Getting ready for dinner on a rainy night.
Tag: baking
Cornmeal Biscuits
Instead of the usual corn tortillas to go along with our homemade chili verde, I thought cornmeal biscuits were a good idea. At first, cornbread floated through my mind, and then I thought of biscuits . . . why not combine the ideas together?
Cornmeal Biscuits
Preheat oven to 425 F.
3/4 c. butter, unsalted, finely diced
1 1/2 c. unbleached flour
3/4 c. yellow cornmeal
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 T. white sugar
1/2 c. chopped, fresh sweet pepper (I used pale, green Hungarian)
1/2 c. corn, fresh or frozen
2/3 c. buttermilk (or thin yogurt)
Combine dry ingredients – flour, cornmeal, salt, soda, cream of tartar, and sugar – in a bowl. Blend in, as for pastry, the butter, until combination resembles coarse meal. Stir in the pepper and corn. With a fork, stir in the buttermilk.
Check biscuits for consistency, adding more flour or buttermilk as you think is necessary.
Create a ball out of dough and knead briefly on floured board. Roll out biscuits, about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick, on floured board, using 2.5 inch biscuit cutter.
Place on baking sheet. If you want, brush tops with extra buttermilk. Bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on your oven quirks, until lightly golden. Cool on wire rack.
I got a nice baker’s dozen, but YMMV.
Biscotti & Broken Glass
With a few weeks off for the holiday season, the upcoming new year, it is time to get things done that have been put off for a woefully long time. One of them is cleaning the refrigerator very thoroughly, washing, rinsing, and sanitizing surfaces and nooks and crannies in all its dark recesses. And dropping a glass shelf, which shattered all over the place. Hence, the first part of the title for this post. Cleaned up, we move on to the best part – the biscotti!
Holidays are about baking and cooking and eating and celebrating with friends and family and those you love, near and far. This year, Christmas day will be spent with family elsewhere, so the baking has begun. For a small contribution, we are bring praline bourbon cake to go with the annual gumbo, along with some biscotti, the recipe for which I found here at Foolproof Living, a cooking blog with a creative approach and lovely photography.
The recipe is easy enough. I used leftover candied peel from King Arthur, and chopped up dried peaches, cranberries, and cherries, all finely diced. The coconut was slightly sweetened and I used pecans instead of walnuts or macadamias. I also used up a very generous amount of rum.
Follow the recipe – it comes out quite nice. The batter may seem a bit dry, but when you add the macerated dried fruit, it moistens up quite a bit. Also, patting out the dough onto the parchment is really necessary as the dough is sticky. I found putting some water on my hands helped a bit. Also, our knives are very sharp, so I used a straight-bladed knife (my husband tests the sharpness of our knives by shaving a spot on his arm or cutting paper with the just-sharpened knife) to cut the biscotti.
Check out Foolproof Living – it has become one of my favorite blogs just because it has such a wonderful variety of recipes and interesting posts.
Happy Holidays!
I Like Pie!
With both of our having the entire week off for the Thanksgiving holiday, there is good reason to celebrate! And, with a bunch of apples hanging around, pie is the perfect answer.
Apple pie is a very subjective thing. Undoubtedly a favorite – but favorites come in many varieties, just like apples. Time and energy play into it as well – homemade crust? peeled apples? bottom crust? crisp topping?
I am very partial to crisp toppings. In fact, I usually just make apple crisp as it requires no crust. I don’t peel the apples, either; the skins add something to the entire melange which I find quite good. Apple choice is important in many instances, but a variety of apples often makes for the best pies for flavor.
Spices are also critical to flavor. Your favorite may not be mine. I like my pie with lots of spice – not hot, though adding pepper when there is a lack of ginger gives a pie a bit of zip.
Here, then, is my recipe for this particular pie. Next one may vary. Enjoy – and happy holidays!
Apple Pie & Crisp
6-8 apples, sliced, peeled if you want, and cut into bite size pieces
Zest of lemon – all of it if you want from the lemon you juice
1 lemon, squeezed
1/2 c. white sugar
2-3 T. tapioca
Fresh ginger, finely grated – 2-3 T.
Mace – 2-3 tsp.
Nutmeg – 1/2 grated (about 1 tsp.)
Cinnamon – 2-3 T. – the hotter the cinnamon, the less you should use
2-4 T. water
If making a pie, preheat oven to 425 F. Mix all the stuff together and let sit while you create the pie crust and/or topping. Stir it now and then so it can juice up.
Pie Crust – one or two, pre-made or homemade.
Crisp Topping
Up front, I don’t measure anything. It is thrown together. Too wet, add more dry ingredients of your choice; too dry, add more melted butter.
1 stick butter, melted
1 c. oatmeal (more or less)
3/4 – 1 c. flour
1/4-1/2 c. brown sugar
Nuts (I used walnut halves)
Spices as used in the pie, and a bit of salt
Mix dry ingredients together. Pour in melted butter. Mix until rather crumbly but holds together if squeezed in your hand. Pat topping onto pie or crisp (or both – which is what I ended up making because I had oodles of apples).
Let’s Bake It!
For the pie, place pie in 425 F oven for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, turn to 350 F. Bake another 40-50 minutes. Baking the pie at a very high heat helps prevent the bottom crust from being soggy. Failure to turn down the oven after 10 minutes can be disastrous. Set that timer!
If you are making a crisp along with the pie, do not put the crisp in the oven until you turn down the temperature. If you are only making a crisp, bake it at 350 F for about 40-50 minutes.
Serve warm, cold, with ice cream. A good cup of coffee and pie is a great afternoon treat.
Enjoy! And happy holidays to everyone.
I Needed a Change!
I have just written about how I am disgusted by becoming obsessed with photography. What that means is that I don’t like getting so focused on one thing that everything else I like to do takes second, third, or some place down the road. Life then becomes – for me – rather dull and quite uninteresting. And way too focused. It becomes a trap.
I don’t like thinking of only one thing at a time. I like being in different areas of interest in my head, and in my daily life. It keeps everything in balance. Creativity is an energy which can become quite wonky if not properly directed. It becomes a chore, and downright unpleasant when decisions are not being able to be made. Stagnation then sets in. And frustration. And so on.
To break this up, this is what I have been doing these last few days:
Ink, Yarn & Beer 