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