Archive for the 'cookies & squares' Category
Documenting tonight’s dinner is going to take until tomorrow night’s dinner.
This afternoon was M & A’s awesome second annual Canada Day party, a potluck, which I think needs to come back into vogue.
On the menu: pork kebabs with onions and mushrooms, beef kebabs, D’s Mom’s famous curried chicken, potatoes and chick peas, grilled veg, tomato and pancetta panzanella salad, slivered snow peas with wasabi cream cheese and smoked salmon, noodle salad, and an array of dips, snacks and cupcakes arranged like a giant flag with a beaver in the middle (if you looked at it long enough, you could see it).
My contribution was Maple Butter Tarts (because butter tarts are the most fantastic Canadian food creation ever) and Nanaimo Bars (second most fantastic). OK, the Nanaimo bars got half eaten and then put in the freezer for our drive to Tofino before we left for the party. I have an unnatural infatuation with Nanaimo bars. I go to events in the hopes that they will show up on platters of dainties. Unfortunately, they aren’t any less delicious frozen, and in fact I’ve developed a particular taste for them that way. When I was a kid I ate a whole panful of Nanaimo bars, chunk by chunk, from the freezer, and when I was found out I had to clean my sisters’ rooms for two weeks. It was totally worth it.
This was probably the most difficult recipe I’ve ever had to lighten. These Nanaimo bars have less than half the fat of a traditional one; if you want to go whole hog, here’s a recipe.
Nanaimo Bars
For the record, these originated in Nanaimo, BC, although you’ll see versions in US cookbooks labeled “New York Slice”. Custard powder can be found in tins alongside the pudding at the grocery store.
Base:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
3-4 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. corn syrup
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups graham wafer crumbs
1/3 cup shredded coconut
pinch salt
Filling:
3-4 Tbsp. butter, softened
3 Tbsp. custard powder
2 cups icing sugar
2 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
Topping:
1 cup chocolate chips or chopped semisweet chocolate
In the bowl of a double boiler or a medium stainless steel bowl, combine the brown sugar, cocoa, butter and corn syrup. Stir in the egg and set over a pot of simmering water; whisk until the mixture melts and thickens slightly. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, graham crumbs, coconut and salt.
Press the mixture firmly into the bottom of an ungreased 8” x 8” pan and pop it in the freezer while making the filling.
In a medium bowl, beat butter, custard powder, icing sugar, milk and vanilla until creamy and smooth, adding a few extra drops of milk if necessary until you have a spreadable frosting. Spread over the base. Return to the freezer or fridge to chill until firm before covering with chocolate.
Melt chocolate in a medium bowl set over hot water, or on medium power in the microwave. Stir until smooth and spread over the filling. Refrigerate until well chilled and firm. These are easiest to cut at room temperature, using a small, sharp, serrated knife, so pull them out of the fridge and set them on the countertop for about ½ hour before you plan to eat them.
Makes 20 bars.
Per Bar: 213 calories, 8.3 g fat (4.8 g saturated fat, 2.3 g monounsaturated fat, 0.9 g polyunsaturated fat), 33.8 g carbohydrates, 21 mg cholesterol, 2 g protein, 1.6 g fiber. 34% calories from fat
I’ve made butter tart squares many a time before (far easier than fussing with pastry dough to make tarts) but this is the first time I added maple. The girl who ate the last square at the party this afternoon (not knowing I was right behind her and had made them) said: “OMG! O. M. G. OMG!!” Just like that. I didn’t realize you could actually speak in text message abbreviation.
(Low-fat) Butter Tart Squares
Base:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
pinch salt
Topping:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
pinch salt
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup raisins or currants (if you want to be really authentic)
1/3 cup chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, stir together the butter and brown sugar until creamy. Add flour and salt and stir until well combined and crumbly.
Press into the bottom of an 8” x 8” pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until just barely golden around the edges.
Using the same bowl (no need to wash it), combine the brown sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Add the eggs, maple syrup and vanilla and stir until well blended and smooth. Stir in the raisins and pecans.
Pour over the base and return to the oven for 25–30 minutes, until golden and bubbly around the edges but still slightly jiggly in the middle. The topping will puff up a bit as it bakes and then settle again when you remove it from the oven. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.
Makes 16 squares.
Per Square: 194 calories, 5.1 g fat (2.1 g saturated fat, 2 g monounsaturated fat, 0.6 g polyunsaturated fat), 36.2 g carbohydrates, 34.7 mg cholesterol, 2.2 g protein, 1 g fiber. 23% calories from fat
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July 01 2008 | appetizers and cookies & squares and sweet stuff | 1 Comment »
No meat today, please. We’re still digesting.
A conversation with Barbara Kingsolver last week has me thinking more than usual about eating locally. She made a good point - that rather than ponder what we feel like eating for dinner, we should consider what’s local and in season, and plan our meals around those ingredients.
With that in mind, I picked up a few bunches of asparagus over the weekend at the farmers’ market, and read a bit of Jamie Oliver’s advice on growing your own - I don’t often hear about people growing asparagus in their back yards, but I know it’s possible in our climate. Serendipitously, my friend A called on Saturday afternoon and asked if I wanted the small gathering of asparagus that was popping up through her lawn and being trampled by her three boys. Did I! From what I know, it takes 3 years for planting to picking asparagus, and I haven’t yet found a garden centre that sells asparagus plants (although, admittedly, I don’t frequent garden centres… my tomatoes, zucchini and pea seeds came from the Superstore).
I went over and dug it up; it was a monster. A mess of roots and an unseen giant tuber of sorts that supported my weight on the shovel (we gave up before digging that deep) with about 6 stalks emerging from it. I replanted what we could salvage beside the fence in my back yard, about five minutes before W and L conspired to snap off the shoots and throw them over the fence.
So today I still have the asparagus from the market. It’s cold and wet, and so dark I could hardly take photos. I didn’t much feel like cooking, so I threw a pot of pasta on - long squiggly pasta I picked up somewhere - I have vowed not to buy any more pasta until I use up all the half bags of assorted shapes on my shelf. While at the market I also picked up a package of peppered Boursin cheese (decidedly not local, I realize, but on sale), a soft, incredibly decadent cheese that my sister and I sometimes set on the table and spread on crackers while we work on our laptops at the dining room table. I thought I’d crumble it into the hot pasta and toss about until it melts, lubricating it a bit with some reserved pasta water. I imagine any sort of soft cheese would work; goat, ricotta (with lemon!) or even flavoured cream cheese.
While the pasta cooked I snapped the tough ends off the asparagus and cut them into pieces. When the pasta was a couple minutes from being done, I threw the asparagus in with it so that it would be tender but still crisp, and all done at the same time.
For dessert, leftovers from BT this morning. I made gluten free brownies for Jill, who has celiac disease, and they turned out pretty well if I do say so myself! I made them with brown rice flour and millet flour, but I imagine you could use any number of gluten free flours. Because brownies are so dense and fudgy (or should be) and call for very little flour, they are fairly easy to make gluten-free. Next time, I’m trying quinoa flour.
Gluten Free Brownies
Try quinoa or other gluten-free flours such as buckwheat or tapioca in these dense brownies.
½ cup butter, softened
4 oz. semi sweet or dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. instant coffee or espresso, dissolved in 1 tsp. water
¼ cup cocoa
¼ cup brown rice flour
¼ cup millet flour
pinch salt
a handful of chopped nuts and/or chocolate chips or more chopped chocolate (optional)
Preheat the oven to 350°F and spray an 8”x8” baking pan with nonstick spray.
Set the butter and chocolate in a stainless steel or glass bowl set over simmering water and let it melt, stirring occasionally, or melt it in the microwave. Set aside to cool slightly. Stir in the sugar, and if it’s not too hot, the eggs, vanilla and coffee.
Add the cocoa, flours and salt, and stir until blended. Stir in some nuts or chocolate chips, if you like. Pour into the pan and bake for 25 minutes, until the edges pull slightly from the pan but the middle is still soft. Set on a wire rack to cool.
Makes 16 brownies.
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June 02 2008 | cookies & squares and dessert and one dish and pasta and vegetarian | 6 Comments »
It was a snacking sort of afternoon, and Mike was going out tonight, so I pulled a container of spaghetti pie out of the freezer in order to feed W properly, and I snacked on some leftover lemon bars from a high tea I prepared for donors at the Children’s Hospital yesterday. These are far lower in fat than traditional lemon bars, but you’ll never notice the difference.
When I was testing recipes for One Smart Cookie, one of the trickiest things to trim the fat from was the shortbread that makes the base of so many bars. The thing about shortbread is that it contains butter, sugar and flour (sometimes some cornstarch for mouthfeel, sometimes some rice flour, or icing sugar) and when you start to mess with it, it becomes something other than shortbread. But I discovered something after months of adding everything from strained yogurt to low fat cream cheese: when you remove the fat from a recipe, you don’t necessarily have to replace it with anything. Hallelujah! Now this isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it’s good to know. This shortbread base is a case in point: a typical ratio is 1/2 cup butter to 1 cup flour; I use 1/4 cup butter to 1 (scant) cup flour, and it works out just fine. The mixture will seem too crumbly to work, but just trust me. I wouldn’t serve it on its own as shortbread, but it makes a mighty fine base. If it cracks a little on top when you bake it, it doesn’t matter one bit; you’re pouring a topping over it anyway.
Classic Lemon Bars
Base:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 scant cup all-purpose flour
pinch salt
Topping:
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
pinch salt
1 large egg
1 large egg white
grated zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon (3 Tbsp.)
icing sugar, for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, stir together the butter and sugar until creamy. Add flour and salt and stir until well combined and crumbly.
Press into the bottom of an 8” x 8” pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for about 8 minutes, until just barely golden around the edges.
In the same bowl (no need to wash it), stir together the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Add egg, egg white, lemon zest and juice and stir until well blended and smooth. Pour over the base.
Return to the oven for 25–30 minutes, until slightly golden on top and bubbly around the edges. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. Sprinkle with icing sugar before cutting into bars.
Makes 12 bars.
Per Bar: 168 calories, 4.4 g fat (2.5 g saturated fat, 1.3 g monounsaturated fat, 0.2 g polyunsaturated fat), 30.8 g carbohydrates, 28.3 mg cholesterol, 2.1 g protein, 0.4 g fiber. 23% calories from fat
Oh, and meet Lou. (Short for Louis, as in the old St Louis blues bar in Calgary, or Louis Armstrong, or Jos. Louis - the cream-filled chocolate cake sandwich, named for the founder’s sons, Joseph and Louis). Thank you for all the fantastic suggestions, but this was one we could all agree on that didn’t have odd connotations or rhyme with anything we didn’t want him confusing his name with (ie. the dog next door). Plus, it’s about as cute as you can get when W says “woo-wee“.
(Of course all of you know that his real name is John Cusack. Whenever Mike isn’t around, that’s what he’ll go by. Louis can be his alias.)
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May 30 2008 | cookies & squares | 7 Comments »
No, I didn’t bother to make dinner tonight. We had party pickings at a 2nd birthday soiree this afternoon, and when we stopped to buy produce this morning W begged for a bag of pistachios, which he devoured faster than I could shell them for him on the porch this evening, jamming as many as he could into his cheeks like a chipmunk. (This kid is weird about the things he loves. Fortunately, pistachios contain almost 10 g protein and 4 g fiber per 1/2 cup, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, folate, and plenty of healthy monounsaturated fat. And technically, they are green.)
We nibbled on some apples and dried apricots, and later on I needed a hit of warm chocolate chip cookies. I needed them bad. Real bad.
Because - get this - I was too lazy to walk upstairs to get a copy of One Smart Cookie, and hadn’t made them in awhile, I resorted to the recipe on the back of the Chipits bag. But here’s a secret I’d like to share: you can use half the fat that the recipe calls for, and not change anything else, and they will be just fine. It took me years of experimenting to discover that when you cut back on the fat in your baking, you don’t necessarily need to replace it with anything. Most cookie recipes have far more fat (and sugar) than they really need. (This isn’t a hard and fast rule though, sometimes a recipe needs more tweaking.) They also taste about the same made with half whole wheat and half all-purpose flour.
If you’re baking with Splenda, please note that their brown sugar blend contains exactly the same amount of carbohydrate and more calories than regular brown sugar. (The rationale is that it’s sweeter than brown sugar, so you can use less of it. Or you could use less brown sugar, which doesn’t cost $10 per bag.)
Now, baking chocolate chip cookies when there are only 1 1/2 people in the house isn’t a great idea. Fortunately, my friend S bought me this spanking new convection toaster oven for Christmas, which has been jostling for counter space with the microwave and KitchenAid mixer ever since.
It is brilliant in that it allows me to bake only 4 perfect chocolate chip cookies at a time, and freeze the rest of the dough for another day. Because it’s so small it uses very little energy, you don’t even need to preheat it, and it’s perfect for things like tuna melts that just aren’t the same done in the microwave. It’s like the ultimate grown-up Easy Bake Oven.
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May 04 2008 | cookies & squares | 2 Comments »
We played hard today. Awake at 6:30, we organized the basement (or disorganized it in an attempt to begin organizing), cleaned out a couple church sales (which contributed to the already dire basement situation), made peanut butter puffed wheat squares for my niece’s yard sale and lemonade stand, played in big buckets of water, jumped on the trampoline, had pizza and drank lemonade squeezed fresh to order using an antique juicer my sister picked up somewhere. It was the best lemonade stand in Calgary, with its pyramid of fresh lemons, sugar and pitcher of ice water, handmade signs, chocolate cupcakes and puffed wheat squares. I wish I had my camera.
Afterward, W slept right through dinnertime, woke up at 7 and still refused to get out of bed. I doctored up the leftover fusilli from last night, baking it with cheese to bring him up to share in bed. He had a meltdown that it wasn’t eggs and toast, so after briefly trying to explain that I wasn’t running a restaurant (it seems he doesn’t quite grasp the concept of eating out yet) I finally relented and made bageleggs.
We grew up with bageleggs. My mom started making them in Toronto, where there were bagel shops on every block. When we moved to Calgary in the late 70s, there was not a bagel to be had. My Toronto dentist had told me if I ate a bagel a day I would never need braces, and for awhile I thought this stupid new city where everyone wore cowboy hats and didn’t have swimming pools at school or know what a bagel was would force me into a headgear for a big chunk of my precious elementary school life. Then we found Bagels & Buns on 17th Avenue.
You make a bagelegg by slicing a bagel in half and putting it cut side down into some butter and oil in a hot skillet (a bit of both to keep the butter from burning, and because butter is delicious and oil is good for you) and breaking an egg into the middle. (Sometimes, when you get one of those bagels with hardly any hole, you need to tear it open a little.) Baste the top as it cooks, or flip it over easy; my method of choice. I haven’t had a bagelegg in years, and forgot how much I love them. The bottom gets all crunchy, and the sides of the bagel hole protect the yolk from breaking until you want it to.
(Of course I ate my way through half a pan of puffed wheat squares before we even got to the bageleggs.)
Puffed Wheat Squares (Plain or Peanut Butter)
1/4 cup butter or non-hydrogenated margarine, or 1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp. vanilla
8 cups puffed wheat, or 7 cups puffed wheat and 1 cup salted peanuts
Lightly spray the inside of a large bowl with nonstick spray. Put the puffed wheat (and peanuts, if you’re using them) into the bowl and set it aside.
In a small saucepan, combine the butter, corn syrup, brown sugar and cocoa over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour over the puffed wheat and stir to coat evenly. Press into an ungreased 9” x 13” pan and refrigerate or leave at room temperature until set. These are easiest to cut at room temperature.
Makes 20 squares.
Per Square (without peanuts): 106 calories, 2.4 g fat (1.5 g saturated fat, 0.7 g monounsaturated fat, 0.1 g polyunsaturated fat), 21.2 g carbohydrates, 6.2 mg cholesterol, 0.9 g protein, 0.6 g fiber. 20% calories from fat
Buttery Chocolate Corn Pop Squares: Replace puffed wheat with an equal amount of Corn Pops cereal. Fat content remains the same. (These are SO GOOD.)
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May 03 2008 | breakfast and cookies & squares and eggs and snacks | 2 Comments »
Tnik and I are in Red Deer teaching a series of three tea party classes at The Cooking Room and the Women’s Conference at Red Deer College tonight and tomorrow (after which we head to Banff to the Girlfriend’s Getaway at the Banff Park Lodge. We’ve just arrived in our hotel room and are watching Cyndi Lauper on TV and munching from a ziplock baggie of the crusts we trimmed off of all those cucumber sandwiches (we are extremely high class).
Our first tea party ran from 4:30-7pm, so technically I suppose dinner was tea - bites here and there of currant scones with strawberry preserves and real clotted cream, balsamic mushroom crostini, curried coconut mango chicken in wonton cups, lemon curd tartlets and Earl Grey shortbread. Oh, and some of the chocolate that exploded all over me as I tried to dip a too-taught balloon in too-hot melted chocolate to make fancy chocolate tulip bowls. (Nicole neglected to let me know it was still all over my forehead and neck when we stopped at the wine store - where I asked the clerk where I could find the Moscato - and when I checked into the hotel.)
The shortbread was a successful experiment - I whizzed a spoonful of Nicole’s cream Earl Grey loose tea in the food processor with the flour, sugar and butter, dumped it out and gathered it into a ball, pressed it into the bottom of a 9″ round pan, pressed around the edges and poked the surface with the tines of a fork the way you do with shortbread, and baked it until it was pale golden around the egdes, then cut it into wedges. You could do this with any sort of tea in any shortbread recipe, really. Grinding it a bit first releases more flavour and makes it look peppery.
Currant Scones
3 cups all-purpose flour, or 1 ½ cups all-purpose and 1 ½ cups whole wheat
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda (if using buttermilk)
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup currants
1 cup buttermilk, milk or half & half
extra buttermilk or milk for brushing on top (optional)
coarse sugar for sprinkling (optional)
Preheat oven to 425°F. In a bowl or food processor, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the butter and pulse to combine or blend with a fork or pastry cutter until the mixture is crumbly, with bits of butter no bigger than a pea. Stir in the currants.
Stir in the buttermilk and mix just until combined. Gather dough into a ball, then pat it into a circle that is about 1” thick. Brush with a little milk or buttermilk and sprinkle with sugar. Cut into 8 wedges and pull them apart so that they will bake on the sides as well.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until golden. Makes 8 (or more if you cut them into rounds or smaller triangles.)
Curried Coconut Mango Chicken in Wonton Cups
24 wonton wrappers
a drizzle of canola oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger
2 cups chopped cooked chicken (I like using leftover roast chicken - a great way to use roasted deli chickens)
1 tsp. - 1 Tbsp. curry paste
1/2 cup light or regular coconut milk
1/3 cup mango or peach chutney
Juice of 1/2 a lime (about a tablespoon)
Salt to taste
Chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
To make the wonton cups, press fresh wonton wrappers into mini muffin tins, pressing any folds firmly to the sides, and bake at 350 F for 5-10 minutes, until pale golden. Set aside to cool.
To make the filling, heat oil in a medium nonstick saucepan and cook the onion, garlic and ginger for about 2 minutes. Add the chicken, curry paste, coconut milk, chutney, lime juice and salt. Cook, stirring often, until bubbly and thickened. Cool slightly or chill before spooning into wonton cups. Sprinkle with cilantro.
Makes 2 dozen cups.
Per cup: 69 calories, 1 g total fat (0.3 g saturated fat, 0.3 g monounsaturated fat, 0.3 g polyunsaturated fat), 7.1 g protein, 7.3 g carbohydrate, 16.8 mg cholesterol, 0.1 g fiber. 13% calories from fat.
Earl Grey Shortbread
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. - 1 Tbsp. loose Earl Grey tea
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
pinch salt
Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, stir together butter, sugar, tea and vanilla until creamy. Add the flour and salt and stir until you have a soft dough.
Press the dough into an ungreased 9” round pan or place it on an ungreased cookie sheet and pat it into a rectangle. If you like, press down around the edges with the tines of a fork, and poke all over the top.
Bake about 15 minutes, until golden. Cool for 10 minutes, then slice while still warm.
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April 25 2008 | appetizers and bread and breakfast and cookies & squares and sweet stuff | 3 Comments »
It wasn’t intentional, the vanilla part.
My family is in a state of stress and upheaval this week; one sister sick and mothering 2 toddlers while her husband writes his medical exams today, my other sister always busy as a single mum of 3 and full time teacher with extra heaped on her plate right now, and my parents have decided to move, which requires a mass exodus of the contents of their house as well as assorted repairs in preparation to list it.
I decided that everyones’ lives could be made easier by the arrival of dinner on their doorstep, and I needed to spend some time with W. I pulled some ground bison out of the freezer and we made a big pot of chili.
As you have likely witnessed, Willem loves to cook. He pulls up his stool and helps me chop, and leans in to stir the pot. This time, while I was at the sink ridding my hands of their garlic smell (rub your fingers over the bowl of a stainless steel spoon while running it under cool water), W pulled a 1L jug of vanilla (yes, I sometimes use the artificial stuff; I do a lot of experimenting and need to ration my Madagascar vanilla bean paste and the fancy bottles my friends bring back from Mexico. Also, sometimes it just doesn’t matter that much) out of the cupboard and upended the whole thing into the pot. A full jug of vanilla.
Fortunately, we were still at the browning the onions and bison stage, so I dumped the lot into a colander, rinsed it, and put it back on the stove to finish cooking. My damage control seems to have worked, save for a lingering hint of vanilla on the finish.
Chili is easy; I never measure the stuff that goes in. First, brown a pound or so of ground bison (far leaner than beef, with more protein and half the fat) and a chopped onion in a drizzle of canola oil until the bison is no longer pink and the onion is soft. Throw in a few crushed cloves of garlic for a minute.
Dump in a large can of diced, stewed or plum tomatoes, a drained can of kidney beans, a can of brown beans in tomato sauce, a tin of tomato paste, a few glugs of salsa, a couple heaping spoonfuls of chili powder and one of cumin. Salt and pepper, maybe a small spoonful of cocoa or pinch of instant coffee, to add color and depth. I think that was it. Simmer for a couple hours; it’s always better the next day.
The quinoa cookies were a test for an article on camping food I’ve been working on for Alberta Food for Thought magazine, and they turned out quite wonderfully, actually. I have a few gluten-free friends who might be thrilled with them. Quinoa flour (available in bulk at Community Natural Foods) is grittier than wheat, rice or oat flours, but bakes up into a nicely crunchy cookie that is higher in protein than other grainy cookies. Expect them, obviously, to taste like quinoa.
Chocolate Chunk Quinoa Cookies
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups quinoa flour
1 cup oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2-1 cup chocolate chunks or chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
1/4 cup dried cranberries or chopped dried apricots
Preheat oven to 325°F.
In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla and until smooth. In a medium bowl, stir together the quinoa flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture and stir by hand until almost combined; add the chocolate, nuts and dried fruit and stir just until blended.
Roll the mixture into balls a bit larger than a walnut, and place on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Flatten each a little with your hand. Bake for 14-16 minutes, until barely golden around the edges, and set. Let cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before carefully transferring to a wire rack to cool – they tend to be crumbly while still warm, but firm up as they cool.
Makes about 1 1/2 dozen cookies.
Per cookie: 190 calories, 6.5 g fat (3.4 g saturated fat, 1.7 g monounsaturated fat, 0.5 g polyunsaturated fat), 29.8 g carbohydrates, 21.6 mg cholesterol, 3.3 g protein, 2.4 g fiber. 31% calories from fat
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April 08 2008 | bison and cookies & squares and grains | 3 Comments »
Remember the squash & ricotta ravioli we made out of wonton wrappers and stashed in the freezer? They were called into service tonight. The best thing about them is that you can dump them straight from the freezer bag into boiling water and they’re done faster than dry spaghetti would be.
Emily is still off school this week and so was over again today, and (as per our new routine) wanted to cook something. Having been up since 3:30 (this is why traffic reporters don’t have toddlers) I was too tired to think and so lay like a sandbag on the couch while she looked through my cookbooks. She rightly identified my dog-eared copy of Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax as a good source for desserty/baking things that 9 year olds tend to like to make, and flipped through, pondering out loud the fruit cobblers and coffee pots de creme. When I realized we were almost out of flour and completely out of all but the brown sugar, E settled on Brown Sugar Shortbread. Lucky me; they were easier than a snap to make.
Brown Sugar Shortbread from Richard Sax
Chop 1/2 cup butter into bits and put it in the food processor with 1/4 cup packed golden brown sugar, a pinch of salt and 1 tsp. vanilla; pulse until creamy.
Add 3/4 cup flour and 2 Tbsp. cornstarch; pulse 6-8 times, until it starts to clump together.
Smear the dough into a 9″ round cake pan; this part was interesting, as the butter-flour ratio was higher than usual (I would have used 1 cup flour, perhaps slightly more), giving it the texture of thick icing. It even looked like icing as we spread it, unable to pat, along the bottom of the pan. I had my doubts. We were supposed to sprinkle it with sugar, but forgot.
Bake at 350F for 20 minutes, until pale golden around the edges. Cut them into wedges while the dough is still warm, and then let them cool somewhat in the pan before taking them out, so that they don’t crumble to bits.
I’ve never seen such a flaky texture in melt-in-your-mouth shortbread; you can see the way it delicately flaked off in the middle as I sliced them. I liked them much better than even the whipped variety, and they took all of 5 minutes of actual effort.
And right, the rice pudding.
Rice pudding is even easier than shortbread. Whenever I make rice, I make extra so I can make fried rice and/or have an excuse to make rice pudding. This time, I had leftover rice even after making chicken fried rice yesterday. It doesn’t need to be short grain, or even white rice; puddings can be made from brown or even wild rice, which goes well with maple syrup and dried cranberries.
There are creamy stovetop rice puddings and baked rice puddings made sturdier with eggs, and then there’s the rice and milk with sugar that Winnie-the-Pooh makes in the small paperback cookbook my Grandma bought for my 7th birthday. The simplest rice pudding is made by pouring milk over the extra rice in the pot (or the rice that turned out too sticky to eat) along with some sugar, honey or maple syrup to taste, and cooking on medium-low heat until the rice absorbs all the milk. Add enough to cover the rice, and then some. Taste it, then add more milk if you like, cooking each time until it soaks it all up. It’s almost impossible to add too much. Stir in a dribble of vanilla and a handful of raisins. As Pooh will attest, rice pudding is perfect eaten cold for breakfast or elevenses.
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April 03 2008 | cookies & squares and dessert and grains and snacks and sweet stuff | 4 Comments »
Happy Food on a Stick Day! In honor of this beloved holiday (honestly, who comes up with these? and to what panel do they apply for approval?) we did all sorts of food on a stick this morning at CBC. The favorite were the lamb kebabs. (OK, the bacon wrapped peroghies on a stick were probably the favorite, but the lamb was well-received too.)
I made sure there was some left over. These are really just a meatball mixture made with ground lamb instead of beef (although you could use beef, or half and half) and spiced with cumin, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, with currants and crumbled feta stirred in. You could turn it into meatballs if you like, or take a small handful and shape it into a sort of log around a bamboo skewer. Grill them, broil them, or cook them in a skillet in a little olive oil - awkward, but the only option when you’re working on a hot plate set on a file cabinet outside a studio.
Either way, they’re perfect to dip into garlicky tzatziki, or to stuff a pita along with chopped tomato, cucumber, purple onion, and a big glop of tzatziki.
Greek Lamb Kebabs
1 lb. ground lamb or lean ground beef (or half and half)
1 small onion, peeled and grated
1/2 cup soft bread crumbs (about 1 slice of bread), bulgur or couscous
1/2 cup crumbled feta (optional)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large egg
2-4 Tbsp. currants or chopped raisins
1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
olive or canola oil, for brushing
Preheat oven to 400° F. Soak some bamboo skewers in water for at least 10 minutes to prevent them from burning when you cook the kebabs.
Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. Shape handfuls of the meat mixture into flattened sausages about 3” long around the ends of the skewers. Place on a rimmed cookie sheet, brush with olive oil and roast, turning often, until cooked through.
Makes 12 kebabs.
Per kebab: 112 calories, 4.2 g total fat (1.4 g saturated fat, 1.6 g monounsaturated fat, 0.5 g polyunsaturated fat), 13.3 g protein, 4.5 g carbohydrate, 65 mg cholesterol, 0.2 g fiber. 34% calories from fat
Tzatziki
Regular plain yogurt, preferably thick Greek yogurt, is far superior to the runny low fat or fat free varieties, many of which depend on gelatin as a stabilizer. Even full-fat Greek yogurt is fairly low in fat, especially when compared to mayo or sour cream.
1/2 English cucumber, unpeeled
1 – 2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cups good quality plain yogurt, preferably Greek or Balkan-style
salt & pepper to taste
squeeze of lemon juice (optional)
drizzle of olive oil (optional)
Grate the cucumber with a box grater onto a double thickness of paper towel. Gather up the cucumber in the towel and squeeze out as much excess water as you can. In a medium bowl, stir together the cucumber, garlic, yogurt, salt and pepper. If you like, add a squeeze of lemon and/or drizzle of olive oil. Let it sit in the fridge for a few hours or overnight; the garlic flavor will intensify the longer it sits. Makes 2 1/2 - 3 cups.
Per 1/3 cup: 45 calories, 1 g total fat (0.6 g saturated fat, 0.3 g monounsaturated fat, 0.1 g polyunsaturated fat), 3.5 g protein, 5.6 g carbohydrate, 3.7 mg cholesterol, 0.3 g fiber. 20% calories from fat
These squares I made just because I wanted to do something other than make smoothies with the bag of tiny frozen wild blueberries in the freezer, and because I have a baby shower to go to on Sunday; it’s always a good idea for me to have reason to pawn off the leftovers.
(Low Fat) Blueberry, Lemon & Coconut Squares
These are perfect to make ahead and stash in the freezer; slicing them frozen will ensure a clean cut.
Base:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 scant cup all-purpose or whole wheat flour
pinch salt
Topping:
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
pinch salt
1 large egg
1 large egg white
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries, raspberries or cranberries
1/2 cup shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened
icing sugar for sprinkling (optional)
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, stir together the butter and sugar until creamy. Add flour and salt and stir until well combined and crumbly.
Press into the bottom of an 8” x 8” pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until just barely golden around the edges.
In the same bowl (no need to wash it), combine sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Add egg, egg white and lemon juice and stir until well blended and smooth.
Sprinkle the berries and coconut evenly over the base, and pour the lemon filling over top. Bake for 40 minutes, until golden and set. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack before cutting or freezing. If you like, sprinkle with icing sugar before serving. Makes 16 squares.
Per Square: 130 calories, 3.3 g fat (1.9 g saturated fat, 1 g monounsaturated fat, 0.2 g polyunsaturated fat), 24 g carbohydrates, 21 mg cholesterol, 1.6 g protein, 0.7 g fiber. 23% calories from fat
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March 28 2008 | appetizers and cookies & squares and lamb and snacks and sweet stuff | 2 Comments »
