Classic Oatmeal Cookies
February 9th, 2010by Caroline
There is nothing remarkable about this cookie recipe except, perhaps, that I have been following it faithfully for over 35 years, and if you read this blog periodically or know me at all, you know that I am always tweaking recipes for baked goods. But why mess with a classic? This is the recipe in the Joy of Cooking, the recipe my mom taught me years ago, and although I don’t buy the same kind of oats anymore or bake cookies with my mom very often (though my dad and the boys bake cookies together now), when I want an oatmeal cookie, this is how I do it.
Preheat the oven to 350 and get the butter and eggs out of the refrigerator to come to room temperature.
Whisk together in a bowl:
1 3/4 c flour
3/4 t baking soda
3/4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
In another bowl, beat until well blended:
1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter
1 1/2 c brown sugar
1/4 c granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 t vanilla
Stir flour mixture into butter mixture until smooth.
Add 3 1/2 c old fashioned rolled oats
Add 1 c mini chocolate chips (ever since making those flourless peanut butter cookies, I’m using mini chocolate chips in all my cookies — a bit more chocolate in every bite!)
Scoop tablespoons-full of cookies onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, space them 2 inches apart, and bake for 6-9 minutes, rotating the pan for even browning.
Pear Bread
February 7th, 2010by Caroline
The other day I saw a bus ad quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson’s line, “There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.” I was so surprised to see Emerson’s words on the side of a bus that it took a while before I stopped to think how rarely, now, I hit on those ten minutes for myself. Eli is the pear guy in our house, and I watch our pears carefully to spot when they are just the right balance of crisp-ripe for him (a perfect Eli pear is ripe half a day or more before it is perfect for me). Inevitably, he can’t keep up with the ripe pears, I miss my moment, and the overripe pears go into bread that everybody can enjoy for days. This easy Joy of Cooking recipe is the best way I’ve found to extend the brief life of pears.
preheat the oven to 350
butter & flour an 8-cup loaf pan (9×5″)
Whisk together in a large bowl:
1 1/2 c flour
1 c sugar
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
3-6 T ground flax (optional; reduce the oil by 1 T for every 3 T of flax you use)
In another bowl, whisk together
1 egg
1/2 c vegetable oil (remember to reduce this if you’re using ground flax),
1 t vanilla
the zest and juice of one lemon
1 1/2 c peeled, grated ripe (or overripe) pears, with juice
1 c toasted chopped pecans or walnuts, optional
Add the flour mixture to the pear mixture and fold until dry ingredients are moistened. Add nuts, if using. Scrape into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Let cool on a rack before removing from pan.
Chard & Walnut Lasagna
February 1st, 2010by Caroline
It seems amazing to me that three and a half years ago, I began a blog post, “Ben’s not a picky eater…” What happened?! One day he was eating toasts spread with goat cheese and eggplant caviar and then, one by one, foods started to leave his diet. I wonder sometimes about the impact of Tony’s and my vegetarian diet on him — after all, we were the ones who, by eliminating an entire category of foods from our diets, introduced the notion of pickiness in the first place. But I don’t care enough for meat, nor know well enough how to cook it, to make that change now, and I doubt he’d eat it anyway (his brother is another story, for another day).
Ben still eats a greater variety of foods than some children I know, for which I am very grateful (and for which I extend their very patient parents my understanding and sympathy); he loves just about any vegetable, including the typically unpopular cooked greens, he likes funny things like pickled ginger and burdock root, he eats all kinds of fruits. But I get sad that his strong feelings about beans and cheese keep him from joining the rest of us for Mexican food, that he doesn’t like soups or stews or any meal, really, involving several foods cooked together.
So I was kind of stunned the other night at dinner when Ben said, “Remember that lasagna you used to make? With chard? I think I would eat that again.” And so I promised to make it for him the very next day. This afternoon after school, Eli and I harvested the chard from our backyard, and then it was quick work to turn it into this fabulous dish from Deborah Madison’s wonderful cookbook, Local Flavors:
1 c walnuts
2-3 bunches chard, leaves only (save the stems and toss them into a potato gratin or something)
2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for the dish
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 c white wine
1 c ricotta
1 c grated parmesan
8 oz fresh mozzarella, coarsely grated
1 1/4 c milk
8 oz lasagna noodles
Preheat oven to 400. While it’s warming, put the walnuts in to toast. Give them 7-10 minutes, until they are nice and fragrant, then chop finely and set aside.
Cook chard leaves in a large pot with a couple cups of water till tender, about 5 minutes. Scoop chard into colander, press out most of the water, reserving 1/3 cup of the cooking water. Chop chard finely.
Heat oil in a wide skillet and add 2 cloves of garlic, then chard. Cook over medium-high heat, turning frequently, for several minutes, then add wine and allow to cook down. Turn off heat.
Combine ricotta, parmesan, all but 3/4c mozzarella, and remaining garlic in a bowl. Stir in 1/3 c chard water, then add chard. Mix, season with salt & pepper.
Lightly oil a 9×13″ baking dish. Drizzle 1/4c milk into dish (it won’t spread evenly because of the oil; that’s ok). Fit 3 pieces of uncooked (really, it’ll work just fine) lasagna noodles into baking dish. Sprinkle with 1/4 c milk, 1/3 cheese mixture, 1/4c walnuts. Repeat twice more with pasta, milk, cheese mix and nuts. When you get to the last layer, add the remaining milk, mozzarella, and walnuts.
Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes.
Remove foil and bake 10 minutes longer, or till lightly browned.
Let rest 10 minutes before serving.
Can We Do That?
January 28th, 2010by Lisa
Finn asked upon seeing what might be the coolest kitchen ever.
At least for him.
“Um, no,” I said. But he can still dream.
Thunder Cake
January 27th, 2010I now know what LEGO has to do with cake making, and, perhaps why so many pastry chefs are men.
It started with the rain.
It’s been raining here, for days on end. This has not, generally speaking been a bad thing. The kids like a good fire. I appreciate the down time. We really, really need the water. And it has given Finn endless excuse to play with LEGO, especially his new Power Miners sets.
One day, at breakfast, he wanted to know if the contraptions he built were “real,” as in based on things in the real world. “No,” I answered, hastily. “Mines are real, but I don’t think the machines look like your Power Miners.” But I agreed we could do some research, and lo and behold, the things I did not know about heavy mining equipment. As it turns out, thanks to the magic of Google Image Search, we deduced that, rock monsters aside, nearly every Power Miners vehicle was based, at least in part, on a mining machine:
That afternoon, in a desperate attempt to vary his activity, we read Thunder Cake, a really lovely book about a young girl who is taught not to be afraid of thunder by her grandmother. I promised Finn we could make the cake, but he was only interested once I also promised he could use the hand mixer.
Understand, this is a new appliance. For years, I relied on my whisk, baking off the grid, so my little hand held mixer is a great improvement. But in Finn’s hands, the machine was miraculous. A revelation, in fact. It was evidence that cooking was nearly as exciting as lego and underground mining. Oh, the things you can do with machines.
“This is SO. COOL!” he exclaimed. “This is JUST. LIKE. POWER MINERS!” And his glee knew no bounds as he broke up lumps of butter and creamed sugar and generally mixed for as long as I let him.
The cake itself is decent. It’s a solid everyday cake, not hard to make, not spectacular, but also easy to eat, as a chocolate cake should be. It’s held up well for our cake + milk ritual, and it reminded us that there are really a very many ways to like cooking with kids, not all of them obvious.
The recipe is here. Bookmark it for the next rainy day.
Spanish Tortilla with Potatoes and Garlic
January 25th, 2010In keeping with the seasonal, comfort food thing, I’m giving you another dish that’s a crowd pleaser for a potluck or dinner party, a great weekend dish, and even greater leftover for a fast meal or a hearty lunch: a Spanish Tortilla. It takes some time and tending to make, but it’s not especially difficult, and it can certainly make enough to carry you through two meals or a dinner and a couple of lunches.
This version is what I brought to Christmas Caroling party in December, and it was a huge hit with both adults and kids. IIt was inspired by the tortilla my American roommate, who had spent a long time in Spain, used to whip up in our Belfast kitchen and in part by a dish called Potato Decadence, a really incredible garlicky potato tower that they used to serve at Timo’s, a tapas bar in San Francisco (and maybe still do). There are many recipes online for a traditional spanish tortilla, which generally involve thinly sliced potatoes sauteed in a fair amount of olive oil and bound together with egg. I added a saffron aioli and a lot of smashed garlic paste, for a subtle kick. The trick is to cook it slow and low–a long time at very low heat, and only use enough egg to bind the potatoes.
Potato and Garlic Tortilla-Spanish Style
For the Tortilla
- 1/2-3/4 cup olive oil
- 4-5 russet potatoes
- 4-5 well beaten eggs
- 4-5 garlic cloves
- Coarse salt
Quick Saffron Aioli
- 2 cloves garlic
- a pinch of saffron or Spanish saffron
- 1/2 large lemon
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- coarse salt
- Make the aioli by smashing the 2 cloves of garlic into a paste with the saffron and a good pinch of coarse salt in a mortar and pestle. Squeeze in the lemon and continue to blend. Add the mayonnaise and mix until well-incorporated. Season to taste, then refrigerate until needed.
- With the (clean) mortar and pestle, smash the remaining 4-5 cloves of garlic with a good pinch of coarse salt into a paste.
- Best the eggs well in separate bowl, preferably with a pouring spout.
- Thinly slice the potatoes.
- Sautee the garlic paste in the olive oil very briefly over medium heat in a large sautee pan. Add all of the potatoes and cook, stirring and turning gently until potatoes are soft and nicely browned.
- When potatoes are done–about 40 minutes–pour off any extra olive oil, and slowly pour in enough of the beaten egg to bind the potatoes.
- Cook slowly until egg is set or, alternatively, set the pan under the broiler to brown.
- When the dish is cooked through, invert onto a large platter.
- Serve warm or at room temperature with the aioli.
Pomegranate Clementine Kidtini
January 22nd, 2010We have continued our tradition of kidtinis on these winter weekends, even though MadMen is no longer sustaining us. The kids love them, and think their dad is famous because if you Google “kidtini drinks” the first hits are the recipes on this site: The 7Up Kidtini, the Pomegranate Kidtini, and the one that started it all. One of the latest was also one of the simplest and prettiest, and followed the basic rules of not-too-sweet, seasonal goodness for kids.
Pomegranate Clementine Kidtini
For each drink, pour into a durable martini glass:
- Pomegranite soda or Seltzer + splash of pomegranite juice
- A thin slice of clementine, floated on top
It’s true that these drinks are more style than substance, not unlike Esme Squalor’s Aqueous Martini (very, very cold water, served in a fancy glass, with an olive), but at our house, like those self-same villanous drinks, they continue to be very, very in.
Ian Frazier’s Laws Concerning Food and Drink
January 21st, 2010by Lisa
We have never posted someone else’s work here in lieu of our own, but I’m making an exception and giving you this link because, well, it’s the funniest thing on feeding young kids I’ve ever read. And it’s also about exactly what we’re doing here: building a family food culture, one day, one meal at a time–which can be, as Frazier implies, a job of biblical proportion with apocalyptic consequence and no shortage of revelation.
Read it and laught til you weep. And then come back here and for more ideas about how to feed those unruly, ungrateful kids another meal.
Fresh Fettucine, with Cream Sauce
January 18th, 2010By Lisa
I used to make fresh pasta a lot. As in once a week. Before kids, or when Ella was very little, it was easy to whip up a batch of fresh pasta for dinner, even for a first course. Fresh, it’s like nothing else in the world, and I even got good at making the right kind of pasta for the right dish. Wide paparadelle for a fresh olive oil emulsion, fettucine for alfredo, lasagna noodles for a casserole with bechamel, spaghetti for ragu, orichetta for broccoli rabe and sausage, raviolis and tortellini, even bite-sized, whisper thin sheets that encased a single spray of tarragon, or a tiny basil leaf, etc. With practice, it became a very easy thing to do and I had a nice wooden kitchen table at which to work.
Then, I had a new baby, and then a new home with a really terrible tile counter on which it was impossible to roll pasta. Our new kitchen table was similarly unsuitable. A few years passed, and while we got a new countertop pretty quickly, aside from a few batches of pumpkin ravioli, it took a while to work the past back in to any regular rotation. But back it is, and I can say now, that I am really sorry it ever went away, even briefly.
It can take a little time to master, and more time to master efficiently, so you’re not spewing flour everywhere and making for an unpleasant and lengthy clean-up, but if you stick with it, you get better fast, and it’s not hard and not messy.
It’s also one of the most fun things–hands down–you can do with a kid in the kitchen. In fact, it can make a great play date if you’re game.
I like the old fashioned method of mixing the pasta and eggs: I dump the flour on the counter, make a well, and break the eggs right into it. With a fork, the eggs get beaten, and the flour is slowly incorporated into the egg, a little at a time. The kids love this bit because it looks so, well, risky. No bowl! What a mess! The thing is, it’s not messy, and the dough only takes up as much flour as it needs. Certainly, you can dump the flour and eggs into your Cuisinart/food processor and mix it up until it rides the blade. But sometimes this produces an overly dry dough (say, on rainy days). It’s not fool proof. The counter method is.
The ratio, straight out of Marcella Hazan’s Classic Italian Cooking which is no longer in print:
1 egg to every 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
For 3-4 people, use 2 eggs + 1 1/2 cups flour
For 5-6 people use 3 eggs 2 1/4 cups flour
For 7-8 people, use 4 eggs, 3 cups flour
You can be brave and roll your dough by hand, or once it’s mixed, finish the kneading by passing it through your pasta machine until it’s very smooth, then keep passing it through until it’s the right thickness. Then, you cut as needed. A good machines will cost you about $70 at William Sonoma. I bought mine for $50 the minute we got back from our honeymoon in Italy ten years ago, and it was money very well spent.
The kids adore the machine.
This night, Finn rolled most of the pasta…
and he cut most of the pasta….
and he was very pleased with his work…
The cream sauce is really fettucine alfredo, but if you haven’t had it this way, with fresh pasta you really haven’t had it in its most fundamental, most extraordinary form. This recipe will make you realize why people go nuts for this dish, when all you’ve ever had is, well, a rich, flavorless, goop.
This recipe is fast enough for a weeknight if you’ve frozen your fresh pasta so it’s ready to go, and elegant and delicious enough for a dinner party or first course. You will never, ever tire of it in the cooler months.
Again, right out of Hazan:
Fettucine with Butter and Cream Sauce
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3 T butter
- 2/3 cups freshly grated parmesan
- freshly ground pepper
- a very tiny grating fresh nutemg
- Fettucine, made w/3 eggs
- In a heavy pan, that can later accomodate all the cooked pasta, heat 2/3 cup cream and butter and simmer over medium heat fro less than a minute, until the butter and heat have thickened. Turn off the heat.
- Cook the fettucine in a large pot of well-salted boiling water. They will take only a few seconds-1 minute to cook after the water returns to a boil. Drain immediately and thoroughly and transfer to the pan containing the butter and cream.
- Turn on the heat under the pan to low, add the remaining 1/3 cup cream, all the grated cheese, 1/2 teaspoon salt, pepper to taste, and nutmeg. Toss briefly until the cream has thickened and the fettucine are well coated. Taste and correct for salt. Serve immediately from the pan, with a bowl of additional grated cheese on the side.
If you do something like this, and serve it from a serving dish, get it to the table and onto plates immediately. Say grace after dinner.
After eating this, you’ll want to.
Weekend Waffles
January 18th, 2010by Lisa
birthday flowers, whipped cream, maple syrup, blueberries…
Generally speaking, I’m not in charge of breakfast, and I prefer pancakes to waffles. This is not so true of my husband, who loves waffles, and who counted a waffle maker among the very few kitchen machines in his bachelor home. He made waffles pretty regularly (from a mix, yes, but he still made the effort).
However, about a week ago, the kids requested waffles, and I found a Fanny Farmer recipe for Raised Waffles at Epicurious. It’s an interesting recipe that calls for yeast (which we always have) instead of buttermilk (which we don’t). Also, the griddle cakes we are devoted to are also a Fanny Farmer recipe, so I figured this one had to be a hit as well. And it is. These are incredibly light, not too sweet, and perfectly tender and crisp when they come off the waffle iron. Ella asked for her dad’s “special platter”, which the waffles certainly deserve.
They are very, very, very easy to make, and like the English muffins, they have the benefit of being a make-ahead meal. I don’t really like to make an effort in the morning. But for these waffle, you make the better the night before, let it rise, then add 2 eggs and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda in the morning. And, voila! They’re ready to go. There’s no mess (unless you overfill the waffle maker), no flour to sweep up, no extra baking tools to wash in the morning. Apparently the batter will keep in your refrigerator for a few days, but we just make the big batch all at once, and then reheat the waffles in our convection oven for school days. The only down side is that, like all fresh waffles, you have to make them one at a time, and this can take time. But I sit on a tall stool, and baby sit the waffle maker while my family eats them hot. I’m very happy with my coffee, talking to them (we have an open kitchen), and by the time the last is done, I’m fully caffeinated and ready to eat. As far as I’m concerned, it’s win-win.
The first time we made them, we had leftover whipped cream and frozen blueberries, so they went on the table. This was a very. big. hit. Kids + waffles + blueberries + whipped cream=fruity, creamy waffles sandwiches for breakfast. We’ve made them twice now, so I can safely say that the waffle maker Kory insisted on registering for when we married will have a more regular place in our slow-food breakfast rotation.
Hop on over to Epicurious for the recipe. You won’t need another one. And as long as you can dust off, or buy, a waffle maker, you definitely don’t need frozen.
