Island even offers it in a spice jar for your convenience, which means that it's easy to procure at nearly every grocery store. If you're not interested in paying ten dollars for a miniature jar of ginger and you're not able to get to a Trader Joe's or a Whole Foods -- they both sell it for less than Spice Island, naturally -- you can try making your own. It's similar to the process I discussed in the comments section of the Red Fire Brownies for candying hot peppers.
Purchase some fresh ginger at your supermarket. Be on the lookout for thin, tender, evenly-skinned ginger that smells pleasant and feels firm. Spongy ginger should be avoided. Purchasing about 10 ounces of ginger will yield 6 ounces of crystallized ginger, which works out to 12 full tablespoons -- and 12 tablespoons will not seem like enough once you start using the stuff. It can be stored, though, in a cool dry place, so making more than necessary is definitely a good idea. Carefully peel the ginger and remove any rough or darkened spots. In addition, cut off any of the knobs and reserve to use in a separate dish. Cut into long, thin strips -- about 2 inches by 1/8 of an inch -- and poke holes in the flesh with a sharp knife. Place the slices in a bowl filled with 2 cups of sugar and toss to coat.
Heat a heavy-bottomed saucepan and add 1 tablespoon of water to the hot pan. Pour in the ginger and sugar and bring it up to a very low simmer. Keep your eye on the stuff for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Don't allow it to boil; keep the mixture at a very low simmer and on a relatively low heat. After an hour has passed, lower the heat and allow the mixture to simmer again, stirring all the while and separating the slices from one another with your spoon. Soon, the mixture will begin to crystallize and become thick; a rim of sugar will collect around the sides of the pan. The mixture will start to bubble over the surface, at which point you must stir to prevent the mixture from caramelizing. Don't allow the sugar to caramelize -- if it does, you've gone too far and the ginger will be unusable. Stir until the syrup is mostly crystals and you can gather the sugar in the center of the pan in a mound without much liquid escaping. At this point, remove from the heat and continue to toss as it cools, being sure that the slices stay separated. The ginger should separate from the sugar at this point. Lay the ginger on a clean cookie tray or on a plate to cool and store in a dark, dry place.

Red Fire Brownies

Ever since Valentine's day, when D got me those spectacular Vosges truffles, I've been itching to bake with some of their specialty chocolate. They make all sorts of flavors: Red Fire, a kicking combination of Mexican ancho and chipotle chili peppers with Ceylon cinnamon; d'Oliva, Venezuelan white chocolate spiked with dried kalamata olives; Calindia, a rich, dark chocolate bar infused with green cardamom, organic walnuts, and flecked with dried bits of plum. They're expensive -- $7.00 a bar -- but the price is worth it. The second we walked into the store, we were greeted by the only saleswoman, who then proceeded to bring out plates filled with chocolate nibs, trays of chocolate matzos, and crumbly bits of spicy cookies. Every time we glanced at something on the shelf, we were offered a taste -- which meant that we ate about $5.00 worth of chocolate during our short stay.
We settled on one bar and one bag of chocolate chips, which contains an extra ounce of chocolate for a mere $1.50 more. I wanted to make some ultra decadent, fiery brownies, and three ounces of chocolate just wasn't going to be enough. Obviously, we chose the Red Fire chips: a compact white bag of chocolate discs that smelled hot before the bag was even opened. The bar that we bought is Black Pearl (an intensely dark, spicy brick of chocolate, ginger, wasabi, and sesame seeds) which I'll be using on another batch of banana nut muffins with chocolate chips and candied ginger -- stay tuned for that delicious post. I've never made more successful muffins. Ever. And I'm extremely excited to notch up their flavor even more with the black pearl chocolate.
As I mentioned, the Red Fire chocolate is a rich, dark chocolate -- vegan and gluten free, by the way -- that contains flecks of both ancho and chipotle chili peppers. The moderate cacao content of this particular chocolate (55%) makes it less intensely bitter than, say, their Oaxaca chocolate, which is also made with chili peppers but contains a much lower percentage of sugar. I find their Oaxaca flavor a bit bland, as a matter of fact -- the amount of sugar really contrasts with the chilies in the Red Fire, heightening the sensation that one is eating something simultaneously sweet and hot. In the Oaxaca blend, the lower ratio of sugar to spice kind of dulls that sensation. The texture, too, of the Red Fire bar is superior to any other chocolate I've tasted. The chilies are carefully crushed, and they bring a layer of roughness to the smooth chocolate. This roughness didn't translate into the brownies, exactly, but the spiciness certainly did. I would have liked to have added some more chili peppers directly into the batter -- the chips come with a recipe for BB Brooklyn Red Fire Brownies that includes freshly ground Guajillo chilies (along with 10 whole ounces of the Red Fire chocolate, a huge amount compared to my recipe, which contains a paltry 4 oz.) -- but I didn't have those peppers on hand, and I wasn't going to make a separate trip for one teaspoon of chili peppers. Besides, I was trying my hand at creating my own brownie recipe, a task that I believe was extremely successful. While I do love experimenting in the kitchen, I'm often afraid to deviate too far from any given recipe, especially when I'm baking. This weekend, though, was a nice break from that standard: I hauled out eight or ten cookbooks and compared all the brownie recipes (as well as all the muffin recipes, for those aforementioned banana muffins) and was able to concoct a recipe of my very own. It was quite simple, actually: especially for something like brownies or muffins, the recipes are all going to be about the same. There are slight differences in the amount of eggs and sugar, sure, and the temperatures and cooking times are bound to be different, but it's not too difficult to pull apart the pieces and end up with something that works. So, without further ado: Red Fire Brownies. And as a quick aside: if you can't find Vosges Chocolate in your area (it's a Chicago-based brand, with few stores outside of the Chicago area: there's one in New York City, London, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Las Vegas) it's available to purchase online at their website: http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/. They recommend using 2-day air shipping, however, because the chocolates may melt in transit, so be ready to pay a good deal for shipping. Or! You could always ask me to pick some up for you and send it out: I'm more than happy for an excuse to go back to their store. If you're in the Chicago area, I urge you to stop by: they have a Michigan Ave. location at 520 North, which is small but has everything edible that they sell in stock, and the staff is both knowledgeable and extremely friendly. There's also a larger store at 951 W. Armitage in Lincoln Park, which stocks clothing and yoga gear in addition to the chocolates.

Red Fire Brownies
This is a fairly simple brownie recipe that requires little beyond melting some chocolate and butter, stirring it into a few eggs and sugar, and adding just a bit of flour and a few handfuls of nuts to round everything out. The results, though, are far from mundane: using the red fire chocolate and adding an additional swig of cinnamon and cayenne pepper makes these brownies deliciously complex, with a crunchy outer shell and a gooey, fudge-like center. The addition of two eggs makes the batter even gooier than a standard brownie, which creates a pool of spicy chocolate that quite literally melts in your mouth. Eating them warm only enhances the sensation that you're doing something terribly, terribly naughty, but they're just as good chilled -- and they stay together much better after they've cooled completely. I imagine the perfect dessert would be one of these brownies topped with a heaping scoop of cinnamon ice cream, drowned in extra melted chocolate, and garnished with a single dried red pepper.
Before you begin working with the ingredients, remove two eggs from the fridge and preheat the oven to 350º. You want the eggs to be at about 70º before you begin baking; otherwise, they'll begin to cook when you add the warm chocolate to the egg mixture. You will cool down the chocolate a bit before adding it to the batter, so this isn't too dire; however, if you forget to remove the eggs from the fridge in time, simply bathe them in a bowl of warm water for about 5 to 10 minutes until they're no longer chilly to the touch.
Begin by melting 4 ounces of Vosges Red Fire chocolate chips with 1/2 a cup of butter cut into squares. Do this over a double boiler. If you don't own a double boiler, make your own by placing a glass or metal bowl on top of a saucepan filled halfway with water. Just be sure that your homemade double boiler works properly by not allowing the bottom of the bowl to touch the top of the water. Another good double-boiler tip is to make sure that the water doesn't actually boil: you don't want to make your chocolate hotter than about 115º, so be careful when you heat the pot. Good chocolate melts at about 93º -- just below body temperature -- so it's not essential to heat it up that much to get it to melt properly. Melting chocolate isn't as easy as it seems: you can't get it too hot, as I mentioned, because that will begin to separate the cocoa solids from the cocoa butter, streaking the chocolate gray and making it grainy and unappetizing. Also, you must take great care to never allow any moisture to touch the chocolate as it melts: this is one reason that you shouldn't boil the water in the double-boiler: steam will rise and hit the chocolate, causing it to seize up and behave as if it was overheated.
Once most of the chocolate pieces have melted, remove the bowl from the hot saucepan and discard the water so that any remaining steam won't permeate the chocolate. It will continue to melt even after it has been removed from the heat source, so don't be alarmed if there are some small chunks of chocolate swimming about: like I mentioned before, you want to err on the side of cool chocolate rather than chocolate that's been overheated. Allow the mixture to cool -- if you add it to the eggs and sugar while it's still hot, your brownies will turn out heavy and dry rather than rich and gooey.
While the chocolate cools, rapidly beat two eggs and a pinch (less than 1/4 teaspoon) of salt in a large bowl with a whisk, until the mixture is light and foamy. At this point, I also added two shakes of cinnamon and two shakes of cayenne pepper. To the foamy eggs, gradually add 1 cup of white sugar -- I like to use superfine sugar. In baking, sugar is technically a liquid ingredient, and the finer it is, the less likely you are to end up with grainy bits in your brownies. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and continue to whisk until the mixture is smooth.
With just a few quick strokes of the spoon, mix in the melted chocolate. Even if you use an electric mixer for everything, this recipe is best mixed by hand -- not literally, of course, but by using a spoon or spatula -- because using a mixer can easily lead to over-beating. Before the mixture is entirely combined and becomes a uniform color, fold in 1/2 a cup of sifted flour. Folding the mixture carefully is a key to creating the right texture brownie. Before the mixture is entirely combined again, add 1/2 a cup of chopped nuts -- walnuts are a wonderful addition to any brownie, and in this recipe they add a wholesome flavor and welcome texture to an otherwise bold kick of fudge-like chocolate. You could also add 1 to 2 teaspoons of chopped dried red chili pepper at this point, which I will certainly do the next time I make these.
Bake at 350º for 25 to 30 minutes -- mine needed the entire time -- in a 9-inch round pan or an 8x8 inch square pan. Check out this handy pan size conversion chart for more pan sizes you could use at baking911.
Pan size, by the way, is very important when baking: using a smaller pan will result in brownies that are over or under cooked, too flat or too puffy, and can create a disaster out of a perfectly great recipe. When they're cooked, remove from the oven (they should still yield to pressure, however -- you want a soft brownie, not a brick) and allow them to cool for 10 to 20 minutes in the pan, then remove and allow to cool completely on a wire rack, if possible -- my brownies were much too gooey when warm, even after 20 minutes cooling, but I was impatient and they were certainly cooked through. I love eating brownies straight from the oven. These brownies in particular are a treat to eat while hot because it adds another layer to the spice and heat. And the chili peppers? Wonderful. Addictive, even. They really make the chocolate taste richer and sweeter than you could imagine. I only wish they had even more of a kick -- perhaps next time I'll throw in a few more shakes of cayenne pepper and a few minuscule squares of chili to really spice things up.

Irish Soda Bread

The Joy of Cooking should be in every kitchen -- although some of the techniques and recipes are extremely outdated (I don't know anyone who really needs instructions on how to properly skin a seal and save the blubber) most of the information is relevant to the modern cook. It's especially helpful if you're looking for a basic recipe to build upon: their soup chapter, for example, is fabulous and offers unlimited opportunity to tweak and refine, which is something I often do in the kitchen. I'm especially partial to their chapter on Breads and Coffee Cakes, especially the Quick Breads section. In fact, most of their baking instructions are both simple and methodical, offering opportunity to experiment but retaining the essentials. Baking is basically chemistry, and I'm always concerned that a key part of my experiment will go awry if I deviate too much, but nothing that I've ever made from this cookbook has turned out wrong.
I mentioned their Quick Breads section, and I have to say that I'm quite averse to using yeast in doughs. It's not because I don't like it, per say, it just seems kind of frightening to me. I've branched out a bit recently: I've been making some pizza dough with surprising success that contains yeast, and I'm going to try a real loaf of bread at some point in the near future. I must conquer my fear of baking with yeast! I love baking, though, and I love breads, so I've made a whole slew of these quick breads from Joy. They're easy, fast, and most of them don't include yeast. Score! I always have success with their Zucchini Bread, and their Banana Bread recipe is great (although a bit boring, considering that there are banana breads out there that sound much more enticing. Ones with candied ginger and coconut. Hold me!) I have yet to try many of these quick loafs, however: honey bread, Sally Lunn (described as light and brioche-like) or Gugelhupf (which has white raisins in it!)
Last year for St. Patrick's day we made their quick Irish Soda bread, and it was both simple and fantastic. We'll certainly make it again this year, but with a few minor tweaks: I recall it being a bit bland. I will probably use a combination of butter and shortening instead of just shortening and I'll put in an extra pinch or two of sugar and salt. Also, this time I'll use real buttermilk: I have a habit of mixing white vinegar with regular milk to make buttermilk (did you know this trick? It works, but it's not as great -- at all -- as pure buttermilk. Simply add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to each 1 cup milk and stir. Allow it to sit on the counter for 10 to 15 minutes until the milk thickens: instant buttermilk!) I'll probably throw in an extra handful of raisins (which the recipe calls for instead of currants, a more traditional ingredient in Irish soda bread) and a few more caraway seeds for good measure. On the whole, though, this bread was extremely easy to make and has a wonderful texture. It's pretty hearty, and the recipe makes a gigantic loaf, so I might split it in half this time around: an 8-inch-round loaf that rises a few inches is a lot of bread for two people.

Quick Irish Soda Bread
Begin by preheating the oven to 375º and greasing an 8-inch round loaf pan. I always use a springform pan when I bake, not because it's any easier to deal with (although it is much easier to remove the bread from the pan!) but because I own three of them, in varying sizes. They were on sale and cost less than just buying one! How fortuitious. I recommend using a springform pan if you have one, because as I said before: it makes removing the bread extremely easy, but it's not necessary: a normal loaf pan should do just fine. Keep in mind, though, that the traditional way to serve Irish soda bread is in a round. I'm not sure why, exactly, but it's the traditional shape. Most likely because it's an easy shape to make. In case you were wondering, there are two types of traditional Irish soda bread: the round, which is crossed on the top in order to allow the loaf to expand, and a flat variety, called farl, which is found only in Northern Ireland.
As the oven preheats, mix together the following dry ingredients: 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, 1-1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1 tablespoon sugar. As I said above, I may tweak this a bit, adding an extra pinch or two of the sugar and salt the next time around. I'm not sure, though -- I'm always afraid to mess with recipes like this! It's hard for me to tell what parts of it are integral to the "chemistry" aspect of baking and what parts are more malleable.
The next part of this recipe calls for chilled shortening, which is always a bit of a bugger. I keep my shortening in the pantry -- cool, but not chilly, by any means. So when I have to chill it, I simply measure the amount I need and pop it in the freezer for a few minutes until it's cold. In this case, I'll measure out 1/4 cup of shortening. After it's sufficiently chilly, cut it into the flour with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles cornmeal. As you probably guessed, I use my KitchenAid stand mixer for this and have never had any issues. What a great friend that little monster is! After the dough looks crumbly enough, add 1/2 a cup to 1 cup raisins (err on the side of too many, folks) and 2 teaspoons caraway seeds -- again, maybe 2 heaping teaspoons. On the side, mix together 1 egg and 2/3 a cup of buttermilk. Add to the dry ingredients and combine, but do not overmix. Overmixing causes the dough to be tough, resulting in a funny texture. Once the mixture is just combined, place the dough on a surface and knead, lightly, until the dough is smooth (or as smooth as it can possibly be, what with all the raisins and caraway seeds that are in there.) Place the dough in your greased pan and press down so it fills the pan entirely. With a knife, cut a "bold cross" in the top of the loaf -- this helps the bread expand and prevents cracking -- and brush the entire top with milk. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the loaf has risen and is lightly browned.
This bread is an excellent accompaniment to stew or soup and is a delightful morning treat. It has to be eaten fairly quickly -- within two or three days -- due to the small air pockets in the loaf (formed by the reaction of the baking powder with the buttermilk, which has lactic acid in it) but you can stretch its life by toasting slices for breakfast.

Clarendon Hills Whipped Butter

Butter. I love butter. I suppose that's a given -- most people are at least fond of butter, but I? I write poems about butter, I dream about butter, I find myself constantly thinking about it at inappropriate times and in strange places, like on the El.... I'm stretching. I'm not a butter fiend, by any means, and I don't think I've had a butter-based dream for quite some time, now, but in any case: butter and I go way back. We're pals. Oh, sometimes we get into the occasional squabble, and I swear never to speak to it again, but a few days later? I'm back with my knife and bread, ready to kiss and make up.
Of course, we're not talking about any old kind of butter here. No, if I'm going to smother something in butter, it's got to be goooood butter. Land-O-Lakes is fine and all, if you're having a butter emergency, but my preference? Clarendon Hills Whipped Butter. Call me needlessly fancy if you must, but I love this butter. It comes wrapped in a sheet of parchment paper in an irregularly shaped 8-ounce block, with no other indications of measurement. It's old-fashioned, really, because my whole life I've been accustomed to standard butter: four neat rectangles wrapped in parchment, stamped by the tablespoon, and snugly packed into a bright yellow box. Until Clarendon Hills, I'd never seen anything different. It is nothing like standard butter, and it tastes nothing like it, either.
This butter is made in Wisconsin, and labeled "Wis. Grade AA." Not being an expert on food codes, I did a little sleuthing and found, unsurprisingly, that in Wisconsin, Grade AA butter indicates a superior breed of butter. It possesses the highly pleasing butter flavor required, has only a slight (I taste none, but I'm not a butter expert, by any means) taste of feed and/or culture. For comparison, Grade B butter is described thusly: "It may possess any of the following flavors to a slight degree: malty, musty, neutralizer, scorched, utensil, weed and whey. It may possess any of the following flavors to a definite degree: acid, aged, bitter, coarse, flat, smothered, storage and old cream." Oooo, bitter-acid-storage butter! I love that stuff! I just can't get enough of that scorched old cream taste! Clearly, Grade AA is the "creme de la creme" of butters, at least by Wisconsin's standard.
They sell this stuff at Treasure Island, which is a great "European-style" grocery store in Chicago. There's one right in D's office building, so although it's a bit more expensive than Dominick's (which is just shy of out-of-the way on the walk home) he'll stop there sometimes after work to get us some food -- especially if we need butter. They have a small but thorough produce section and lots of different types of hard-to-find foods (we were able, by the way, to purchase some olivada -- black olive paste -- there, as I originally thought.) Unfortunately, they don't have a functioning website (it's been "under construction" for quite some time) but if you find that you're lacking something strange and generically European in your pantry, they most likely have it there. And they carry Clarendon Hills butter, which makes it worthy of a special trip. Just for the butter. And if you walk there, you might be able to work off the calories that you'd consume after baking some cookies with this rich, creamy, Grade AA butter. By the way: while it's wonderful for baking, it's good in any recipe that calls for butter or margarine. Try it on these thin chocolate chip cookies, then move on to baked dijon chicken (substitute it for the oil) and smashed potatoes. Speaking of potatoes: just throw a hunk of this stuff on top of a baked potato with a salad on the side and you have yourself the tastiest quick meal known to man. I'm serious.

Scalloped Potatoes

It was so foggy out on my walk home yesterday that I could barely see past the tip of my nose. It certainly made for interesting travel, although it was a bit dangerous -- I nearly got smashed by a bicyclist, a bus, and two cabs in my short walk from the bus stop to my apartment. I'd say that I have to be a bit more careful, but this was all on them: stop driving so quickly without paying attention to lights and traffic signals and people! Just because you're riding around in a metal box doesn't mean it's safe to speed.
Anyhow. The fog makes me sad -- it's so drippy and dreary and downright depressing that it's hard to do anything with that outside the window. It wasn't pretty fog, either -- just a mass of grey-white wetness. I am so ready for this weather to disappear, by the way. Where's the sun? Where's my promised early spring, Mr. Groundhog?! While I wait, I'll busy myself with some more winter food -- time is running out for those heavy, oven-intensive casserole type dishes. There's a bright side to every foggy day, and yesterday, that bright side was found in a hot dish of scalloped potatoes. We used to make these when I was growing up, and they're major comfort food. Just the smell makes me feel cozy, like I'm sitting in front of a fireplace with my favorite book, curled up like a cat. Is it time to go home and get under the covers, yet?
Although this is a slightly time-intensive recipe for what amounts to a side dish, it's well worth the effort. We ate the entire thing in one sitting -- but we made a half-recipe, so I suppose that's fair. It's really not all that bad for you, especially since I used skim milk and only two tablespoons of butter instead of the required four. It took me about an hour and a half, from start to finish -- that's with about 45 minutes in the oven, mind you, so it really only took 45 minutes of pure kitchen work and an additional 45 of agonized waiting.
This is a slight adaptation of Julia Child's recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1 (page 523) and the only change I made was adding a middle layer of caramelized onions. Since we only had half of a bag of potatoes -- remember those rainbow beauties I used for the potato soup? -- I was working with a smaller amount of food that I needed to succeed. So I added an onion to the dish to round it out and give it more heft, and by golly, it totally worked; in fact, I think the onion might have been the best part of the whole dish. She calls them Gratin Dauphinois [Scalloped Potatoes with Milk, Cheese, and a Pinch of Garlic]. The garlic, by the way? Totally can't taste it. It's kind of a pointless step, actually, and the only thing it did was make my hands smell like garlic for the rest of the night. But I actually like that.

Scalloped Potatoes with Caramelized Onion
Begin by preheating the oven to 425º.
Slice a medium sized white or yellow onion into long thin strips -- I do this by halving it, taking off the outer layer of tough skin, and slicing it into sections from the tip down towards the root with your knife parallel to the cutting board. Don't slice through the root, however -- it holds the onion together and makes it easier to chop. Besides, it's one of the juiciest parts of the onion and caramelizes wonderfully. After slicing it down the middle, bring your knife to the top, rounded part of the onion and slice into thin strips from the side to the middle and back to the other side. Halfway through the process, your knife will be at a 90º with the board and the onion. It's hard to explain; perhaps I'll take some photos next time.
Heat a heavy frying pan on the stove and add about a tablespoon of butter. When the foam begins to subside, add the onions to the pot. They should make a satisfying sizzle when they hit the pan; if not, the butter wasn't hot enough. This is a trick to master in the kitchen, the butter/foam/heat skill, because the foam is an indication of how hot the butter is. See this wonderful post from cookthink for more details and procedures regarding heating butter over the stove. Throw a pinch or two of salt on the onions -- it helps them sweat, releasing their juices and allowing them to steam -- and cover the pan. Lower the heat to medium-low and allow the onions to cook while you chop the potatoes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. If they do begin to burn, simply turn the heat down and stir more often.
Child suggests that you peel the 2-1/2 pounds of potatoes, and if I were using russets or something with a tougher skin, I would go with that advice; however, I had those little rainbow babies that just look better skin-on -- and the blue potatoes made the top of my dish look extra-crispy, to the point of being burned, but they weren't burned at all: just blue! Slice them thinly: 1/8 of an inch, maximum, but thinner, if you can. After they are sliced, place them in a bowl filled with cold water and allow them to soak. When you are ready to use them, strain and dry with paper towels.
You need a heavy, shallow baking dish for this recipe, three inches deep, maximum, and about eight inches in diameter. Grab a clove of garlic and cut in half. Rub the garlic on the inside of the pan. Next, coat the inside of the pan with about 1 teaspoon of butter. Remove the potatoes from the water and dry with a towel. Layer half the potatoes on the bottom of the baking dish and top with a shake of salt, a nice dose of fresh ground pepper, and 1/4 cup of grated swiss cheese. I actually used fontina, a cows-milk cheese from Italy, which has a smoky, rich, and creamy flavor. Dot with about a tablespoon of butter, divided. Top this with the caramelized onions, which should be done enough at this point -- they'll be light brown in color (perhaps with a few dark spots where they burned, which is fine) and soft.
Layer the rest of the potatoes over the onions and season as you did with the first layer, with salt and pepper. Top with the remainder of the grated cheese and another tablespoon of butter, dotted across the top. Set the entire dish aside. Measure out about 1/2 to 3/4 a cup of milk -- I used skim, which turned out excellently, but obviously whole would be tastier -- and pour into a saucepan. Heat the milk, whisking all the while, until it boils, then pour it over the potatoes.
Pop the potatoes into the oven for about 35 to 45 minutes, testing after you reach the 35 minute marker. The potatoes will be perfectly soft all the way through with no resistance or firmness when they hit your fork. When they're soft throughout, the dish is ready to serve. D added a dash of red pepper flakes for flavor as he ate them, but they're just as delicious with no extras -- I know, because that's how I ate mine.
I can see why Child's cookbook is slightly daunting after completing this recipe. Although it's fairly simple fare when all is said and done the task of slicing those potatoes as thinly as possible -- with a substandard knife -- was difficult, but well worth the effort. I suppose that's why she begins her book thusly:

This is a book for the serventless American cook who can be unconcerned on occasion with budgets, waistlines, time-schedules, children's meals, the parent-chauffeur-den-mother syndrome, or anything else which might interfere with the enjoyment of producing something wonderful to eat. (Child, Julia, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1961, 523.)

I may be serventless, but I certainly am concerned with both my budget and my waistline, as well as my time-schedule. Whatever that may be. Still, though, this was a fairly inexpensive dish, and it tasted so fabulous that I feel no guilt over my plans to make it as soon as I get more potatoes in my house -- which may be tomorrow.

Blonde Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I've been fantasizing about these this squeeky-looking tart from Orangette -- can't you just feel your teeth biting down on that beauty? The texture just looks amazing -- dry, spongy, with some resistance in the mouth... and without consulting my brain, I ran home to make it after work yesterday. Unfortunate news: there's a severe chocolate drought in my apartment. Sure, we have a package of frozen thin mints, and the requisite container of Ghirardelli's hot chocolate mix, but that's about it. Certainly no chocolate bars, dutch cocoa powder, or chocolate wafers -- all key ingredients in this delicious tart. So I had to revise. Dramatically.
I couldn't have picked a more drastically different dessert to bake: oatmeal raisin cookies. It's a standard recipe -- you can find it on the underside of any container-top for Quaker Quick Oats. They call it a "vanishing" cookie, and I see why: they're perfectly bite-sized rounds, have a roughly pleasing texture, and can be eaten straight from the oven. Next-day, they're still soft in the center and not a bit crumbly. In fact, I just ate one right now, in two quick bites. They've got a slightly smoky flavor, which comes from the cinnamon and large amount of brown sugar. I could eat these for every meal, especially breakfast. They're perfect with a cup of coffee or hot tea. And they take no time: in less than a half hour after my flash of cookie-baking genius, I was eating them. The tart, while easy, would have taken much more effort. I will bake it, though, as I can't stop thinking about the texture that I'm sure it must have. It seems to be the perfect chocolate tart.

Blonde Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Let me begin by explaining the "blonde" part. I'm a big raisin fan: I like juicy and plumply dark rounds from California especially, but there's a soft spot in my heart for golden raisins. They're tangier and more complex than an ordinary dark raisin, and I try to keep some around. They're excellent in couscous, divine in salads, and can be used in sweeter dishes as well -- like oatmeal cookies. In addition, they match the oatmeal well, creating a cookie that looks much plainer than it tastes. It's such a surprise to bite down on a cookie and be greeted by this delicious fruit.
Begin by preheating the oven to 350º. In a large bowl, beat together 1/2 a cup of softened butter, 1/2 a cup of brown sugar (I used light brown sugar, which is more delicate-tasting than dark) and 1/4 cup of white sugar. I always use extra-fine sugar for baking. Since sugar is technically a liquid ingredient, I want to help it melt as best I can by using smaller grains.
When the sugars and butter are combined into a creamy, slightly crumbly mixture, add one egg and 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla. I know that I should be using real vanilla beans when I bake, but I can't bring myself to pay for the darn things. I'm sure the cost is worth it, but... like Deb over at Smitten Kitchen says, I'm afraid to turn over to the dark side of vanilla. Once I use the real thing, I'm sure I'll never be able to turn back. Besides, I just bought a new container of extract last week! Shame on me.
After beating the mixture to a fine batter, add 3/4 a cup all-purpose flour (I sifted mine, but that's optional. I think it makes the cookie airier) with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon. The recipe also says to add 1/4 teaspoon salt, but I skipped it. It would probably add more depth and flavor, but I just didn't feel like adding it. After mixing well, stir in 1-1/2 cups of oats (not instant! quick or old-fashioned oats are what you need here) and 1/2 a cup of golden raisins. Stir until combined.
The batter at this point is fairly rough and pliable, thanks to the oats. This makes it easy to drop onto the cookie sheet in standard-looking rounds. I do this with a tablespoon, but I've seen people do it with a small ice-cream scoop. With the tablespoon full of batter in one hand, I wedge a second spoon along the edge of the batter to drop the round onto an ungreased cookie sheet. They can be fairly close together, as they don't tend to spread very much.
Bake for 11 minutes until just slightly golden on top. I mentioned this the last time I spoke about cookies, but I'll say it again: your cookies will not look done when they're ready to come out of the oven. They continue to cook after being removed, so take them out right when they start to brown on top. Be sure that they're all one solid piece, though -- the bottom shouldn't stick to the cookie sheet. If it does, they need more time.
Cool for about 2 minutes while they're still on the cookie sheet, then remove and place on a wire rack to finish cooling. After those two minutes, though, they're ready to eat. They might be hot, but the centers will be deliciously gooey. Try it: hot cookies never hurt anyone. You could also make bar cookies out of this by spreading the batter in an ungreased 13x9 baking pan and baking for 30 to 35 minutes. The recipe makes about 24 cookies, but they're small.

Saturday Night Apple Cake

I have this darling little cookbook (I've mentioned it before) that we picked up at a local book fair last summer, and it's been... well, collecting dust ever since I traded over a dollar for it. Why? It's weird. It's the Congressional Club Cookbook from 1970 -- the eighth edition -- and while it's an entertaining jaunt into the past, it's full of jello molds, tuna casseroles, and ingredients like Oleo (from what I can gather, a particular brand of margarine.) It's a great treasure trove of the odd stuff our elected officials used to eat, supposedly, and includes some nifty tidbits: charts outlining the chain of command and where to seat specific members of the house, senate, and their wives (senate wives outrank house members) and what to do when the President invites you to dine at the White House. Never decline the invitation, even if you had other plans: just write the people you're brushing off a letter explaining that you've been invited to dine with the President, and naturally, that is more important than anything else you may have committed to.
It's a neat cookbook, but like I said -- hard to find something I'd actually want to eat in its pages. So when we decided, once and for all, to just use the darn thing this past Saturday, I was thrilled to find a recipe for Saturday Night Apple Cake. Perfect! We had a busy and full day -- complete with a ridiculously delicious lunch and a milkshake at the Eleven City Diner (I hadn't had a milkshake in years, people, and it was fabulous: supposedly one of the best shakes in Chicago, and I agree) and I was in no mood for a heavy dinner. So we settled on this apple cake -- which I imagined would turn out much like a zucchini or banana bread, but it is much sticker -- and some matzo ball soup. And the best part? The apple cake was perfect for Sunday morning breakfast. Can I just brag, for a second, about how wonderful yesterday was? The sleet mushed about outside, and we were so cozy with our two newspapers and our apple cake and an Oscar-nominated movie that there was no need to go out. By the way: Last King of Scotland? Great movie, but... I covered my eyes at the end, there. Also, I cried -- not tears of sadness, but tears of ohmygod no one would ever actually do that to another human, right? (wrong, by the way.) I recommend it -- although the plot was too predictable (I kept calling out what was going to happen, which is an annoying habit of mine) it was very well done and Forrest Whitaker totally deserved that Oscar. What an actor.
In any case, apple cake is good. And it's brought to us by Mrs. Mark O. Hatfield, the wife of the senator from Oregon (in 1970, obviously.) The women don't use their real names; in fact, they don't even sign their recipes with their name, only with the name of their husbands. Because no one knows (or cares) who they are. They just make the food, behind closed kitchen doors. And after the dinner was finished, the men took out their cigars and began yammering... and the women retreated, back to the kitchen, for a Virginia Slims cigarette and coffee. Their advertisement on the cookbook's paste-down says it all:
Saturday Night Apple Cake
Begin by creaming 3 tablespoons of shortening. Add 1 cup of sugar, gradually, until the mixture is crumbly and well-combined. As usual, I used my KitchenAid for this -- any time I'm making a batter, the KitchenAid gets to play. I'm not one for mixing by hand. When I was a child (and this, I assure you, is a true story) I was instructed to make the batter for a brownie mix. Simple, right? Add the egg, the water, and mix. By hand. I was young, so I interpreted this literally. There was batter everywhere -- a photograph exists as proof. I think that was probably my dog's happiest day alive. The moral of the story? Don't trust me alone in the kitchen.
Add one large egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla to the sugar mixture and beat well. Now, mix in 3 cups of diced firm apples. We used 3 red apples which was plenty, and D diced them into small ( about 1/4 inch) chunks. We wanted some substance to the apples, so we didn't grate them, and we went with red because those looked best at the grocery store. I know most people bake with Granny Smith apples, but... I wanted something sweeter. And the Granny Smiths looked kind of sorry anyhow.
Sift in 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Another quirk of this cookbook, by the way, is that they use soda and baking soda interchangeably. So this recipe, in actuality, calls for "soda," which we (correctly) interpreted to mean "baking soda." Very strange, no? This cookbook is wild. Stir in 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or brazil nuts. The recipe calls for walnuts, plain and simple, but -- shock of all shocks -- we couldn't find them in the store. We opted for the brazil nuts instead, because they were cheap and unseasoned, and I was very happy with the results. A nice nutty flavor without being overwhelming. We used our little Cuisinart Chopper, which could have turned them to butter if we weren't being careful, and the result was mostly powdery with some small chunks. I liked that -- I'm not that interested in chewy chunks in my bread.
Turn the batter into an ungreased 9-inch pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes at 350º. By the way: I used a springform pan, and I'm really glad I did. The resulting cake is pretty spongy and sticky, and I can't imagine the mess it would leave in a standard ungreased pan. You might just want to smear a bit of butter in there, especially along the sides, if you're not using a springform. It can be served warm (yummmmm) or cold, and be sure to save a slice or two for breakfast the next morning. And possibly lunch. As a matter of fact, I didn't eat anything but apple cake until dinner yesterday. Glorious.

Chocolate and Zucchini

The title of this post is an homage to one of my favorite food blogs, Chocolate and Zucchini, which I read regularly for ideas. Her food and her blog are much more sophisticated than mine, and her writing is really an inspiration: it's fun, it's fresh, and it stretches the limits of how I think about cooking and food. If you like my blog? You'll like hers better.
Anyhow, today I'm offering a recipe for Zucchini Spice Bread, along with some photographs of the delicious artisan chocolate from D, an early Valentine's gift. It has to be refrigerated, and he knew that it would be impossible to hide, so it was gifted last night instead of today. I was more than happy to receive it a day early, because it is so. fantastic. A chocolate experience beyond any other.
The chocolates he purchased me are from Vosges Haut Chocolat, a chocolate boutique that specializes in luxury chocolates married with exotic ingredients in an "East meets West" theme: "The infusions of rare spices and flowers combined with premium chocolate give a delicate balance of flavor, leaving you with a layered and lingering sensation of spice and chocolate." Kind of pretentious sounding, but the idea is great and the chocolate is magnificent, so it evens out in the end. It comes in a beautiful purple box -- the dark truffles didn't have a bow on them, but D asked nicely and they were happy to oblige. I tried the Balsamico truffle last night, made with balsamic vinegar with a topping of hazlenuts, and it was a delicious combination. I'm slightly jealous of D, who went with a bolder flavor: Black Pearl, made with ginger and wasabi with a topping of black sesame seeds. I'll have to get myself one of those sometime -- it seems so good! I'm a little disappointed that three of the truffles are flavored with anise, which is not something I usually enjoy, but there's a good chance that those will be good anyhow, even with that licorice flavor.
Besides the chocolates, which perked me up immensely, yesterday was not such a good day -- it snowed over a foot here, and most people didn't come in to the office. I got stuck outside for over a half an hour because the door was jammed shut, and I had to open up the library in under ten minutes. Not fun. Today it was the same story. It's a real pain being the only person here in the mornings, especially given the creep factor: the library is big, cold, dark, and completely still, although the occasional professor will sneak in after-hours, giving me a great scare as I'm running around humming to myself. Add that to a variety of other lame things -- including the foot of snow and my feet getting wet on the walk home -- and I was not a happy camper. So I decided to bake some zucchini bread. Baking always makes me happier: the careful measuring out of ingredients, the feeling of the raw dough in my hands, the scent of the bread blooming in the oven... it's so soothing. Plus, we had a zucchini that had been hanging around for quite some time in the fridge, and while it wasn't even near extinction -- it was nice and firm, rather than old and mushy -- it was time for it to become food. So zucchini bread it was.
I got this recipe from my good old standby friend, The Bon Appétit Cookbook. God, I love this cookbook -- although it was a gift, it's extremely inexpensive for the amount of recipes you get, and it comes with a free year-long subscription to the magazine. If I were in the market for a new cookbook? I'd buy this one. I also really enjoy the orange and white motif: very classy. Another thing I like about it is that its index is well-planned. So many cookbooks have shoddy indexes, which really works against them, because what kind of person wants to wade through a jumbled mess of words just to find an appropriate recipe? Not so with this cookbook: within minutes after deciding that the weird foods in our pantry couldn't be combined into one satisfactory dish, I was able to whip up this bread. Thank you, beautifully organized index! You have saved me once again!
Now, a word of warning: I halved this recipe, because it required two zucchini and I only had one. It came out perfectly; in fact, the standard recipe seems like it would be too big for the pan size it requires. I guess it would fit, but it would definitely take too long to bake: the recipe requires an hour and a half; with the halved recipe, I baked it in an hour. I think that an hour and a half is too long to wait for zucchini bread! Especially since I wanted to serve it at dinner.

Zucchini Spice Bread
Begin by buttering and flouring a standard loaf pan, and preheating the oven to 350º. Whisk together 1-1/4 cups all purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/8 a teaspoon of baking powder. I must confess -- I eyeballed that last one. I'm in the market for some odd-measured measuring spoons, but I haven't gotten around to buying them yet.
In a mixing bowl, beat 2 smallish eggs (I always buy large eggs, but I picked out the two tiniest. Can you tell that the recipe calls for three eggs?) with an electric mixer until they're foamy. I used my KitchenAid for this, using the wire whisk attachment, and it only took about 2 minutes for the eggs to reach the desired consistency. Gradually add 1 cup sugar, beating until the mixture becomes thick and pale -- with a hand electric mixer, this should take about four minutes; in the KitchenAid, it took only two. Slowly beat in 1/2 a cup of vegetable oil, then add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.
On a low speed, beat in the flour mixture in three additions. You don't want to add the flour too quickly -- this prevents it from incorporating properly and you'd end up with lumpy batter. Once the batter is smooth, fold in 1 cup grated zucchini. I used a cheese grater to grate my zucchini, which proved difficult. Next time I'll just use a peeler and a knife like a normal person. You can also fold in 1/2 a cup of chopped toasted walnuts, but I didn't do that: not only did I not have any walnuts anyhow, I'm not too fond of them in my zucchini bread.
Pop the bread in the oven for about 1 hour, until a toothpick comes out clean. The top should look dry and crusty. Let it cool in the pan for about five minutes, then remove and allow to finish cooling on a rack. Or just dig in to the warm bread -- it stays together pretty remarkably, even when it's hot.
For dessert? Did I mention the snowstorm that we were hit with? Somehow, a lot of snow piled up on our balcony, and D was able to get some fresh snow for an authentic snow cone topped with maple syrup. He's been wanting to do this for years, and there was finally enough snow -- clean, pure, just-fallen snow -- that he was able to feed me two whole cups. And there's plenty more where that came from. I'm both happy and upset about the amount of snow we got: not enough to cancel work, but enough to make me a proper snow cone. Deeeeeelish.

Flat and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I cut this article out of the New York Times Magazine in January of 2006 and it hung on my fridge for about two months before we decided to make the plunge and actually bake some chocolate chip cookies. The reason we didn't make them right away? The author, Amanda Hesser, listed three different recipes for three different types of chocolate chip cookies, and we couldn't decide which ones we liked best: thin and crisp, flat and chewy, or thick and gooey. They all sound really good, but I'm not really sure which type of cookie I actually prefer. Could I have one that is crisp on the edges but also gooey and thick in the center? Not with these recipes, I couldn't.
We picked the flat and chewy, I think because I like the word "chewy," and they turned out quite well. The salt content is very high for a cookie -- one whole tablespoon of kosher salt -- and I'm not the only one who thinks this. Michellepedia and The Wednesday Chef have also commented on the ridiculous amount of salt (links go directly to the cookie posts.) The Wednesday Chef wisely cut the amount of salt in half, and I think it was a smart move. The problem isn't really the amount of salt, it's the fact that it calls for kosher salt. Kosher salt has big, irregular grains that don't really work well in most baked goods, in my experience. The grains don't dissolve regularly, leaving pockets of salt within the cookies after they're baked. Yuck. We chose to use table salt and corrected the amount so that it was equal to the kosher variety: one tablespoon of kosher salt is roughly equivalent to 1/2 a tablespoon of table salt. Now that I think about it, I'm fairly certain that the problem is the kosher salt itself and its too-big grains.
This article (you will need access to Times Select to view) starts off with a disclaimer: there are many types of chocolate chip cookies, and to prefer one over the other is natural. But preference can cause debates, "the kind of tense debate usually reserved for topics like religion and politics," she claims. I don't know if it's that serious, but it is an important issue: what type of chocolate chip cookie do you prefer? If we don't see eye to eye, I might have to cut off all communication with you. The silent treatment is better than the bombing treatment, in my book. I'm not about to start a war over cookies, but somebody might, so watch out.
These cookies turned out well, but I wouldn't go so far as to say they were the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever eaten in my life. I have another recipe for those -- one I might be under oath not to divulge. That one is a secret recipe and involves toffee chips and chocolate chips. Anyhow, this one makes a very good cookie, but the recipe probably needs some tweaking to be perfect. I just don't want to make that many cookies, so I'll offer the original, non-tweaked version here.

Flat-And-Chewy Chocolate-Chip Cookies
A side note: all those hyphens? They kind of annoy me. Are they really necessary?
Preheat your oven to 325º and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Sift together 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1-1/4 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon table salt.
In a mixer "fitted with a paddle" (I get to use my KitchenAid!) cream together 1 cup of softened butter, 1-1/2 cups packed light brown sugar, and 1/4 cup white sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. This should take about three minutes. Crack in two eggs -- one at a time -- and beat until combined. Add 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract.
Now you should add your sifted flour mixture. Just throw it in there, all at once! That's always fun. Let mix until it forms a dough. Fold in (this part I like to do by hand; otherwise, the mixer breaks up the chocolate too much) 2 cups chopped bittersweet chocolate. You can use chocolate chips if you want, but I prefer chopping it myself. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I like chopping chocolate because you end up with irregular sized chunks, which makes for a more interesting cookie. I also might prefer this method because you get a lot of chocolate on your hands; it's tasty.
The recipe mentions something about folding in 2 cups chopped toasted walnuts in addition to the chocolate, but that makes them chocolate-nut cookies. I do not want chocolate nut cookies. I want chocolate chip cookies.
Chill the dough, and clean the kitchen while you chill. At least that's what I would do: maybe you're lucky and you have a robot that does that for you (or a super-nice friend. Sometimes D cleans as I work, lucky for me!) Or you can chill while you chill and forget about cleaning, whatever. I certainly don't get to decide.
When the dough is cold, roll balls from about 2 tablespoons of dough. Arrange on your baking sheet and flatten (I use the bottom of a glass to do this, but you can just use your palms if you're feeling crazy) so they are about 1/2 inch thick discs. They should be about 2 inches apart on the sheet after flattening. Make sure you chill the dough between batches so that it's easy to work with and it cooks properly!
Bake in the preheated oven (325º for all of you who skipped that step) until the edges are brown, about 12 to 14 minutes. There's a really important trick here and it applies to all cookies (and probably extends to the majority of baked goods.) Your cookies will not look done when it's time to take them out of the oven. The edges will be slightly browned, but the cookies themselves should appear slightly underdone. They continue to cook after you've removed them from the oven, and the last thing you want is a fresh cookie that has the texture of a stale cookie. So just watch them during the last few minutes of baking, and the moment you think that they need another minute or two? They're ready.
Allow them to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Or you can eat them hot, like I like to do. Hot and fresh chocolate chip cookies? How could you possibly resist?

Simple Banana Bread

This one is a cinch to make and it tastes fabulous. It does take a little time -- an hour total in the oven, about -- but it's well worth the wait. We usually make a loaf and freeze half of it. It's a good alternative to the scones we eat every morning because it has a lot less butter; in fact, you don't use butter at all. Shortening is the key in this recipe, because it gives the bread a moist chewiness that you can't really get with just butter alone.
We haven't made this bread in awhile, but now that I'm looking over my recipe book, I want to make it right this second. I might do just that -- what a nice way to start a Saturday. I got the recipe from the Joy of Cooking, 1997 edition, and it seems to me like the breads and coffee cakes section is very similar to the 1975. For example, they suggest making this bread in a tin can: so that they slice prettily for tea." If you decide to use a can, opt for a 6-oz all metal can and only fill them about 3/4 of the way. This gives the bread enough room to expand. In addition, you'll want to cook it for less time, because the breads will be smaller than if you made just one loaf.
You should also plan on eating this bread soon after making it, as it tends to dry out quickly: "they wither young," the cookbook admonishes. It also mentions that these types of bread slice better if you wrap them in foil after cooling and refrigerate for about 12 hours. We have never done that, and slicing them has never been an issue, but that may only be because I don't really care if the slices are a bit jagged around the edges. That's fine by me, but were I serving a fancy tea, I might heed that advice. I do like to eat this bread with tea, though -- it's a great alternative to scones on a weekday morning.

Simple Banana Bread
Begin by bringing all your ingredients to room temperature -- 70º or so -- and preheat the oven to 350º. Sift together 1-3/4 a cup of sifted all-purpose flour, 2-1/4 teaspoons double-acting baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
Blend in a separate bowl 1/3 cup shortening, 2/3 a cup of sugar, and 3/4 a teaspoon grated lemon rind. The acidity of the lemon makes the bread taste sweeter after it bakes. Beat in 1 large egg (or two small eggs) and 1 to 1-1/4 cups ripe mashed banana. This part is quite variable, because it depends on the size of the bananas you have, but two should be enough to make a moist and tasty bread. You can use nearly over-ripe bananas for this, making it ideal for baking near the end of the week, when your fruit has nearly spoiled and you're not interested in eating it plain. Just mash them with a fork before adding to the other ingredients.
Add the sifted ingredients in stages -- so it is easier to mix -- to the wet ingredients and beat the batter after each addition until it is smooth. You can opt to fold in 1/2 cup broken nutmeats, such as walnuts or cashews, and 1/4 cup chopped dried apricots. We made it with just the nuts -- no dried fruit -- and it was fantastic. You could also throw in some raisins if you'd like, but personally I am not a fan of dried fruit in my bread.
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan (about 8x4 or a bit larger) and bake for about one hour, until done.
The recipe says that it needs to be cooled before you slice it, but you can eat it hot. It's tastier that way, I think!

German Pancake with Lemon and Sugar

Oh, Saturday morning. I love you almost as much as Sunday, which is only better because we get two newspapers on Sunday, and they're both really chunky. Saturday, we only get two sections; Sunday, there are at least twenty different sections of paper to mull over. It could take an entire day to read the Sunday paper. Glorious.
We made Saturday a wonderful day anyhow, sans buckets of newspaper on the floor. We started the day off right with some coffee and a German Pancake. This pancake is phenomenal. It makes a delightfully light and refreshing breakfast, especially with the addition of lemon juice. I tend to drench mine in powdered sugar, which makes it even tastier, but that's really a matter of personal preference. The recipe is so easy to make that you can do it with your eyes closed, which is an important feature since I know I'm not awake until I've had a few cups of coffee, and by that time I'm starving.

German Pancake with Lemon and Sugar
Start by putting 1 tablespoon of butter in a 9-inch pie pan. Begin preheating the oven (to 425º) with the pan inside. The butter will melt as the oven preheats. This part is extremely important because it allows the sides of the pancake to rise as it bakes without the use of a traditional leavening agent, such as baking soda or baking powder.
As your oven is heating, beat together with a wire whisk the following ingredients: 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup milk, and 2 eggs. Add a dash of cinnamon and a pinch of salt to the mixture.
When the oven is ready, take out the pan and pour in the mixture. It will start sizzling and you might worry that the bottom will burn too much. Don't fret, it won't burn at all.
Back in the center of the oven for 12-15 minutes.
To serve, sprinkle with lemon juice (fresh, if possible) and powdered sugar.
After the pancake (and several cups of coffee) we went ice skating. The rink is practically in our backyard, and the ice had just been Zambonied. It was entirely empty when we began, which allowed me to get hold of my "ice legs" before the crowd arrived. No showing off for me, though, since I can barely keep both feet on the ground without tipping over. I didn't fall once, however -- a feat of epic proportions! Especially since a grown man, children in tow, fell and broke his glasses. His kids thought it was hilarious, he just kept muttering about how he never takes risks and shouldn't have been so careless. He had been skating at the pace of a snail, so I'm not sure what the risk was. Going on the ice in the first place, perhaps? That made me pretty sad, but there wasn't much I could do. So, I skated on.