Brownies

Brownies

Last week I was in the “depths of despair” to quote Anne Shirley; had the “mean reds” as Holly Golightly would have it. Baking brownies was imminent. Most of them were packed up nicely as a housewarming gift. Most of them.

This recipe hails from In the Sweet Kitchen. I frequently find this book mentioned on food magazine lists of must-have cookbooks, with good reason. In this book, I have found my holy grail of brownie recipes, aptly titled “Really REALLY Fudgy Brownies”,  on page 488. While grabbing the Amazon link it looks like there is going to be a new paperback edition published this spring.

At any rate, get ye to the grocery store and pick up a shocking amount of unsalted butter and squares of baking chocolate (I used Baker’s with excellent results, no need to get fancier than that) ’cause this recipe makes an awful lot of brownies – a 9 x 13″ pan may not sound like much, but hoo boy. You might also want to send out a call for volunteers to help you eat them all.

7 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1 cup plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut in small pieces

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2 1/3 cups granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 all-purpose flour

3 tbsp good-quality unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa

1/8 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9 x 13″ baking pan and line the bottom of pan with parchment paper. Leaving extra parchment paper to hang over the long sides makes the brownies easier to remove from the pan. Gently melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler, set aside to cool slightly. Beat eggs and sugar until mixture becomes thick and pale, about a minute or two, then add vanilla. Pour the chocolate and butter mixture into the egg and sugar mixture and stir to combine. Sift the flour, cocoa and salt together in a small bowl and then fold into the batter in three additions.  Pour into pan and bake for 35 minutes. Cool completely before cutting.

Oven Roasted Broccoli

Another new year, another chance to make good on my resolution to eat more broccoli.

Sometimes steaming it is fine with a little butter and lemon juice, but I’ve got to hit the jackpot and get perfect broccoli or I find it hard not to gag as I choke it down.

Enter a recipe from Good Eats, all but guaranteed to make broccoli taste good. The secret is roasting it instead of steaming. I was intrigued enough to give it a try.  It’s tossed with olive oil, minced garlic, salt, pepper and toasted panko bread crumbs, then roasted in a hot oven for several minutes. And then you add CHEESE. Uh, okay…I’m down with that.

The verdict? Looks like this is a resolution that’s going to be easy to keep! The five-year-old supertaster in me thought it was a-ok.

Post-Holiday Letdown

Here’s Jasmine doing an excellent imitation of how we were feeling this past Sunday as we contemplated our return to “normal” life.

Yesterday I wandered around work in a haze wondering where my sofa, turkey sandwich and book had hidden themselves.

We had a great holiday – lots of quiet time at home with just enough social outings to keep things interesting.  I cooked up a storm for Christmas dinner, the brined turkey was a big success (oh, the gravy!) and ended up with lots and lots of leftovers for sandwiches.

I was also very pleased with how this recipe for mashed sweet potatoes flavoured with pomegranate molasses turned out. I un-veganized it (not that there’s anything wrong with vegan food!) by replacing the soy milk and margarine with milk and butter.

Now winter is settling in rather earnestly (lots of snow in the forecast), and I’m looking forward to warding off the chill with food and drink.

Brining the Christmas Turkey

It’s only going to be four of us on Christmas Day this year, with a correspondingly smaller turkey.  This is my chance to try out Nigella Lawson’s turkey brining recipe. At almost five and a half kilos, it’s still a lot of bird, but I have visions of endless turkey sandwiches eaten TV-side during the holidays. Cliché though it may be, I think I look more forward to leftovers than the big feast itself.

I felt like a mad scientist as I added all of the ingredients to my biggest stock pot – there was some consternation that it wasn’t going to be big enough and we had a large plastic tub on standby, but the turkey just fit. Now it’s hanging out in our root cellar until Christmas Day, when we’ll dry it off and roast it with a glaze of butter and maple syrup.

Classic Madeleines

Madeleines

Madeleines exist at the point where my love of all things French intersects with my love of pretty baking tins. Light and lemony, they tend to disappear quickly amid oohs and aahs. I really can’t take credit for how fantastic they look, with the tin itself responsible for their delicate appearance, but hey, what non-bakers don’t know won’t hurt ‘em.

Unlike cooking, baking is a very precise art and I don’t bake often enough to experiment with or adapt a recipe, especially one as  thoughtful and well-written as Dorie Greenspan’s madeleine recipe in Paris Sweets.  Although I will provide the recipe, I highly recommend picking up her beautiful book.

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 large eggs, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

grated zest of 1 lemon

2 tsp vanilla

5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Sift together the flour and baking powder and set aside. Beat the egg and sugar together with an electric or stand mixer for a few minutes until well beaten. Add the lemon zest and vanilla and beat to combine. With a spatula, fold in the flour and baking powder. Fold in the melted butter. Place a layer of plastic wrap on top of the batter and refrigerate for at least three hours, and up to two days.

Generously butter the tin (even if it’s non-stick) and spoon the batter into the molds, about 1/3 full. Bake for about 10 minutes in a 400F oven, until lightly golden and springy.

Remove from tin by running a knife around the edge of the cookies and cool on a wire rack.

Banana Bread

Banana Bread

At my job, we have a weekly event called “Food on Friday”. The rules are simple; everyone takes turns bringing in a treat for an extended morning coffee break, and discussing anything work-related is strictly verboten. The food is always a surprise; anything from boxes of donuts dumped unceremoniously on the table, to bagels with cream cheese and lox, to baked confections that rival Martha and her ilk.

One week a co-worker brought in this banana bread. I begged her for the recipe. It’s not the most innovative banana bread recipe you’ll ever try, but it’s the one you’re probably thinking of when you’re craving it.

3 large ripe bananas well mashed (4 if they’re small)
2 eggs, well beaten
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup of white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips (walnuts would be nice too if nobody’s allergic)

Preheat oven to 350F

Mix bananas and eggs together in a large bowl. Stir in the sugar, flour, salt, baking soda and chocolate chips.
Pour batter into greased loaf pan and bake for 1 hour or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

This is what I baked to celebrate having my oven fixed!

Red Day

Pickled Red Onions

I’m feeling a bit restricted in the kitchen lately as I wait for my oven to get fixed. No roasting, baking, broiling…I’m coping, somehow.  One happy discovery – frozen pizza is excellent on the BBQ.

Thank goodness my stovetop still works! So, on this otherwise lazy Sunday I’m trying out two recipes I’ve discovered recently;

pickled red onions, thanks to watching the Food Network on a sick day,

and pomegranate molasses, which is a vital component in my friend’s mashed sweet potatoes, brought over for a recent potluck. I plan to make the sweet potatoes for Christmas dinner.

Everything is very red today – red onions, red wine vinegar, ruby red pomegranate juice.

Pickling Components

“Julie and Julia” has been removed from my Amazon wish list

Finally saw Julie and Julia last night. As a food blogger with a government job, I had several friends tell me they thought of me as they watched it and insisted that I see it right away. I had read both books in the past – feeling rather meh and a little jealous of the author of Julie and Julia, but absolutely loved and devoured Julia Child’s My Life in France in one day.

As in most reviews,  I liked the Julia Child parts of the movie better than the Julie parts. But then about halfway through, I angrily hit stop and refused to watch a minute more.

Cheap ‘n’ Cheerful Kitchen Makeover

One thing I’ve gleaned from obsessively watching real estate TV shows is that agents are quite fond of selling hesitant buyers on ugly, dated kitchens by saying, “All you need to do is paint the cupboards and change the hardware and you would have a brand new kitchen!”

They make it sound like it’s only slightly more time and energy consuming than picking up a carton of milk. Yeah, no.

I did kind of know what I was getting myself into, thanks to the detailed steps of this article at This Old House. I also figured that it would take twice as long as I thought. And, after one sleepless night, I now know that the first coat of a dark colour always looks like crap and not to freak out – the second (and third) coats do get progressively better.

But, like anything worthwhile, the end result is fantastic! Once my aches and pains were gone, I immediately forgot how much work I did. The teal ended up taking 3 coats, 4 if you include the tinted primer. I found out that I’m pretty good at painting and it’s true – the right brush really does makes all the difference. I splurged and bought good ones – this paint job is supposed to make me feel like I don’t have to gut and renovate my kitchen any time soon.

It took me several months to figure out exactly what colours I wanted to use in here. When my idea to use teal first popped up,  I had trouble visualizing it and couldn’t find anything like it online or in magazines. I grabbed several paint chips in that colour range and took my time picking the best one. I decided that only the lower cabinets should be dark teal in order to balance out our heavy mahogany dining table. I chose to do the rest of the kitchen in the same pale cream that runs through the rest of the main level.

Picking out cabinet hardware was FUN. I leafed through decorating magazines to get ideas for handles that I liked and ended up with some great drawer pulls and cupboard handles from Lee Valley Tools. As happy as I am with the paint job, the hardware really finishes the kitchen nicely. Props to Jeff for helping me paint, trusting me on the colour choice (even during the horrid first coat stage) and replacing the hardware.

before

after

Carrot Soup

Damn I love this soup. Love love love this soup.

This soup makes me a queen. A queen of soup. I serve it to guests and they almost swoon. I’ve seen them.

You can find Bob Blumer’s recipe here. Just follow it to the letter, right down to serving it with multi-grain bread and Beaujolais and you will not be disappointed. Even if you don’t particularly like carrots.

Go make it. Now.

Carrot Soup