Granola, v1.0

I wasn't looking for it, but I found a recipe for granola that looked interesting. I tend to make the things that look interesting, without regard for how they'll taste... well, sometimes with regard for how they'll taste. This one was good, but would have been better if a)I hadn't forgotten to add the vanilla extract and the cinnamon, and b)if I'd added more sweetener. It didn't sound all that sweet, with just one tablespoon of honey and one banana. Maybe my banana wasn't sweet enough, but I went with two tablespoons of maple syrup and I could barely taste any sweetness. Its good, don't get me wrong, just don't expect a sweet granola from this recipe.

The reason this is v1.0 is that I definitely plan on making this again. Possibly in the form of bars, since it stuck together quite well, but definitely with some changes. I'm thinking of adding dates, or apricots, or some other sweet dried fruit to the banana mixture. I didn't like the flavor of the raw mixture - too banana-y - but cooked, I couldn't taste the banana at all. Also, I had my oven too hot (375 or so), because the granola was close to burned after 30 minutes. And I'd add a lot more coconut next time. You can barely taste it in this one! I also forgot the salt.

So while you can go get the original recipe over here, below is MY version (1.0) of this granola. The original recipe might be better. But I guarantee that my version 1.1 is going to be best!

Granola
Yields 6 cups of granola

2C rolled oats (not quick oats)
1/2C flax seeds, I tried to grind them up but my food processor wasn't up to that task
1/2C almonds
1/2C walnuts
1/4C coconut
1/2C golden raisins
1/2C craisins
1 banana
3/4C water
2 tbs maple syrup

Preheat your oven to 325F.

In a food processor or blender, blend the banana with the water and syrup. Ideally, add some extracts that sound like they'd taste good at this stage. My next version will have vanilla and almond extract. I just forgot this time.

In a large bowl, mix together the oats, flax seeds, and nuts. Pour the liquid over it, and stir it around until everything is moistened and clumpy. Spread it in a thin layer over two baking sheets, ideally on a silicon pad, but alternatively on tin foil. It sticks otherwise. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until it is toasty brown. When you think it has about 5 minutes left, sprinkle the coconut on top, and let that get crispy toasted. You could try putting the coconut in with everything else, but I worry it would burn...

Once the granola is done baking, crumble it up in a big bowl with your dried fruit. Don't cook the dried fruit, because it will burn. Mix it all together and enjoy! We'll see how long it lasts... I would imagine it can't really go that stale, though.

Potato crusted quiche

Another day, another experiment... this time, something seen at King Arthur, so I figured it had to work, right? Well, probably if you followed all the steps. Like greasing the pan. Oops. I think they had that quiche listed there as their recipe of the day, and I was intrigued by the idea of a potato crust. I figured I'd try it. And in the end, I'd say it worked out, although Ed didn't really like it. He wanted the egg part more fluffy, and I'd agree, but I did change the recipe there, plus I used skim milk, that being what we had on hand. It just doesn't cut it in the realm of quiche-making. He said he liked the crust, but thought a regular pie crust tasted better and worked better. He might have a point. I thought the crust tasted deliciously like hash browns, I didn't really need the quiche part on top to tell the truth. But having just finished off the leftovers for lunch, it was a nice combination.

Since I pretty much made my own thing, loosely following KAF guidelines, the recipe is below. If you want the KAF recipe, click here. If you want the Alex's-muddled-and-not-quite-successful-experiment recipe, read below... I do have to say that parts of this quiche were quite successful. Like the bacon. It tasted like bacon!

Potato crusted bacon-mushroom quiche
Makes one 9-inch quiche

Crust
2 large potatoes (1.5 lbs)
1 small onion
1/4C flour
1/4tsp salt
~1tsp oregano, thyme, herbes de Provence, or other dried spices

Filling
3 eggs
1/4C milk (anything but skim. Don't repeat my mistakes)
2 pieces bacon
1C mushrooms
1/2C frozen peas

To make the crust, first you have to grate an onion. I don't know how to do this, so I food-processored it instead. That seemed to work. Squeeze out the liquid from the onion. Peel and grate the potatoes, and squeeze out their juices. Add the rest of the crust ingredients to a bowl, and stir it around until its all mixed up. I had to use my hands for this.

GREASE YOUR PIE PAN.

Had to get that out of my system, sorry. Pat the potato mixture into the pie pan, and make sure to give it a pretty solid, high, edge. I didn't do this. My eggs leaked all over the place.

The crust before it went in the oven. Note the low sides - don't do this.

Bake your potato crust at 450F for 25 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. The optional step (optional because I forgot it, and my quiche worked out) is to brush the crust with olive oil, and return to the oven for another 15 minutes. I think this step sounds delicious, and I will be sure to do it next time.

This is the bottom side of the crust after Ed managed to miraculously get it out of my ungreased pan without ripping it. Grease your pan

The pan after extracting the crust...

Meanwhile, dice your bacon, and cook it until its pretty crunchy. Take it out, and cook your diced mushrooms in the bacon grease. Once the mushrooms have lost most of their water (don't put a lid on them), they should be pretty crispy, they're done.

Crack three eggs, and whisk them with 1/4C milk. Add ~1/8tsp salt, and some pepper. Put your bacon and mushrooms into the crust, and pour the egg mixture over the top. Leeks would be a great addition, I just didn't have any. Put the quiche back in the oven for 30 minutes. It shouldn't be too jiggly when you take it out. Let it cool at least 10 minutes before you cut it, it'll hold together better then.

Before the addition of egg mixture.

Cooked quiche. It was more like a fritatta, honestly...but a delicious, hash-brown-y fritatta.

I think part of the reason my quiche was so flat was that it all leaked around the edge of the crust through the holes, so it was like a potato crust sandwich, with egg on either side. I'd like to try this again, with a less holey crust. Or maybe I'll just make hash browns, since that was what I liked best about it...

A pasta dish

I love pasta. Maybe it has to do with being an athlete, and hence being fed pasta at every turn, maybe it has to do with happy memories of pasta parties during highschool xc running, maybe just the convenience of boiling water and having food on your plate six minutes later, or because it was the first food I learned how to cook. I just love it. We don't really eat it that much, probably because it somehow always feels like a cop-out in terms of making dinner - you didn't have enough time to prepare a "proper" dinner and so you resort to just boiling water. But sometimes, we make awesome things to go on top of the pasta, and then it feels like more of a "real" dinner. With green things and stuff. Because no meal is complete without green things. Of course, when we were in Italy, I was totally happy to eat some form of pasta for every meal!

In this case, we were using up the duck sausage that Ed had gotten at Savenor's, and we had some fresh fava beans and morels (fried in butter, of course), and a light white wine sauce on top, altogether it was quite a delicious pasta dish. As they always are...

There's no recipe here. Cook the fava beans in boiling water for 3 minutes, drain them and shock them in cold water, then peel the outer covering thing. Fry morels in butter. Fry up some sausage slices so they get brown. Fry up a shallot, in butter, add some white wine to the butter (of which you need lots) and reduce it for a bit, while you boil your pasta. Toss your done pasta with the butter-wine sauce, serve immediately, glop everything else on top, add some chiffonaded basil. I thought copious quantities of grated parmesan cheese was an excellent addition. Enjoy!

Chewy Chocolate Walnut Cookies

I had some leftover egg whites from when I made the lemon curd tart, and I remembered seeing these flourless cookies in Epicurious a while back and being intrigued, so I looked them up and tried them out. I have to say, although they weren't the prettiest thing ever, since they didn't hold cookie-shapes, they were DAMN good. Although Ed would have liked fewer walnuts. I just smoothed them out into a big brownie since they weren't acting like cookies. Turns out, King Arthur has a recipe for a similar cookie, and they say to chill the batter first, which might help with my cookie-spreading problem. They're light and chewy at the same time, and they taste like toasted walnuts and chocolate, which is one of my favorite combos.



I didn't follow the recipe exactly, since some of the recipe reviews said they thought there was too much sugar, so the recipe I used is below.

Chewy Chocolate Walnut Cookies
Made ~3/4 of a small cookie sheet's worth of brownies - I imagine a 9x9" pyrex pan would be perfect for brownies, or chill them and make drop cookies

1.25C walnuts
1C confectioner sugar
2 egg whites
2 tbs cocoa (It was all I had left... I'd recommend using at least 1/4C)
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp espresso powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4C chocolate chips

Toast the walnuts - chop them up, spread them on a cookie sheet and bake for 5-10min. Make sure to watch them carefully, because they go from perfect to browned in like fifteen seconds.

Mix together all the dry stuff, and then add the egg whites and vanilla. Stir it together for a while (you don't have to worry about over mixing since there is no flour), and then dump it all in a brownie pan. Or, chill it and make drop cookies.

Bake at 350F for 15 minutes, until the tops are cracked and shiny.

Then do your best to not eat the entire pan at once!

Dream Bars

Sharon and I decided that it would be an excellent idea if we sent each other care packages each month, and so I browsed around the King Arthur site to see what I wanted to test out on Sharon. I ended up choosing the spicy cheese straws and the Dream Bars. Naturally I went and changed some things, but Dream bars seem like a pretty forgiving recipe. I replaced half the walnuts with chocolate chips, and the problem with this was that the chips just melted and turned the batter brown. Oops. Next time, I'll keep the same number of walnuts and put the chips on top at the end, so they melt just enough to stick to the topping. I thought the crust was a little too sweet, but I like my shortbread crusts to be not too sweet. Overall, these were ooey, gooey, and delicious!



Since I didn't change the recipe, you can go get it over at King Arthur. Next time I'll probably make the crust less sweet, add more walnuts, and sprinkle the chocoolate chips on top after it comes out of the oven.