Caramelized Pear & Bacon Scones

You're welcome. (And, I'm sorry!)

I'm thinking my first cookbook will be Scones 101. I love 'em. Because, what can't you put in a scone and call a meal? And hold it all in one hand, no less. Breakfast, lunch, dinner? Scone. Snack? Scone. Fruit, grain, meat, dairy? Scone, scone, scone, scone.

Okay. Maybe not. But these are good, and I think you oughta try them.

Ingredients

6-8 slices bacon

3 firm D'Anjou pears, peeled, cored & diced

1 TB vegetable oil

2 TB brown sugar

2 c. all-purpouse flour

2 TB flaxseed meal

1 TB baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

8 TB cold, unsalted butter, cubed

3/4 c. chilled cream or half & half

egg white (optional)

course sugar (optional)

Sausage and Herb Biscuits

Josh received a most spectacular cookbook this past Christmas. Yet, it's SO MUCH MORE than a cookbook. The Professional Chef. I'm telling you: It's everything about everything involving food. Technique descriptions and ingredient reference; equipment evaluations and then some. It's the go-to reference for culinary school, I believe. And I love it. 

This biscuit recipe is adapted from their basic buttermilk biscuits. Now, the recipes in this book tend to assume you are cooking for a crowd. As in, 3.5 lbs of flour per batch of biscuits. Thankfully, it lists weights for each ingredient (actually, it only lists weights for most recipes), so I can easily quarter the recipe and get 20 biscuits instead of 80. Not that I wouldn't happily freeze the extra; I just don't have the energy to deal with that much dough early Saturday morning. 

Sandwich with extra-sharp cheddar for lunch.

Pot-roasted Parsnips over Herbed Lentils with Warm Buttermilk Sauce

That's a long name! And I didn't even fit the element of truffles in there...

Josh and I both agreed we'd be more than happy to receive this as a vegetarian main at any good restaurant. This. Was. Gooooood. One day, when I meet that benevolent benefactor who is just dying to invest in our cafe (or actually save up all the money to invest in it ourselves... whichever comes first), we will happily serve this dish. (Can you tell I'm proud of this one?)

Of course, simply prepared meals with high-quality ingredients rarely go wrong. So, perhaps I can't take all the credit. I was just so happy to have the idea of this dish speak to me one afternoon, then be able to make it materialize in such a satisfying way.

Oh, and speaking of high-quality ingredients:

Yes!

Yes, you should: You should definitely indulge in $10 salt and $15 oil. (Fleur de Sel and White Truffle Oil, that is.) You really should. The tiniest little bit goes a really long way, and takes the simplest dish right over the line from just good to downright Amazing. Even the humble omelette can benefit from their magic. Treat yourself! You won't be sorry.

The idea for pot-roasting root vegetables, and dousing them in buttermilk, came from this month's issue of Bon Apetit. There's a profile piece on Rene Redzepi, chef and forager behind Noma. Want to eat there the next time you're in Copenhagen? Get a reservation like two years ago.

Anyway, Chef Redzepi likes to pot-roast a whole celeriac (celery root), and dress it with warm buttermilk and olives. He even tosses a couple of coffee beans in for good measure. I, however, am not a Danish avant-garde forager/chef, and I opted out of the coffee bean variation. I chose potatoes and parsnips, dropped the olives, added the truffle oil... served over French (or Le Puy) lentils stewed with herbs and... Success.

Fried Rice

So, there's no set recipe for fried rice. I'm posting this as just an idea or suggestion. It's one of those lovely dishes that easily absorbs leftovers (in a good and appetizing way). Another kid-pleaser around here, too.

Here's what I do:

Scramble 2-3 eggs "Yankee Doodle" style (crack them in the skillet and stir) with about 1 TB peanut oil, over medium-high heat. Cook the eggs just until set, but not hard. Set aside.

Toss in your vegetables. I use about a cup of diced carrot and maybe 3/4 c. frozen peas, or whatever is on hand. Stir over medium heat until vegetables are warmed through -- or softened, in the case of uncooked veggies.

If you have leftover meat, shrimp or tofu, dice and toss it in and warm through. Add 2-3 c. leftover cooked rice, and sauté for a couple of minutes. Stir in 1 TB soy and/or oyster sauce. Top with green onions, if you've got them.

Sweet Ginger Chicken & Baked Brown Rice

This was so good, we dug right in and forgot to take a picture until it was almost gone.

It doesn't get much simpler than this. Perfect, easy weeknight staple. Serrve with a salad for a little bit of green. This was majorly satisfying and set us up nicely for fried rice leftovers tonight. Bonus points: It was a big hit with all the kids.

I used thin sliced chicken breasts from Trader Joe's. You could of course just slice your own. If you use whole breasts, they'll need to cook longer, and you'll need more oil & butter in the pan.

Ingredients

1 1/2 c. rinsed brown rice

2 1/2 c. low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth (or water)

1 TB olive oil

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

5 medium carrots, sliced length-wise in half

1 lb. thin-sliced chicken breasts

1/4 c. honey

1/4 c. soy sauce

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

1 TB minced fresh ginger

1 TB butter

1 TB olive oil

1/4 c. white wine

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Stir to combine: honey, soy sauce, garlic and ginger. Rinse and pat dry the chicken breasts. Place in gallon freezer bag. Pour in the sauce (seal the bag!) and mush it all around. Refrigerate for at least one hour (or marinate for several hours, if time allows).

Bring broth (or water) just to boil on stovetop with salt and oil. Put the rice in a 8x8 oven-proof dish, coated with non-stick spray or butter. Place carrots on top of rice. As soon as liquid reaches boil, pour on top of rice & carrots. Give a little stir, cover tightly with foil, and pop in the oven for 1 hour. When finished cooking, uncover and fluff with fork.

Heat 1 TB olive oil and 1 TB butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Place chicken breasts in pan and cook about 3 minutes each side until lightly browned and cooked through. Remove breasts and place on top of dish of rice.

De-glaze the pan by adding 1/4 c. white wine. Cook until liquid reduces by about half, then pour over the chicken and rice. Serve immediately.

Save leftover rice for fried rice leftovers.

Chocolate Pecan Truffles

There is more than one way to make a truffle. (That should be a saying, don't you think? Instead of the skinning-a-cat one?) In fact, if you do an internet search for truffle recipes, it's enough to make your head spin: truffles with coffee, truffles with tea, truffles with liquor, with cayenne; tempered chocolate, untempered chocolate, dutch-processed chocolate... The list goes on and on.

This is a basic chocolate truffle recipe. I don't temper the chocolate coating. It's not hard to do, just more effort than I think is required for homemade truffles. Without tempering, the coating will dry a little cloudy, and will melt at a lower temperature. Rolling them in chopped nuts fixes this. You could also roll them in dutch-processed unsweetened cocoa powder. (In all honesty, un-dipped ganache balls rolled in good cocoa make a damn fine truffle, too.) 

Why Dutch? Dutch processed cocoa just tastes better (milder, more delicate, less bitter -- important if you're using it as a truffle coating; less important in stuff like brownies that are loaded with other flavors). I didn't have any on hand, so I just used pecans. Usually I would coat some in cocoa and some in nuts. You can even coat in finely ground coffee. Oh, the possibilities!

Apple Oat Scones

These may sound healthy, but don't worry. They still taste quite good. There is no sugar in the dough; the sweetness comes from the apple -- so, I recommend a nice sweet one for this. I think I used a HoneyCrisp.

Ingredients

1 c. unbleached white flour

1 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 c. rolled oats

1 TB baking powder

2 TB ground flaxseed

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

1 stick butter, frozen

3/4 c. vanilla yogurt

1/4 c. milk

1 medium apple, peeled, cored and diced

1 TB half & half

1 TB honey

Warm Spinach Salad

This salad could make up for some of this weekend's not-so-healthy Super Bowl snacks.

Ingredients

2 TB olive oil

1 TB maple syrup or brown sugar

1 bunch spinach with stems removed, rinsed and drained (but not completely dry)

2 med. shallots, peeled & sliced thin

3 cloves garlic, peeled & sliced thin

1/2 large apple, diced

1/8 c. raisins

1/8 c. sliced almonds

Heat oil over medium heat in large skillet or wide-bottom pan. Add shallots and cook until translucent. Reduce heat to medium-low and add garlic, apple and maple syrup or brown sugar. Cook until beginning to caramelize, stirring occasionally, 10-15 minutes. Return to medium heat, add raisins and cook for a few more minutes, stirring more frequently. When onions and garlic are all golden brown with some good caramelized spots, toss in spinach and cover. Cook just until spinach begins to wilt; 2-3 minutes. Uncover and stir for less than a minute. Remove from heat and transfer to serving bowl, leaving behind as much of the liquid as possible. Top with sliced almonds. Serve immediately.

We ate ours with pecan-crusted tilapia. Going to work on the recipe some more before I'm happy enough with it to post here, but it was pretty good:

Lastly, just in case you care, here are two of my favorite kitchen items that came in handy for this salad:

The Cuisinart 12" Everyday Pan, which we recently receive for Josh's birthday ;). I love this thing. Still true to my old cast-iron, but this is quite a bit roomier, and definitely easier to clean.

And the collapsable over-the-sink colander for rinsing greens. Nice and deep, so I can rinse a lot of greens without tossing any overboard.

Sweet & Creamy Parsnip Soup

A very satisfying mid-winter soup. Even if it is feeling a lot more like spring, around here! Not too sweet, and a little bit spicy from a healthy dose of black pepper, plus the natural bite of parsnips. It doesn't taste too cheesy, either. The gruyere adds a depth of flavor, and of course creaminess, that I definitely wouldn't want to do without. All of the flavors manage to play nice, without any one taking over.

Ingredients

2 TB olive oil

1 TB unsalted butter

1 TB maple syrup

1 med. yellow onion, chopped

2 med. carrots, chopped

2 celery stalks, trimmed & chopped

1 sweet apple, peeled, cored & chopped

1 TB fresh rosemary, minced

1 lb parsnips, peeled and chopped

1 med. yukon gold potato, peeled and chopped

4 c. vegetable broth

1/4 tsp black pepper

few gratings fresh nutmeg

big pinch sea salt

1/2 c. grated gruyere cheese, plus extra for topping

chopped parsley for topping

Heat olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, celery, sweet apple and rosemary. Add maple syrup. Saute until onion is translucent, about 8 minutes.

Add parsnips and potato, stir. Add veggie broth and spices. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cook 35 minutes or until parsnips and potatoes are soft and pierce easily.

Remove from heat and blend until completely smooth, either with immersion blender or in batches in regular blender. 

Stir in grated gruyere until melted.

Serve with chopped parsley and extra cheese.

P.S. If you live around here and are enjoying these mid 60's temperatures like us, (and if you're still reading!) I must suggest a trip to Huntley Meadows. I'd never been in the winter before, and it was still very beautiful, and very full of birds and beaver dams and adventures of all kinds (few frogs and snakes, though). I LOVE this great big wildlife sanctuary in the middle of Alexandria.

A well-maintained boardwalk takes you all around the wetland.

Our friend spotted a beaver dam!

The trails continue in the woods. A winter walk was especially fun with Ingrid and a friend because they got to run pretty far ahead, and I could still see them (plus, our friend brought walkie-talkies!)

Homemade Vegetable Stock

I love making my own stock. I love chopping up an entire leek and an entire fennel bulb with greens attached and just tossing it in a pot. I love not peeling the onion. I love having just that much more control over the subtle flavors of a special soup.

This is a basic vegetable stock recipe. You can and should use what you have lying around, begging to be used. Celery a little wimpy? Forgot to use that bunch of parsley you bought last week? Toss it in. Organic veggies mean you don't need to worry about peeling. As Ingrid, my almost-7-year-old would say, "Easy Peasy lemon squeezy."

Try making your own stock, I know you'll love it.

Ingredients

2 TB olive oil

8 peppercorns

1/8 tsp cardamom seeds, crushed (use side of chef's knife)

10 fennel seeds

1/2 tsp dried rosemary

few gratings fresh nutmeg

4 garlic cloves, crushed

1 med yellow onion, chopped (no need to remove skin)

2 med carrots, chopped

3 whole celery stalks, chopped (including leaves)

1 fennel bulb, chopped (greens, too)

1 bunch parsley, chopped (reserving 1/2 c. for soup garnish)

1 entire leek, chopped

Heat olive oil in large stock pot. Add peppercorns, cardamom, fennel seeds, rosemary and nutmeg. Saute until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Add garlic, onions, carrots and celery. Saute until onions are translucent, about 8 minutes.

Add fennel, parsley and leek. Stir and sauté until coated in oil and leaves have wilted some, about 2 minutes. 

Add 8 cups filtered water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered 30-45 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let sit for several hours, or overnight in the refrigerator, to allow flavors to fully develop. 

When ready to use, strain through a colander, then a fine mesh sieve. Keeps refrigerated for up to 2 weeks, or freeze. During times when we were really into making stocks, we'd measure out 2 cups servings into ziplock baggies and stack them in the freezer. Ice cube trays work well, too. 

Southern Pecan Biscuits

These biscuits are very nearly scones. But I'm calling them biscuits because there's no sugar in the dough. And because I'm working on a pretty amazing Maple Pecan Scone recipe, which I'll post here as soon as it's perfect. For now, these biscuits really hit our spot with a little butter and a side of scrambled eggs for a simple, but sufficiently special Sunday breakfast. (Plus an afternoon treat with coffee. Gotta love a baked good that can work double duty!)

Ingredients

2 c. flour

4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 TB ground flaxseed

3 TB cold butter, cut into pieces

1 TB Crisco vegetable shortening

1 1/4 c. cold low-fat vanilla yogurt

2/3 c. chopped pecans, toasted

1 TB half & half

1 TB maple syrup

1 TB decorating sugar (or Sugar in the Raw)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Line a heavy baking sheet with parchment paper. Go ahead and toast the pecans first, so they have plenty of time to cool -- 3 or 4 minutes stovetop on medium heat, until fragrant and golden. (You don't want to mix hot nuts into your biscuit batter, melting the butter & shortening.) Set aside.

Maple Roasted Potato & Rosemary Soup

I hope you are all enjoying a relaxing holiday with your families. Our Christmas was quiet and blessed. We didn't travel, we aren't entertaining. We cooked our big meal on Christmas Eve, so the big day was spent Skyping with family and setting up Legos.

We've also been enjoying a lot of glazed ham leftovers. Josh handled the ham, and the glaze and resulting gravy were nothing short of spectacular! Maple syrup and homemade orange marmalade were involved. He will have to do a post on it one day. Perhaps when he sits down to do that Thanksgiving post.

*cough cough*

I have decided that simple, satisfying, fortifying soups = my theme for the rest of Winter. And this one I made last week, was a doozy: Incredibly simple, but with delicately nuanced flavors to keep it interesting. Everyone had seconds.

There is no dairy in this potato soup. And it could easily go vegetarian/vegan with a flavorful vegetable stock substituted for the chicken stock.

Oh yeah! Take note: Maple Roasted Potatoes are officially the Way To Go. Next time you're roasting red potatoes as a dinner side, try it this way. Add some chopped rosemary after they come out of the oven, if you want. Delicious! Or, if you're serving home fries with a big weekend breakfast or brunch, leave out the rosemary and dish out alongside your scrambled eggs or omelette... You know how you soak up leftover maple syrup with whatever is left on you plate when you're eating breakfast out? These taste like that. Only better.

This color means they're done.

Garam Masala Chicken Tenders w/ Sweet Curry Dipping Sauce

Putting my Garam Masala obsession to good use! 

I made these last week, after talking to my mom on the phone... She mentioned seeing this, which she thought we might like. In it, Bobby Deen makes one of his mother's recipes a little bit more healthy. We are indeed shrimp fans around here, but I had chicken tenders on hand. (They were on sale. If you're watching your budget like we do, just buy breasts and slice your own tenders, or carve up a whole chicken if you are so brave and inclined.)

Peanut Butter Balls

Maple Pecan Brittle

Christmas candy time!

It's no secret I love pecans. Preferably Texas ones. I will, however, keep it a secret how much of a batch of this I can consume before anyone else has a chance to try it...

Malcolm's Oatmeal Scones

Most Sunday mornings, Josh makes omelets or crepes, but this morning we had just one egg in the fridge. What to do?

Recipe adapted from America's Test Kitchen Almond-Apricot Oatmeal Scones.

These are Malcolm's scones because they're adapted to reflect how we dress up his oatmeal for breakfast, during the week (minus the half & half). Also because he made them! He's been WAY into cooking lately. 

Pumpkin-Sage Pizza Crust

Been working on this one for a while, and finally seemed to have gotten it right, last night. (It's awesome.) 

FIRST of all, though... A few things I've learned about how to get the most out of almost any homemade pizza crust at home:

1. HOT oven. 500 degrees F.

2. HOT baking stone. If you don't have a baking stone (even though you should), you can also use an over-turned baking sheet. Preheat the stone (or sheet) along with the oven.

3. Oven rack needs to be in the top-third of the oven. For me, that's the second to the highest position.

These steps help you to simulate a wood-fired pizza oven at home. It's not the same as your favorite pizza joint, but it does get a pretty good showing out of your vastly inferior home oven.

Once you've rolled out the dough --on a very well-floured surface, make sure the toppings are all lined up and ready to go. Carefully remove the hot stone or sheet from the oven; lightly fold the crust in half, twice; transfer to the stone or sheet and unfold. QUICKLY brush the top with a little olive oil, then add your toppings and pop it back in the oven for 8-10 minutes.

Pumpkin Pie Cake with Penuche Frosting

Am I the only one who mistakenly buys pumpkin pie mix instead of canned pumpkin? At least once a year? 

SO frustrating to get home and realize you can't make pumpkin scones, like you planned. However, as I discovered yesterday, all is not lost:

Thankfully, the result of combining one can of mistakenly purchased pumpkin pie mix with the box of yellow cake mix from the back of the pantry is... pretty spectacular. 

Add to that a little homemade penuche frosting...

Baked Brie

Thank you to my friend who asked about easy appetizers for entertaining. It's a slow, rainy day here and I was feeling kind of blah. Making this slightly fancy-pants dish to go with Tuesday night dinner was just the thing!

Seriously indulgent.

Fat Tire Fritters

Defying my better judgment, I pulled the Deep Fat Fryer out of hibernation. I received December's Bon Appetit today, and on the last page is a little Q&A with Jaques Pepin, one of my cooking idols. I love his story: 13 years old, drops out of school to apprentice at a restaurant... and the rest is public television history. A quick little blurb in the story tells us that he likes to mix a can of beer with 1 1/2 c. flour for a quick and tasty batter; adding coarsely chopped apples makes a tasty fritter!

Yes.

I've been really good lately -- that is, running, counting calories and generally depriving myself of my customary daily gorging on the children's Halloween candy. And, for the most part, it's been pretty easy. I've felt better: more productive, less fatigued and all that. It's great! But then I read the word fritter... Okay, okay... and beer (which I've forgone for the last couple of weeks in the interest of conserving calories), in the same sentence. I had to do it. 

Pulled out of the fryer and draining on double-layer of paper towels + brown paper bag.

 Something about deep-frying foods makes me very, very happy. Is it the Southerner in me?

Dusted with powdered sugar.

Served with warmed maple syrup, it's like a pancake on steroids.

These are super easy, and should probably be served for dessert, or as an indulgent weekend breakfast/brunch. We had them for dinner tonight with eggs and Odwalla Super Food juice (it's green).

Ingredients

12 oz. Fat Tire Amber Ale

1 1/2 c. flour

2-3 coarsely chopped Honey Crisp (my favorite!) apples

vegetable oil for fryer

Heat the oil (enough that it will cover the fritters) in your fryer (or stock pot) to 375 degrees F. Mix the flour and the beer, and fold in apples. Use an ice cream scoop to spoon 3-4 scoops into the fryer at a time, depending on the size of your fryer. Set a timer for 5 minutes. Watch them, though. Turn with a slotted spoon once or twice. Then, once they're a deep, golden brown, take them out and set on paper towels to drain.

Cool, then dust with powdered sugar. Makes 12.