Popsicles

The Sous Chef and the Ingredients

Vietnamese iced coffee grape popsicles? Actually, we made three of each kind. These are so easy, and so good.

Vietnamese Iced Coffee Popsicles

• Water, instant coffee (make it strong), sweetened condensed milk, and a dash of vanilla. Mix and freeze.

Purple Popsicles

• Concord grape juice. Freeze. Think of kindergarden when you eat these. 

Pickled Onions

Sometimes you get a hankerin' for something kind of...unusual...and that is what happened to me when I started thinking about how I wanted pickled onions.  I wanted to put them on my salad, on my burger, on my cheese and avocado sandwich, on my kielbasa with potatoes - everywhere I looked!  So I made them, and found out just how easy they are to make. As great as they taste, the color is so pretty it'll dress up anything you put 'em on.

Pickled Onions

1 large red onion
3 cups red wine vinegar (an inexpensive kind)
3 tablespoons sugar

Chop the onion into half circles and stuff inside a medium sized mason jar (a spaghetti sauce jar will do the trick too).  Heat the vinegar in a non-reactive saucepan to dissolve the sugar, and don't boil the vinegar. Once the sugar is dissolved, pour the hot vinegar mixture over the onions in the jar. Let the liquid cool before screwing on the lid and putting in the fridge.  I recommend waiting a day to eat them.

Now, some people like to get fancy and put all manner of spices into the vinegar.  But I like them plain and simple; they're flavorful enough and can go on anything you can dream up to enjoy them.

Muhammara

The Chef and I discovered this tasty dip at a middle eastern restaurant last summer. True to form, the Chef said "I could make this, and I could probably make it better." And so he did! The flavor is hard to describe; the experience of eating muhammara follows these standard 4 steps:

Step 1: eyes pop out of head in disbelief of the smoky/garlicky/tangy/sweet flavors on tastebuds

Step 2: experience of brief bliss broken by...

Step 3: calculations of how much can/should be eaten during the current sitting

Step 4: a display of (hopefully) adult-like restraint in putting the lid back on the container and putting it away in the fridge

Muhammara calls for a few specialty ingredients that you may not have on hand, but it won't be much of a trek to find them. I like eating it straight with multi-grain pita chips, but it would be good with any kind of cracker or bread, piled high on veggie sandwiches, and no doubt many other ways. Make a double batch and give some to a friend.

Muhammara (Syrian hot pepper dip)

a 7-ounce jar roasted red bell peppers, drained (or 2 medium-sized

fresh fire-roasted red bells)

2/3 cup bread crumbs

1/3 cup toasted pine nuts

2 to 3 garlic cloves

1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, or to taste

2 teaspoons paprika (or smoked paprika)

3 tablespoons harissa (or more to taste)

1 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)

3/4 cup olive oil

toasted pita triangles as an accompaniment

Chop garlic and pine nuts in a food processor. Add everything else

(except olive oil) and process a few times until mixed. With motor

running, add oil slowly to incorporate. Keep processing until smooth.

Serve at room temperature with toasted pita bread.

Everyday Cookies

As soon as the last cookie is eaten from the tin, it's time to make more. My cookie budget for these is 2 or 3 each day, so they've always got to be on hand.  They're not too sweet (even a tad salty), pack rich bursts of chocolate and raisins, and go down with satisfying wholesomeness - the perfect everyday cookie.

P.S. they're vegan, but you can keep that a secret and no one will know.

Everyday Cookies, adapted from cookiemadness

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt + extra to taste (I do a rounded 1/2 tsp)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon + extra to taste (I do a rounded 1/2 tsp)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup raisins, plumped
1/3 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

First, put the raisins in a bowl with some hot water to plump up until you're ready to add them to the batter.

Mix together the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.

Mix the sugar, maple syrup, apple sauce, oil and vanilla together in a medium bowl. Add the flour mixture and stir until blended. Stir in the oats, followed by raisins and chocolate.

Let cookie batter sit for 10 minutes. This is a good time to line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and put the ingredients away.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the cookie sheets. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Let cool for about 5-8 minutes on cookie sheets then carefully scoop up onto a wire rack.

Makes about 16 larger size cookies or 24 smaller size cookies.

If You Wanna Know If He Loves You So...

It's in his kiss, of course.  But there are many ways to say "I love you" through words, a glance, or doing thoughtful things. Obviously one of my favorite ways to give and receive love is through food!

Last night my sweetie went to the market and bought a pint of raspberries - petite, sweet-tart, deep fuschia thimbles that were picked painstakingly by hand.  We rolled out a mini pie crust, baked it, then smoothed a layer of melted dark chocolate chips on top. Channeling my inner French pastry chef, I painstakingly sunk each berry into the chocolate, anchoring them in place.

Et voila! A labor of love.

Thin Crust Pizza

Mama mia this is the best pizza we ever made! Thank goodness there is a pie in the oven RIGHT NOW since I'm drooling as I post these pics. How'd we do it? Once again Cook's Illustrated comes through. They had a recipe for a thin crust and once we got that down the rest was a slam dunk. Best eaten hot out of the oven, at least once a week.

Tandoori Chicken

We made this loosely following a Cooks Illustrated recipe, which recommended rubbing a dry spice mixture into the raw chicken before applying a wet yogurt-and-spice mixture. It came out great! Also on the dinner plate (not pictured) was jasmine rice, yellow split peas cooked like chana dal, and sauteed spinach.