Bran muffins

This recipe is from Cook's Illustrated.

Ingredients

• 1 cup raisins
• 1 tsp water
• 2 and 1/4 cup All-Bran Original cereal
• 1 and 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp table salt
• 1 large egg and 1 large yolk
• 2/3 cup plus 3 tbsp packed dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 cup nonfat yoghurt
• 3/4 cup sour cream

Place oven rack in middle position and heat to 400 F. Spray muffin tins (probably about 18 of them) with PAM. Set aside.
Combine raisins and water in a small microwave-safe vessel, cover with cling wrap, and cut steam vents in the plastic with a paring knife. Microwave on high for 30 seconds. Let stand, covered, until raisins are softened and plump, about 5 minutes. Transfer raisins to paper-towel to cool.
Process half the cereal in a food processor until finely ground, about 1 minute.
Whisk flours, baking soda, and salt in large bowl to combine, then set aside.
Whisk egg and yolk together in medium bowl until well-combined and light-colored, about 20 seconds.
Add sugar and vanilla. Whisk until mixture is thick, about 30 seconds.
Add melted (and cooled!) butter and whisk to combine,
Add yoghurt and whisk to combine.
Stir in processed and unprocessed cereal. Let mixture sit until cereal is evenly moistened (it will still be lumpy), about 5 minutes.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and gently mix with rubber spatula until batter is combined and evenly moistened. Do not overmix, as usual.
Gently fold raisins into the batter.
Divide batter among muffin cups. Do not flatten or level the surface.
Bake until muffins are golden and an inserted toothpick comes out clean (about 16 minutes). Make sure to rotate pan half-way through baking.
Turn out muffins onto a tea towel when through baking.

Thoughts: These were probably the best bran muffins we've ever made, and among some of the best I've ever eaten. The raisins managed to stay plump throughout baking, which was nice. The muffins don't seem to dry out easily, unlike the blackberry muffins.
I don't have much to say here except that these are delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Blackberry Muffins

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp milk
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 stick melted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 11 oz. of fresh blackberries, cut in half

Position rack in center of oven and preheat oven to 400 F.
Grease muffin tins (12-18 of them, depending on how big you like your muffins).
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream, milk, sugar, butter and vanilla.
Add the wet mixture tot he dry mixture and mix together until the dry ingredients have moistened. DO NOT OVER-MIX. Add the berries. Batter will not be smooth.
Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Bake for around 16 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
Remove muffins from oven and turn them out onto a tea towel or something.

Thoughts: I found this recipe on someone else's cooking blog. She advertises them as the best blackberry muffins ever, and they are. They are very delicious. They are not too sweet, either, which Dan appreciated. I could have used a little more sugar, but the muffins are healthier this way anyway. So I'm down.
These tend to dry out fairly quickly if you aren't careful, so after a few days you'll have to heat them up in the microwave for them to soften up. Maybe 10-15 seconds. They are good with both butter and honey, but also delicious plain. If they get too old and dry to eat plain, chop them into fourths and dip them in chocolate fondue. That's what we did.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

This is based on a recipe by Cathy Lowe, which I found on the Food Network website.

Ingredients

• 1.5c flour
  
• 1tsp baking soda
  
• 1.5tsp baking powder
  
• 1tsp salt
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 3/4c sugar
  
• 2 to 3 very ripe bananas - 2 works just fine
  
• 1tsp vanilla
  
• 1/3c vegetable oil
  
• 1tsp cinnamon
  
• ~4oz chocolate chips, or until it looks right
  

Preheat oven to 350. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and chocolate chips in a bowl. In a separate, larger bowl, cream sugar into eggs with a whisk, and whisk in vanilla and oil. Add the bananas and mash with the whisk or a fork until they're broken down to your tastes. Pour dry into wet and fold together, being careful not to over mix. Pour batter into a greased 5"x9" bread pan and bake for about an hour and ten minutes (check it at an hour and see how it's doing, though), until a toothpick inserted comes out FAIRLY clean. Don't want to over-bake. Take bread out and turn out to cool.

Thoughts: I've made minor variations on this recipe several times, each of them very successful. In the future, it might be nice to try adding some nutmeg, or alternatively adding some blueberries instead of chocolate chips & cinnamon. There are a lot of options.

Disaster Index: 1/10

French Bread

A work in progress

Ingredients

• 1 + 1/3c flour
  
• 1/2tsp salt
  
• 1/2tsp yeast
  
• 1/3tsp white vinegar
  
• warm water
  

Mix flour, salt, and yeast in a bowl. (I am assuming here that we're reasonably confident with the yeast in question.) Add vinegar to about 1/3c warm water (about as warm as the tap will go) and slowly add to four mixture, stopping every so often to mix. Get more warm water (a cup?) and slowly add, stopping to mix with the dough, until you get a very SLIGHTLY sticky dough consistency. If you overshoot (and I always do) add more flour until you can handle the dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and knead for two minutes. Spray some PAM in the bowl, put the dough back in, and then PAM the top of the dough. Cover and let rise until doubled. I have no idea how long this should take.

Preheat oven to 450. When the dough has doubled, turn it out onto a floured surface and dust the top with some more flour. Press it with your hands into a rough rectangle, and then fold it into thirds to make a sort of log shape. Now draw the ends out to make a baguette shape. Pinch closed the seam where you folded the dough. Place the dough seam side down on a baking sheet, make some slits in the top, and cover to let rise for another half hour. I recommend on top of the warm oven.

Uncover the bread and brush the top with olive oil. Place a baking pan on the bottom rack of the oven with a half inch of water in it, and place the bread on the top rack. Bake 25 minutes, remove the water and let bake for another 5 minutes. Remove and let cool on a rack or something like that.

Thoughts: I've done this a couple times now, and the most important thing for me has been to work in small batches because my oven is so small. The crust has been pretty good so far. For my most recent experiment I used only a pinch of yeast and about half a cup of stale champagne for leavening. It took a long time to rise, but the crust was really great. Not sure what I'll do to modify this in future recipes. So far so good. As with other bread recipes, I used the "microwave trick" to rise the dough the first time.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Mocha Cake

Ingredients

• Pam, or other cooking spray
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup Dutch processed cocoa
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbp canola oil
• 2 tbp melted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 banana
• 3/4 cup lowfat yoghurt
• 3/4 cup ricotta cheese
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tbp espresso
• 2 oz. good-quality dark chocolate

For the frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp espresso

1 small square chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put oven rack in center position.
Spray a 9x13 cake pan with Pam and set aside.
Whisk together flours, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
In a large mixing bowl, mix butter and oil. Add eggs and banana and mix to incorporate.
Fold in yoghurt, ricotta, vanilla, sugar, and espresso. Melt chocolate and add chocolate.
Gradually add dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. DO NOT OVERBEAT.
Pour batter into pan and put in oven. Let bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely.
While cake is cooling, make frosting:
combine all ingredients into a bowl and beat until soft and creamy. Spread frosting over cake and cut into 32 squares. Shave chocolate over the entire cake. Each square = 100 calories. Not bad.

Thoughts: This was an ok recipe. The original called for 2 eggs and 2 egg whites rather than 2 eggs and 1 banana, but I think the banana worked out ok. The original also calls for 1.5 cups lowfat yoghurt rather than half yoghurt and half ricotta. If you were going to make this recipe, I would make sure you had all the ingredients before trying to make it. Substitutions can be risky.
Make sure you cover this cake immediately because it dries out quickly in the fridge. It was pretty tasty, all taken. I'll let people qualify my remarks as they see fit.

Disaster Index: 3-4/10.

Vichyssoise with Chilies

Like a traditional vichyssoise, but with a kick.

Ingredients

• 1 yellow onion, chopped
  
• 3 leeks, MOST of the green parts cut off, and washed
  
• 2 bigish russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
  
• 5c water
  
• 2tbsp unsalted butter
  
• 4c 2% milk (or something equivalent in fat content)
  
• 3 jalapeño peppers, roasted (char the skins under the broiler for 15-20 min, then when they cool pull the skin off, cut and take out the seeds and membranes)
  
• salt to taste (probably about 3-4tsp)
  

Saute the onions and leeks with the butter. When the onions / leeks are soft, add the potatoes and water and about 2tsp salt. Bring it to a boil, and then simmer it until the potatoes are quite soft. Add the milk, and bring back to a boil. Now blend the soup along with the peppers (probably working in batches unless you have one hell of a big blender). Taste. Add salt until it's right. Mine took quite a bit. You're supposed to eat it chilled, but I served it warm because it's winter and we were impatient. But there's a lot left over. Garnish with chives.

Thoughts: Very nice taste, but not very thick. It would probably benefit from being chilled, so we'll see how that goes. The hotness wasn't overpowering. In the future, I'd like to do this with chipotles and see how that goes. Probably I should use heavy cream or half and half instead of 2%, but I don't really know. If I were doing a traditional vichyssoise, I'm sure I would.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Black Bean Chili with Butternut Squash

From an Epicurious recipe, slightly edited.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped or crushed
  
• 1 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed
  
• 3 15oz cans of black beans (rinsed)
  
• 2.5c vegetable broth
  
• 1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes
  
• 3 cups chopped Napa cabbage
  
• salt, pepper, oregano, cayenne, cumin, garlic powder (if you want more garlic)
  

Sautee the onion in some olive oil with the garlic cloves. When the onion is transparent, add the squash and the other seasonings (except salt - vegetable broth tends to be pretty salty, so don't add salt until the end or else it might be too salty). Let it cook for a few minutes, and then add everything except the cabbage. Bring it to a boil covered, stirring occasionally (not much stirring needed, really) and then reduce it to a simmer and leave uncovered until the squash is just tender. Throw in the cabbage and let it cook for another couple minutes, until the cabbage is tender. Serve with slices of cheddar, yogurt, and, yes, sriracha.

Thoughts: This was an odd recipe, but surprisingly good. I would definitely do it again. The original recipe calls for Swiss chard, and if you can get your hands on it it's probably better. But Emily's idea for the substitution worked very well. Surprisingly well. Next time I make it I may still use Napa, in fact. Also next time, some sriracha straight in the soup might be nice to kick up the spice a bit, but I guess everyone has their own tolerance levels, right?

Disaster Index: 1/10

Herb Cream Sauce

Ingredients

• 2c skim milk + 1tbsp butter OR 2c 2(+)% milk or something similar
  
• salt, pepper, about 2 cloves of garlic
  
• 1/4c fresh chives, finely chopped (or sub. 1 to 2 tbsp dried)
  
• 1/3c fresh basil, finely chopped (or sub. 1 to 2 tbsp dried)
  
• 1/3c fresh parsley, finely chopped (or sub. 1 to 2tbsp dried)
  
• 1tsp flour, sifted
  

Pour the milk into a sauce pan and add the butter. When the butter has melted, add all the seasonings and herbs. Bring to a boil, stirring often. When the mixture reaches a boil, wait about 10 seconds and then turn the mixture off. Transfer to a blender (or use an immersion blender if you have one - I don't) and blend on high until fairly smooth, about a minute. Transfer back to the sauce pan. Over medium heat, bring the sauce to a boil again. The object is to cook this down quite a bit. When it's reached a boil, slowly sift in the flour, stirring constantly. Break up any lumps with a spoon against the side of the pot. When it's just a little thinner than you want it to be, take it off the heat. It will thicken considerably as it cools. If it gets too thick, add just a little water to loosen it up.

Thoughts: This is really healthy. You *can't* really leave out the butter, but it's only 1tbsp. What's more, I've made it a few times, and it's great. Think of it as a dairy-based pesto. Except it has no cheese in it. I served it today with "Dan's leftover sweet-potato gnocchi ravioli" and it was great. I think I added just a little too much garlic and salt, though. Careful not to overdo it on the spices - it cooks down, so they get much more concentrated.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Sweet Tomato Sauce with Cinnamon

Ingredients

• ~6oz crushed tomatoes
  
• 1/4 red onion, chopped
  
• 1/4 yellow onion, chopped
  
• 1/4 to 1/2tsp cinnamon
  
• salt, pepper, honey
  

Sautee the onions in a sauce pan with a little olive oil. When the onions are translucent, add the crushed tomatoes, the cinnamon, salt, and pepper. Taste. My crushed tomatoes were a little too sour, so I added a little honey. The idea was to accent the sweetness of the sweet potato in the gnocchi I served these with. I added about 1 tsp.

Thoughts: You can really taste the cinnamon. It was kind of a Moroccan inspiration, I guess. It worked really well with the sweetness of the sweet potatoes.

Disaster Index: 2/10 - it was good, but I wouldn't say it rated a 1.

Dan's Leftover Sweet Potato Gnocchi Ravioli with Spinach-Ricotta Filling

We need a new name.

Ingredients

• 1/2 batch leftover sweet potato gnocchi dough
  
• 5oz chopped frozen spinach
  
• 1/2 yellow onion, chopped
  
• 1/2 container Ricotta cheese (7/8 cups, technically)
  
• salt, pepper, garlic to taste
  
• the juice of 1/4 lemon
  

So this recipe has a lot of fractions because I didn't want to make too much filling for these ravioli. And it turned out to be almost exactly right.
Set out the dough to thaw. Mine was pretty cold. In the mean time, sautee the onion until translucent. Thaw the spinach in the microwave while the onion is cooking. When the onion is done, throw in the spinach and the salt, pepper, and garlic. Let it cook for another 5 minutes over medium-low heat. Take it off the heat and add the ricotta and the lemon juice. Stir to combine. Taste it! Add seasonings to fix whatever it needs.

Now the fun (difficult) part. On a well floured counter and with a well floured rolling pin, roll out (half) the dough to about 1/8" thick. Take a wide-rimmed glass (thinner rim the better) or a cookie cutter and start making dumpling wrappers. Pull away the scrap dough and set it aside (you roll this out again when you're done with this batch). Add filling to the center of each wrapper, and fold over to create a little dumpling. Press the seams closed with the tines of a fork. Roll out more dough. Repeat until you've used all the dough. Drop the ravioli into a pot of boiling water. 30 seconds after they start floating on the surface, scoop them out and toss with olive oil (quickly, before they start sticking together).

I served these with herb cream sauce (recipe to follow soon).

Thoughts: The filling was great for these "ravioli", but this was an IMMENSE amount of work. Including prep time, this project took like an hour and a half. If I do this again, I might consider buying a ravioli press.

Otherwise, delicious. Absolutely great. Not a disaster at all, even though I made up the recipe completely!

Disaster Index: 1/10

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Ingredients

• 3 medium sweet potatoes, chopped roughly
  
• 1 egg
  
• 2+ cups of flour
  
• salt, pepper
  

Chop potatoes, place in a pot, cover with water, and boil until the potatoes are tender. Drain them and rinse briefly with cold water to cool. Don't want to cook the egg. In a cuisinart, kitchen aid, or by hand if you're daring, place the potatoes, the egg, 1c flour, and some salt and pepper. Blend until smooth. Now add another half cup of flour. Blend. Continue the process until you've got a "slightly sticky dough". For me, this meant about 3 cups of flour total, though after 2.5 I took the dough out (half of it at a time) and added flour manually, kneading it on the counter.

Set a pot of water to boil. Divide the dough in four, and on a floured counter roll the dough out into a long snake, about an inch in diameter. starting at one end, start slicing the dough into 1/2 inch slices. Don't worry about getting clean cross-sections, the idea is to pinch the dough into little pillow shapes. When the dough is all sliced, drop them into the boiling water. Cook them until, oh, about 20 seconds after they start floating. When you take them out, toss them with olive oil.

I served this with sweet tomato sauce with cinnamon. Recipe to follow soon.

Thoughts: Well this was a LOT of work. If I ever do it again, I will make it with about 1/3 the dough. My cuisinart is just not big enough to handle that much potato. Otherwise, the texture was great. The slight sweetness of the sauce (with the cinnamon!) was a great accent to the potatoes. I felt this dish was a total success, aside from also being a total mess.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Vegetable Roulade Mk. II

This was another experiment. I didn't use a recipe for any of this, so it's all approximate.

Ingredients

• Dough:
  
  
  
  • 2.5c flour
    
  • 1.5tsp sugar
    
  • 2tsp salt
    
  • 1.25tsp yeast
    
  • 3tbsp olive oil
    
  • cold water
    
  • Herbs de Provence, garlic powder, parsley, pepper, oregano
    
  
  
• Filling
  
  
  
  • 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
    
  • 1/2 white onion, finely chopped
    
  • Some crushed tomatoes
    
  • sliced cremini mushrooms
    
  • ~4oz feta
    
  
  

So for the dough, I did the normal dough method (see previous roulade recipe / pizza dough recipe) except for the slight difference that I used only about half the yeast and let it rise for about double the time. It didn't rise QUITE as much in the oven, but it had a great texture, flaky yet soft. It didn't even have all that much oil. So that was a success. The addition of garlic powder from previous pizza doughs was also good. Make sure that you season it a little more than you think you should. You won't regret it.

So prepare dough and let it rise for five hours. You're going to have to do the "microwave trick" for this (boil water in microwave, put dough in microwave to rise because it's super humid). When it's done rising, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll to about 11"x19". It will be about 1/4" thick. Top dough with toppings, and roll the thing into a log (the long way). Cut into as many slices as you possibly can (I managed about 10) and place these as you cut them onto a greased, floured baking sheet, cut side down. Bake at 375 "until it looks right" - the dough gets dry around the edges and starts to show signs of browning.

Thoughts: The dough for this recipe worked a lot better. Problem was, Emily and I had planned on putting spinach on this as well, and we forgot. Not that it would have mattered - we used more like a whole red onion rather than half, and there was just WAY too much onion. Mushrooms were good, but next time we have to cut them smaller. If we're going to use feta and tomato again, we're going to need a slightly sweeter tomato to take the edge off the sharpness of feta. I would say San Marzano if we can get our hands on it. Otherwise I would cut out the tomato entirely. Finally, the onions NEED to be sauteed first before you put them on the dough. Oh my god. They just don't cook sufficiently in the oven. So while this was tasty, it had WAY too many toppings (next time scale back to 1/3s of onions, less mushrooms), we FORGOT some toppings (spinach) and the onions were really sharp.

Still, the dough was a big success.

Disaster Index: 4/10 - really pretty good to eat, but it could have been a lot better.

Italian Doughnuts

Ingredients

• 1 pound pizza dough (see relevant post)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1.5 tsp cinnamon
• vegetable oil, for frying
• olive oil, for frying
• 3 ounces chocolate
• 1/4 cup fresh whipping cream

Roll out the risen dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1/2 inch thickness. Using a floured doughnut cutter or 2 round cookie cutters (one 2" and one 1"), cut out doughnut rounds. Gather the dough scraps and reroll. Cut out more doughnuts. Make sure to save the holes.
Whisk the sugar and cinnamon in a medium bowl to blend. Set the mixture aside.
Pour equal parts olive and vegetable oil into a large frying pan to reach a depth of about 2 ". Heat the oil over medium heat. The original recipe calls for using a deep-fry thermometer but come on. Who has one of those? So I just guessed about when the oil was 375 degrees.
Working in batches, fry the doughnuts until they puff but are still pale, about 45 seconds on each side.
Using a slotted spoon, transfer the doughnuts to paper towels to drain. Cool slightly.
When the doughnuts are still warm, roll them in the prepared sugar/cinnamon mixture.
You can serve them like this, or you can coat some of them in chocolate. To do so, follow the following directions.
Cool fried doughnuts to room temperature.
Stir the chocolate and the whipping cream together in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until the chocolate melts.
Set aside until the chocolate sauce comes to room temperature but does not set. Dip one side of each doughnut into the chocolate mixture. You can sprinkle them with pretty much anything - sliced almonds, crushed walnuts, crushed espresso beans, jimmies, whatever.
You can cook the doughnut holes in the same way.

Thoughts: These worked out pretty well. All told, the recipe is a little complicated because you have to prepare the pizza dough first. One might say, "hm, pizza dough is more savory, yet doughnuts are supposed to be sweet". This is true. Once you coat these with sugar, cinnamon, and chocolate, you can't really tell it's pizza dough anymore. But I think it would be fine to try to make the dough sweeter. Add sugar? I will ask Dan about this because I have no idea how to bake. That's his "metier", if you will. But the taste of the dough hardly mattered anyway. I am still sort of playing around with the texture. I'm not quite sure if I over or under-cooked the doughnuts. They feel a little heavy. Maybe cook them less long? Overall though, these are pretty delicious.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Pasta with Broccoli and Mushrooms

Eh.

Ingredients

• 1/2lb angel hair pasta (or whatever you prefer)
  
• 3/2c broccoli florets (smallish segments)
  
• 3/4c cremini mushrooms ("mini portabellas"), sliced thinly
  
• 1 small yellow onion or half of a medium one, chopped
  
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  
• 1/5c vermouth (well, okay, just like one good splash to deglaze the pan)
  
• salt, pepper, parsley, whatever else you like
  

Start the pasta boiling in a pot. In a separate pan, begin sautéeing the onion with the garlic and seasonings. When the onion begins to get translucent, throw in the mushrooms. When the onion is just a little brown and the mushrooms have given off a little liquid, add the vermouth and let it cook off. Then throw in the broccoli and stir around. My broccoli was frozen so it took a while to cook. By this point, the pasta will be getting close to done. Take some of the pasta water (about 1/2c) and add it to the onion/broccoli/mushroom mixture. Stir and leave uncovered to reduce a little. When it's reduced (and when the broccoli is cooked to your liking), add the pasta to the sauce and toss to coat. Serve with grated parmesan/romano/whatever.

Thoughts: I mean, it wasn't BAD. There was nothing awful about this preparation, but it didn't really stand out. It was easy enough, and pretty fast, but it was a little bland. I don't know what I would do to fix that. Probably I would use fresher mushrooms (mine were a little dried), more broccoli to pasta ratio (much more), I would cook the broccoli longer, (and that goes for the mushrooms, too) and I would season just a little more heavily, maybe with some rosemary. Finally, I would use a more bite-sized pasta, like radiatore or fusilli. Then we might have something worthwhile on our hands. Or we might have something awful. Hard to say at this point.

Disaster Index: 3/10 - Nothing too terrible; nothing too amazing either.