Seasonal Pancakes

Today we felt like pancakes. I love seasonal pancakes at this time of year, but rather than make another repeat of pumpkin pancakes, I thought I’d try something different–apple cinnamon pancakes. I cobbled the recipe together from a couple of different regular pancake recipes, plus my own thinking. They cooked up really well and very evenly–the pumpkin ones can have raw spots and the heat can be a little hard to adjust–and the apple pieces softened up just enough without turning to mush. I highly recommend you have them with real maple syrup, though we, sadly, only have the Eggo variety right now.

You’ll need:
1 apple, peeled, cored, and chopped into small pieces
1 c whole wheat flour
1/3 c all purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
3/4 t cinnamon
decent sprinkle of nutmeg (I grate it myself so it’s hard to quantify)
2 T brown sugar
1 C milk
2 T canola oil
1 egg, slightly beaten

Mix all the dry ingredients together, and then add the wet until everything is moistened, without overbeating. Add the apple and fold in gently.

Warm up a skillet on medium to medium-high heat and add a little butter. Add batter to the pan, about 1/4 c at a time, and allow to puff up. Check the bottoms after a couple of minutes. If they’re browned and the top seems like it’s starting to set, flip. If they’re browned but the top is not remotely set, then your skillet is too hot and you need to adjust the heat, and then flip. Check them a couple of minutes after flipping. If they’re good and brown, you’re good to go. You can keep pancakes warm in a 200 degree oven. We got only 9 cakes out of this, but you could easily get 10.

Hot breakfast

First I have to apologize for the poor quality of this photo. I’m not a patient photographer, especially when I’m hungry, and haven’t touched photoshop in ages. Food porn, it is not. Utilitarian, it sort of is.

Yesterday morning dawned crisp and cold, about 38 degrees (which I sadly know will seem warm in a matter of weeks), so I put on my sneakers and headed out for a good three-mile walk. When I got back I was chilly and starving, so I made myself a pot of oatmeal. Mr. Pea doesn’t like oatmeal–something about the texture–so it was all for me.

I grew up making oatmeal out of the little packets, which I still do sometimes in the winter. Right now, though, we don’t have any of those; and besides, doing it yourself is much healthier (says the girl who’s making at least a weekly run to a diner). To make this simple oatmeal (about 1 serving for a really hungry person, two servings for not-so-hungry people), put 1 1/4 c of water in a pot to boil. When it starts to bubble away, add 3/4 c of rolled oats and 1/4 c raisins. Reduce heat and simmer ten minutes. Keep an eye on it–mine simmered too hard, sucked up all the water and began to stick, necessitating more water to cook it through.

When it’s done to your liking–mine still had some bite to it–add a tiny splash of vanilla, about 1/4 tsp or so of cinnamon, and 1 T or so of maple syrup, as well as a pinch of salt, and stir well. Easy and tasty, it’ll warm you through!

And I’m back!

Yesterday’s wordpress outage took me down for most of the day; but here I am, good as new!

I (sometimes) want to be Nigella Larson

On Saturday morning I woke up early (the usual for me, I’m afraid) and decided I felt like vegging in front of the TV. As there weren’t any interesting cartoons on yet, I found myself eagerly watching a rerun of Nigella Larson’s Nigella Feasts. It was an episode based on chocolate. Yum.

In case you don’t know, Nigella Larson is a British food/TV personality. She’s had a number of cooking shows over the years and also writes extensively, both recipes and in more of a food-column style. What I like about her is that she’s not afraid to be what she is. She’s utterly gorgeous, but has come under fire now and again for her weight. She’s just a tiny bit plump, and I myself prefer a person to have a little meat on their bones. Who can trust a skinny chef, anyway?

The chocolate episode features a cake and a cheesecake and ends with Nigella, wrapped up in a lovely silky robe, making herself some hot chocolate before bed. Course, unlike me who gets her hot chocolate out of a packet, she’s got a pot on the stove, some shredded high-end bittersweet, and a pile of sugar. Then she takes her cocoa to bed where she sits under the covers with a stack of books. I want to be that Nigella. I also want her kitchen, which is stunning, in my fantasy apartment. Here’s the only photo I can find of it that’s not all blurry:

Oooh, purty.

Her website sells oodles of stuff that appears now in that kitchen–the measuring cups, spoons, and so forth, as well as her books. She’s got a bit of a cooking empire now, I suppose, and one I’d like to slowly move into my own house!

Spoon Roast

Mr. Pea picked up a spoon roast for us from the local butcher this week for Sunday dinner with my folks. We had no idea what a spoon roast was, but a little googling revealed that it’s a marketing term more than an actual cut of meat. The idea is that it becomes so tender you could eat it with a spoon. Technically, it’s a sirloin roast. Either way, it was delicious.

I’m not a huge fan of pot roast, far preferring oven-roast beef to the stewy, flaking apart crock pot variety. The spoon roast held up to its billing–it was tender and delicious without having to spend hours in the crock pot. Cooking it, however, wasn’t easy: the recipes I saw and followed had cooking times that left my roast still very rare, beyond a safety point. It took an extra half-hour or so, but upon thinking more closely about it, it occurred to me that putting the roast, as I did, in a shallow dish, probably was responsible for this–if I’d put it in a dutch oven, perhaps it would have been encircled by more heat and thus cooked more quickly.

We had a 2-pound roast. It comes with a cap of fat tied to it. I began by mixing together salt, pepper, and thyme so that I ended up with a tablespoon or two. After slicing up three cloves of garlic and sticking them under the fat cap and beneath the roast itself, I rubbed the seasoning mix all over it. I placed it in a shallow dish and popped it in a cold oven which I cranked to 450, per one recipe’s instructions. This caused the outside to crisp up nicely. Upon reaching 450, I let it roast for ten minutes before turning the oven down to 250. In retrospect, this was too low. After 40 minutes (20 per pound) it was only about 120 degrees inside. I put it back in the oven, turned it up, and after a while, it crept to 133. I put it on the counter under a foil tent until it reached 135 for rare. Then we sliced it up.

The roast was delicious and ridiculously tender. Should you find yourself with an opportunity to try out a spoon or sirloin roast, go for it. You won’t regret it. And if you have a local butcher, try to patronize it on occasion! They’ve been a dying breed for many years now in favor of grocery store meat, but supporting a local institution promotes your local economy more than, say, Stop and Shop’s. And that’s not a bad thing.

Artisan Bread

I had a gift card to Barnes and Noble from my birthday last month that had been sitting around a while when I remembered this book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. This feeds into the whole no-knead bread phenomenon of the past year but provides oodles of options. It makes working with yeast–a frightening prospect for some people–not scary at all, as the recipes all begin with simply mixing together flour, water, and yeast and letting it sit. No serious temperature monitoring, no kneading, no worries. You just pop it in the fridge and go from there.

I made some basic boules–little round loaves–this weekend, and they were very tasty, with a good crust. What I’m intrigued by are the variations: pizza doughs, brioche, pecan rolls, you name it. I plan to start experimenting with them in the near future and will let you know how it goes. If anyone has any suggestions on must-try recipes from the book, I’m all ears!

Died-and-went-to-heaven Cookies

I cannot take credit for these delicate bits of goodness; this is all Mr. Pea. We’re having dinner with one of my colleagues tonight and were instructed to bring cookies, as their child evidently likes them. Sure, I said, the kid likes them. And no one else, I bet.

After spending far too long poring over recipes, I found this one–Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. Mr. Pea made them while I was in class today and I came home to the divine scent of fresh-baked treats. Then I found the little devils themselves. Holy cow. You must make these. Now. Go. I’ll wait.

The recipe is from one of the about.com subsites, cut and pasted.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1/2 cup chunky or smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375°.
Cream the butter, peanut butter and sugars until light. Add the egg and mix until fluffy.

Blend the flour, baking powder, soda and salt together well. Add these dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Add the chocolate chips.

Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 375°.

Butternut Squash Risotto

It is FREEZING here this morning, a whopping 30 degrees when I got out of bed. That pretty much makes me want to climb back into bed and stay there, bear-style, until spring. This week calls for the closing of the storm windows and the construction of window snakes, which I also like to call draft dodgers in my less PC moments. Brr. The lovely fall is suddenly sending harsh reminders that winter comes next.

One perk about fall, though, is the onslaught of winter squash. When I was a kid I was not a fan of winter squash as it only came in two varieties: pureed and as Creamy Winter Soup, a concoction my mother loves but of which I was never a fan. My favorite use of winter squash, unsurprisingly, is in risotto. I made this dish on Saturday night when some old friends made the trek from our Old City to our New Town in the New State. They said it was tasty, so I’m sharing it with you.

This makes a boatload of risotto, which is not a bad thing; we got seven servings out of it and had we a side veggie, we probably would have gotten 8 or 9.

You’ll need:
1 3-pound butternut squash
6 c veggie broth
2 c arborio rice
2 T olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1/3 bottle of white wine
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 pinches sage
2 T butter
3/4 c or so grated parmesan cheese

Begin by CAREFULLY peeling the squash, cutting it open, and taking out the seeds. Those of you–maybe there’s one–who have been with me since the beginning may recall that there was once a time when I was not so careful peeling and halving butternut squash and have a lovely scar on my thumb to prove it. So watch what you’re doing, and always move away from you with sharp knives.

Chop the squash into 3/4″ dice and toss with olive oil and a little salt and pepper on a cookie sheet. Put into a 350 degree oven for a half hour, turning once. Near the end I cranked the oven up to 450 for ten minutes to get something of a crust on the squash, but my pieces were a little too close together to caramelize much. At any rate, set squash aside when you’re done. I did this several hours in advance.

In a deep skillet or saucepan, add 2 T of olive oil over medium-high heat, and then add onion and garlic, stirring constantly, for 10 minutes until softened. Get your broth simmering in a pan next to the main one. Add rice to the onion and stir until the grains are translucent but for a white dot in their centers. Add wine to cover and stir until evaporated. Then begin to add the broth to just cover the rice, stirring until it’s absorbed, before adding more. Do this until the rice is al dente–firm, but not hard–and the whole pot has a creamy consistency, 18-20 minutes. Then add your squash back in, stirring to warm it up. Add butter, stirring to melt, and take off the heat. Add cheese and test for seasoning, adding a couple of pinches of sage. We added a little more salt and called it a day.

I could eat risotto nearly every day and be very happy but also much heavier than I am! It’s just so good, especially on these cold fall days. Enjoy!

Update your links!

My old Sweet Pea hosting is set to expire very soon, and so I’m moving the blog to free wordpress hosting instead. I dislike the lack of layout control, but I can live with that. I’ll add a redirect to this site momentarily, but for those of you who have Sweet Pea Cooks bookmarked or in an RSS feed, or who just like to visit often, the new address is http://www.sweetpeacooks.wordpress.com

I’ll be adding a recipe later today for butternut squash risotto, so pop on by!

Chowder and Biscuits

I promised I post new recipes, and after a few days’ wait, here they are. Our batteries are still dead in the camera, so taking photos requires finding one of the remotes, depriving it of its batteries, and donating them to the camera for the process. Because of this song-and-dance, I’m even worse at remembering to take photos than I was.

A few nights ago, keeping with our comfort food theme, we made corn chowder and biscuits for dinner. I’m not an enormous chowder fan, but this recipe totally hit the spot. Oh.my.god. It was so good.

And what’s chowder without biscuits? Biscuits really aren’t that hard to make, and require very few ingredients. These biscuits have less butter in them, too, so they’re reduced-fat biscuits. They’re surely better with more butter, but I only had a couple tablespoons left in the fridge with which to work.

So let’s start with the chowder. It is ideally made with corn on the cob, but since those days are well over now, we just bought a sack of frozen kernels at the market. You’ll need three cups, which is exactly whatis contained in one of those frozen bags.

Here’s your grocery list:
1 sack of corn
2 strips of bacon, chopped
half an onion, chopped
3 yukon potatoes, diced
1 garlic clove (or since we were out, a smattering of garlic powder)
1 celery stalk, chopped (again, we had none, so we tossed in some celery seed)
1 quart chicken broth
1 c half-and-half
1 c grated cheddar
tabasco sauce

Begin by cooking the bacon in a soup pot over medium-high heat until it’s nearly crispy; then add the onions and saute six or so minutes, along with the celery seed and garlic powder. When the onion is tender, add the potatoes, and toss to coat; add the broth, scrape up the bits of the bottom, and bring to a simmer for twenty minutes.

Take your corn, thaw it out, and set aside 3/4 c of kernels. Puree the rest. We tried this in the blender with only ok results, but decided we were fine with more whole kernels than the recipe called for. After the potatoes are tender, stir in the corn and the half-and-half and allow to warm through. Season with salt, pepper, and tabasco sauce, and stir in the cheese. It tastes mellow and buttery and delicious.

For the biscuits, start with 2 c of flour, 2 t of baking powder, and 2 T of butter. Toss the dry together and then cut in the butter until it resembles coarse crumbs. I do this with my fingers but if your hands tend to run hot, you’re better off with a pair of forks to keep the butter from melting.

Add 3/4 c of milk all at once, and stir to just moisten everything. Using your hands, toss the dough around the bowl a few times to pick up the bits and pieces and form a ball.

Roll dough out on a very lightly floured surface until it’s about 1/2″ thick. Using a 2″ biscuit cutter, cut rounds using a straight up-and-down motion. Turning the cutter will cause the layers, which we all know are the best parts of biscuits, to fuse together. Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake in a 425 degree oven for 10-12 minutes, until browned.

I had a couple of the leftover biscuits this morning with butter and cinnamon sugar. Supertasty!