Under a Red Roof

A Switcheroo and Thirty Grams

February 11, 2010 in Cooking + Baking, Eating by Colleen | Permalink

Hi there!

How are you today? Confused, perhaps? As in, where is the quotation that is usually posted here on Thursday? That Colleen is like clockwork with those. Well, I didn’t figure you wanted to be inundated with them, and therefore pulled a little switcheroo with my anniversary post on Tuesday. Nineteen years. Ms. Keller certainly got it right. I love finding just the right combination of someone else’s words and my photo, not that the right combination of my own words is exactly simple. Writing can be hard.

Tablecloths are easy, however. I am really loving this one. It is my latest find from the bins, and oh so adorable – how cute is that little lady next to my muffin? It’s cheery, too, like a lemon yellow, full of sun and smiles kind of day, which, by the way, is what we’ve had in great abundance in these parts these past few weeks. It has been wonderful and a bit odd, I must say. I cannot recall a sunnier winter in my eleven here in Stumptown.

Hmmm, I have no segue way for what comes next, drat. It’s tough going from writing about sunshine and cheer to um, fiber. My naturopath wants me to eat 30 grams a day. While I definitely appreciate the benefits of healthy bowel movements, lower cholesterol, lower risk of cancer, I have to say that, save for the not at all pleasant psyllium drink I have morning and evening, it is not so easy to get-r-done, and this is coming from someone who really strives for such things. I eat beans, a lotta beans, whole grain everything, fruits, veges, but still have a hard time reaching the magic number. Take these muffins, by my calculation, they’ve got three grams each, so I would need ten to get my recommended daily allowance, and while I really, really like them, that would just be too much. Not that it will keep me from trying to get to 30 by other means (Yams! Parsnips!), by golly, I will.

Just in case you’d like to try the muffins, here’s the recipe, and I hope you aren’t dissuaded by their healthfulness (that word is a mouthful) because they really are delicious, like carrot cake. I like carrot cake. Yum.

Carrot Muffins

2 beaten eggs

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup wheat bran

1/2 cup sugar (actually, I used 3/8 cup sugar and 1/8 cup agave nectar, but don’t know how easy it is to find everywhere)

1/2 teaspoon ginger

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups finely shredded carrots

3/8 cup vegetable oil (I used 1/8 olive and 1/4 sunflower)

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup chopped dates (I am a recent convert – slightly sweet and full of fiber!)

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, bran, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and ginger.

In a medium bowl, combine eggs, agave (if using), carrots, and oil. Add egg mixture to flour mixture; stir until combined. Mix in walnuts, raisins, and dates. Pour batter into greased or lined muffin tins.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.

This made 11 muffins, but I fill my cups pretty high, so you might get 12, or you might get less.

Enjoy!

Tags: Cooking and Baking, Decorating, Recipes

Dutch Baby, Oh!

January 20, 2010 in Cooking + Baking by Colleen | 2 comments

When I was living at home, my mom called this a Breakfast Wake-Up. I have also seen it called an Oven Pancake. No matter what the name, the hubster and I find it rather delicious. It is a firmer variety of pancake – and very, very good. This one is topped with ginger pears using my recipe for sauces with regular-old pancakes that you can find here. I would say that the one down side to this recipe is that it only makes one pan at a time, so if you are really hungry, you’re also going to need to be really patient whilst making a second batch. I suppose there are worse things in the world. As well, yours may not look like the picture below when you take it out of the oven. Sometimes it comes out looking like a sombrero, others, a moonscape. It’s kind of neat, actually, like mad science!

Dutch Baby

2 tablespoons butter

3 eggs

1/2 cup whole wheat flour (regular is fine, too)

1/2 cup milk

1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees with a 10″ skillet inside. Add butter to skillet, and remove from oven after it melts, about 2 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk eggs to combine. Add flour, milk, and salt; beat until smooth.

Immediately pour batter into the hot skillet. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and browned. If you have an oven with a glass front – turn on the light and watch the magic!

Be really careful not to touch the handle after removing from the oven. I can’t tell you how many times I have burned my hand because I forgot it was hot, ouch!

Serve with butter, maple syrup, dusted with powdered sugar, or topped with your favorite sauce.

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday sweet Stella Ruby!

Tags: Cooking and Baking, Recipes

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cake

January 13, 2010 in Cooking + Baking, Remembering by Colleen | 3 comments

When I was in junior high, one of my best friends was Terese Sievers. She was sweet, smart (a whiz at math), beautiful, with perfect black hair; a fine person and a marvelous friend. I spent a lot of time at her house: meals, parties, and sleepovers, her adorable little brother Todd waking us in the morning. Among my favorite memories is the time we baked this cake together. I had never baked with a friend before, and there was a definite specialness to it. We worked with ease in her kitchen, so much so that it overshadows any memory of my first bite of cake. Working together mattered more.

Though the memory of this cake is fine, it has very little to do with how I feel about it now. I am hard pressed to find another chocolate cake that I like so well. This is moist, rich, and always delicious, and certainly among the easiest to prepare. I am not one for fuss in the kitchen – my Julia Child days having long past. The hubster is a big fan as well, nearly always suggesting I make it when I am in the mood for chocolate. Thankfully, too, I’ve adapted it so it is pretty healthy, as far as cakes go, with the rolled oats and whole wheat flour providing a good amount of fiber, but in secret agent fashion. Let’s call it MI5 cake, shall we?

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cake

1 3/4 cups boiling water

1 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup sugar

1 stick butter, softened (8 tablespoons)*

2 eggs

1 cup flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips**

3/4 cup nuts (optional)

Pour water over oatmeal in a large bowl, and let stand 10 minutes. Add both sugars and butter. Mix well. Add eggs. Sift dry ingredients together, and add to oatmeal mixture, mixing well.

Pick a pan – 13×9 or Bundt

For the 13X9: Grease pan well. Add 1 cup of chocolate chips (and fruit if you are using it) to batter, pour into pan, and sprinkle remaining chips over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean and the cake springs back when touched.

For the Bundt: Grease pan well. Mix in chocolate chips (and fruit if you are using it), pour into pan, smoothing the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean and the cake springs back when touched. Cool for 5 minutes before turning out of the pan.

The cake is great warm, at room temperature, on it’s own, sprinkled with powdered sugar, or frosted. You really can’t lose.

Enjoy!

*If you are itching to make the cake, but your butter is not soft, do what I do: use a cheese grater on the butter. I also do this for pie crust. Freeze the butter and put it through the grater. It will still be cold and in uniform pieces. I love uniformity in the kitchen!

**Use any chocolate chip you like, but know that white chocolate chips tend to melt entirely and form slightly unsightly cracks in the cake (this is why God created frosting).

***If you like dried fruit, this cake is the perfect vehicle for it. I am rather fond of adding dried cherries or raisins (reduce the amount of chocolate chips by whatever amount of dried fruit you use), but was thinking that cranberries and apricots would work nicely, too. If you like orange, you could also add the zest of one. Oh the possibilities!

Tags: Cooking and Baking, Friendship, Recipes

Eggplant Puffs

January 6, 2010 in Cooking + Baking by Colleen | 1 comment

We, probably like most of you, gentle readers, did a lot of eating over the holidays, A LOT. Mostly sweets. I think I am sugared out. Gosh, I hope I am sugared out. I really would like to have less of it in my life, after all. My goal this year is to eat one sweet treat a week, no more. Please do a little dance, say a prayer, whatever you can, to send the support I need to get-r-done. I’d appreciate it. So, in keeping with this desire, my first recipe of the year will not be a sweet one, though the next three or four are likely to be. Baby steps!

So eggplant puffs, it is. Are you an eggplant eater? Me, not so much. I normally find the texture and flavor icky, slimy and just plain weird, save in baba ganouj. That is definitely do-able. So why this recipe appealed to me in the first place, I have no idea. A willingness to branch out, perhaps. Thankfully, it worked! The hubster and I found these so very satisfying that we’ve got another eggplant on the ready. Now that is saying something. Try them for yourself – you might be surprised, too.

adapted from Party Food for Vegetarians by Celia Brooks Brown

1 large eggplant, about 1 pound

olive oil

1/2 cup pine nuts

20 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped

4 tablespoons dry bread crumbs

6 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

2 cloves garlic, peeled and diced fine

1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 450. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and brush with olive oil. Roast for about 30 minutes, until lightly browned and very soft. Let cool, peel off the skin and discard (better yet, compost!). Chop the flesh finely. Reduce the temperature to 400.

Mix the eggplant, pine nuts, olives, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, garlic, and egg together in a bowl. Let rest for 10-15 minutes.

Liberally oil a large cookie sheet. Form the mixture into bite size balls and place on sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until lightly golden and puffy. Serve hot.

Variation – I think these would also make a fine burger-type sandwich filling. Form into patties and bake until browned.

**I tried the patties, and they were great (on a bun with mayo, grainy mustard, Laughing Cow cheese, and spinach)! Be sure to grease the pan REALLY well – they’re a bit more sticky when in patty form.

Enjoy!

Tags: Cooking and Baking, Recipes

Dervishes and Fast Food

December 15, 2009 in Cooking + Baking, Remembering by Colleen | 1 comment

When I was a kid, I loved spinning. Loved it. I would go out in our rather capacious yard, extend my arms and go like a top. I’d focus on the undulation of my fingers as I twirled, greens and browns streaking by. Then when I couldn’t take another second, I’d drop dramatically to the ground, look up at the sky and marvel in the sensation that, despite my stillness, my body was still spinning. Heaven. This was such a habit that my Mom told me I’d likely grow up to be a dervish. While I do love watching them, I’ve never actually become one, save, I suppose, for the occasional wild romp in the yard and cleaning.

Mondays are top to bottom cleaning days around here – laundry, vacuuming, mopping, dusting, toilet scrubbing – the whole kit and kaboodle. I used to do a little each day but then felt like that was all I was doing, and it left me kind of depressed. Now that it is condensed into one day, I get a pretty good workout and a gleaming, sweet smelling house at the end. By the way, is it wrong to be in love with the scent of Murphy’s Oil Soap? If it is, sign me up for the program to get me off the stuff. Gosh it smells gooood.

The only problem with my dervish style clean is that I am pretty tuckered out by the end of the day and not terribly keen on making dinner. Thankfully there are fast, make at home meals like this that are delicious without being at all taxing. Otherwise, I don’t know what we’d be eating; maybe chips and salsa?

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

1 head cauliflower

olive oil

1/2 of one small onion

2 cloves garlic

1/4 cup raw cashews

3 cups chicken or vegetable broth

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Remove the stem and leaves from the cauliflower. Break up the head into florets. Place on a baking pan and roast for 15 minutes, until golden brown.

Meanwhile, roughly chop the onion and garlic. Saute with a bit of olive oil in a medium soup pot over medium heat until translucent. Add roasted cauliflower, cashews, and broth; bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low and puree with an immersion blender or process in a blender in batches until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Makes about four adult sized bowls (I know, so precise).

We had ours with a little cheese toast (with Dave’s Killer Bread! Good bread and an even better story) sprinkle with smoked paprika. It was delicious and warm. Warm is good, too.

Enjoy!

Tags: Cooking and Baking, Recipes