Overnight waffles

Brendan makes these really good waffles, that have become a bit of a staple for post-training brunch type activities with CSU.  I was hosting a training, and needed the recipe so I could make waffles.  They're tasty enough that here's the recipe - I believe it's from David Lebovitz's book "How to Cook Everything", but I'm not actually sure.  The recipe isn't hard; the only hard part is remembering to get it started the night before.

Overnight Waffles

Serves 4-6

1/2 tsp instant yeast

2C flour

1 tbs sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2C milk

8 tbs melted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

Combine the dry ingredients, stir in the milk, then the butter and vanilla.  It'll be loose. Cover with plastic wrap and leave overnight at room temperature.

Grease your waffle iron, preheat it.

Separate the eggs, stir the yolks into the batter.  White the whites until they hold soft peaks.  Stir them gently into the batter.

Spread a ladleful or so of batter into the waffle iron, cook for 3-5min, and serve immediately. Preferably with lots of berries! And maybe maple syrup.  Most delicious.

Grits and greens

This was surprisingly delicious. We had some sad-looking greens (I really don't remember what sort at this point... looks like kale maybe?), some tofu, and some mushrooms that needed eating. How to make something edible out of this?  We decided that maybe a pile of cheesy grits under the greens would be a good idea.  We were right!  Quite simple, really - we had a tub of Quaker corn meal, and there's a recipe on the side for "cornmeal mush".  Ok, let's make some mush: 

Boil 3C water

Add 1C cornmeal and a hefty pinch of salt to another cup of water

Pour that mixture into the boiling water

Turn down the heat, stir, and cook for 5-10 minutes until it's nice and thick

Add things to make it taste good - cheese, butter, more salt

Cook your veggies, I recommend lemon and salt if you're sauteeing kale. Dump on top. Wolf down, because you're starving, and this sort of dish really only tastes delicious when you're starving.

I don't really know how we made the tofu. Looks baked. That's a good idea, I'm going to bake some tofu next time.

6-Grain hot cereal

The other day, I discovered that cracked what, or kasha, would cook in roughly the same amount of time as old-fashioned oats. i.e. the amount of time it takes for me to shower in the morning.  And, that they add a really nice wheaty flavor to oatmeal, and some different textures. I remember the last time I cooked kasha, I thought that it was just mush, and kind of gross because of that.  Well, it turns out oatmeal is also just mush. Oatmeal is also cheap, easy, and good for you, and I've learned to tolerate it (though not quite tolerate it enough to eat a large enough quantity to get me through the entire morning without a snack).  Anyway, kasha was a welcome addition. Yay!

From there, it was not a giant leap of imagination to consider if I could make my own fancy 7-grain cereal.  You know, like this. The only major failing is that I like some chew to my cereal, which you can get with old fashioned oats, but not so much with quick cereals, and when it comes to things like brown rice and barley, you kind of have to grind them up finely to have them cook in 5 minutes. So, the major failing here was that the cereal mostly tastes like mush. But, mush with a wider variety of flavors than just oats.  I suppose leaving some of the flax seeds whole, and having an interesting nut/seed mixture to sprinkle on top, would help with the texture.  Anyway, if you're bored of regular oatmeal, and want to mix things up, give this a try.  

Homemade 6-grain cereal 

probably not any cheaper than the real stuff, and probably doesn't cook up as neatly.

1C old fashioned oats

1/2C bulgur

1/2C kasha

1/4C brown rice, ground up roughly (I did this in our spice grinder)

1/4C barley, ground up roughly

1/4C flax seeds, ground up 

To cook it, well, doesn't really matter, but I found using a smidge more water than usual was helpful in making more of a porridge and less of a solid glob.  So, 2/3C cereal + 5/3C water, more or less. And a good pinch of salt.  I like to dump it all in a pot and stick it on medium-low-ish while I shower, and once I'm clean it's done.  If you let it sit for a minute or two (while you put on moisturizer, for example), then you can stir up anything that stuck to the bottom of the pot.  

Top with tasty things. Maybe some milk, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, frozen fruit (protip: frozen fruit will cool it off so you can eat it sooner), ice cream... 

Oh and if you were really thinking ahead, you'd have made some overnight iced coffee.  Because obviously if it's iced coffee weather it's hot cereal weather. Geez, I am so confused when it comes to food temperatures!  (we can all agree that ice cream is an every-weather food, right?)

An American dinner

We had a very American dinner the other day. Steak and potatoes, and salad eaten on the same plate at the same time.  Whoaaa.  We made this salad again, because it was delicious, only without the avocado because we didn't have any.  Anyway, I wanted to talk about mashed potatoes. Because they're easy and quick and these ones were quite delicious.

I used to think I hated mashed potatoes, because they were always sort of gooey and the same consistency and pale and just gross.  But, it turns out that it's just boxed mash potatoes that I don't like.  Chunky "rustic" mashed potatoes are actually delicious!  

In this case, we chopped up two potatoes into quarters, and boiled for 15-20min or so until they were soft. Then, into a bowl with them, and maybe 2tbs of butter. Salt, pepper. A scallion, chopped finely. Mash with a fork. Eat. So simple, so delicious. You should make some, next time you want something fast and simple and delicious.  

Also, that yellow blob - that's an extra beet. Cooked, sliced thin, and drizzled with some really good vinegar. This one. You may ask why someone would spend $27 on a bottle of vinegar, and I would answer, because this one is totally worth it. You don't waste it in salad dressing, you drizzle it on things like beets where you can really taste it and appreciate it. Yum. Oh, and a pinch of salt and pepper, just to top things off.  

Salad (and ribs)

Ed and I tend to read the same food blogs. It often means we'll see the same thing on a given day, and both want to make it. This is why we get along.  Anyway, we saw this, and both were like, let's have salad tonight.  We also had some ribs marinating, so Ed cooked those, too.  And then made us some sort of fruity cocktail drink with fancy ingredients from the distillery next door to his office. I definitely don't remember what was in the drink (possibly rum based? with a grapefruit slice?), and I don't remember how he cooked the ribs, but I made the salad, so I remember that part.

We wanted to add avocado, since it seemed like adding something green and creamy and delicious would go over well.  It did.  And the Boston lettuce was perfect, crunchy and sweet.  I don't remember what we did for a dressing, unfortunately, it may have just been some oil and lemon and salt, with the pepper sprinkled over the whole thing. The only problem was that the eggs were not quite soft-boiled, they were somewhere between hard and soft boiled.  Would have been better if we'd taken them out 3 minutes sooner.  Oh well, live and learn.  Regardless, this salad was delicious, and refreshing, and filling, and beautiful.  I recommend making it.  

Baguette rolls

We wanted to make some banh mi sandwiches the other day, but we were pretty low on any sorts of food stuffs.  Luckily, we're masters of cleaning-out-the-fridge sorts of meals, and ended up with a damn tasty sandwich.  I believe we had oyster mushrooms, cilantro, yellow pepper and some sort of spicy mayo on the sandwiches, and we made the bread relatively quickly. Total success. But, the bigger success was that I figured out a method (finally!) to get my bread to crust up like a proper baguette.  

I've noticed that the NYT no-knead bread has pretty much the awesomest crust ever, as well as the proper amount of holes on the inside.  I knew that given the short rise time and lazy knead time meant no big holes, but if we could just get a good crust... that might make it worthwhile.  The advantage of that NYT bread is that it's cooked in a dutch oven, so the steam from the dough itself makes a little steam bath for the bread inside of the dutch oven. So, I figured I'd try making my whole oven into a steam bath.  I started things at 500F, and then dropped the heat to 350, to properly cook the insides once the crust had done it's thing, and boy was this ever a success.  Try it for yourself - totally worth it!

Baguette Rolls

Start by making your bread dough. About 2C of warm water, a spoonful of sugar, a spoonful of yeast. Add flour until it's paste-like, then add a spoonful of salt.  Maybe a splash of olive oil.  Add more flour until the dough is at a knead-able consistency. Knead for 5 minutes or so.

Go for a run.  (I believe in this case the rise time was ~1:15).

Come back, wash your hands (yes, you, you know you've been snot rocketing while running), and divide the dough into whatever size rolls you want. Put them into whatever shape you feel like. Preheat the oven to 500F, and put a pan full of water on the bottom shelf. Let that preheat and steam for 20min or so.  Then cut some gashes (crosses, slices, whatever, score the top) into each roll, put them on a pan (maybe grease the pan first, or put down cornmeal or something), and stick the rolls into the oven.

Cook at 500 for 10min or so, then without opening the oven, drop the heat to 350ish, and cook another 20-30min.  They're done when the bottom makes a hollow noise when you knock on it. They may look done sooner, since the tops will be golden brown and delicious thanks to the steam earlier than the insides are cooked, but go with the knocking test.  

Enjoy!

Rhubarb Tart

I saw this recipe on Epicurious the other day, and it looked so pretty that I wanted to try it.  I also liked what someone had suggested about some pastry cream underneath the rhubarb, so I figured I'd play around with a little frangipane underneath.  Total success, because the sweetness of the almond frangipane offset some of the tartness of the rhubarb. Though, testing the straight-rhubarb vs the frangipane, I sort of liked the tarter one.  Maybe you could make a less-sweet frangipane, but really, I hate to admit this... the epicurious recipe was best when left alone. Crazy!

You start with a sheet of puff pastry. Roll it out, and then layer on the rhubarb (over the frangipane, if you're using that).  For frangipane, I creamed 1/2 stick of butter with 1/4C of granulated sugar, dumped in one egg yolk and 1/2C almond flour, and a dash of almond extract and a pinch of salt. Should make a loose cookie dough consistency.  That was enough for half the puff pastry (which was half the box of puff pastry).  Do be sure to slice the rhubarb at an extreme angle, as the bigger your pieces of rhubarb, the prettier your tart. Also, try to remember to leave a little space between the pieces of rhubarb, so that the puff pastry gets a chance to puff.

The syrup was easy to make, and easy to apply. This was the first time I'd ever used my new pastry brush! Very fun.  Sort of. 

Anyway, after baking, brush on the reduced syrup, and then consume within the first half hour or so - I found that the next morning, while still delicious, the tart was a little soggier.

Tart with frangipane on the left, without on the right. Both delicious!