No small feat
Maple sugar macarons with cream cheese buttercream filling
If you know anything about macarons (macaroons?) you know that the title to this post is something of a red herring. Or a pun. Or something in between.
A macaron is a delicacy that comes about from whipping egg whites until firm and folding that into ground almonds and confectioners sugar. Akin to a meringue, I suppose. Sounds simple enough, or so I thought when confronted with this month’s Daring Bakers challenge. (The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S of Baking Without Fear. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.)
Having spent a fair amount of time on the internet scouring blogs and food photography, it is hard not to notice the omnipresence of the macaron and the collective trepidation over making these treats. Apparently it all has to do with the feet. You see, correctly made, macarons bubble up along their bottoms (where they come in contact with the sheet pan) in a darling fashion that is called “having feet.”
However, my first foray into making macarons was woefully inept. You can see in this photo that they never grew feet and never puffed up. I couldn’t have told you why until I did a little digging.
Sad little almond pecan cookies. Tasty, yet ultimately a fail
And here is the product of my second attempt, which was a rousing success. The bubbly parts in the middle are the feet of two macarons which have been sandwiched together.
what beautiful feet you have!
What was the difference? While I can’t pretend to know which one factor might have turned the culinary tides in my favor, I can tell you what I did differently from first attempt to second, and hopefully these tips will help you.
Ingredients
A) The first time I tried macarons, my parents were in town, and I was planning for the Malvern Fall Festival, where I was to have a cookie booth. I can’t imagine my thought process when I tried to make these on a Friday afternoon, as a lark, thinking “how hard can it be?” I ground my own almonds and pecans (a ratio of about 5 to 4, in favor of almonds), because I don’t love the flavor of almonds as much as pecans. Plus, I am drawn to the idea of making any recipe from absolute scratch. That’s just how kitchen witch rolls.
However, when you grind your own nuts, there are lots of pieces that aren’t ground into a powdery-fine texture. These largers bits (a little larger than sand, I’d say) were a puzzle to me. Should I throw them out? How would that affect the final product? Not knowing, I left them in.
Difference: In my second attempt, I purchased ground almonds from Trader Joe’s ($3.99 for a pound, I believe). I did not use any pecans this time. Following the recipe at Life’s a Feast (see link below), I sifted the weighed almond meal with the weighed confectioners sugar. When I couldn’t press anymore almond meal through my sieve (and I worked on it), I weighed the little bits that were left and replaced them with the same weight in new almond meal. I did not bother to sift this, as it was only about a teaspoon.
B) Another ingredient mishap came by way of my eggs. The recipe provided by the Daring Bakers site lists all of the ingredients by both volume and weight except for the egg whites, which are only listed by quantity and size of egg. Now, I can’t say why this is. I understand from my research that the ratio of wet to dry ingredients is crucial, so to leave that part of it to chance doesn’t make sense to me. However, what I also realized after the fact is that I used the egg whites obtained from extra-large eggs, whereas the recipe calls for large eggs. This would absolutely make a difference and alone would ruin the outcome.
Difference: For my second attempt, the recipe I found at Life’s a Feast included the weight of the egg whites as well. I went so far as to weigh mine and scoop out a little egg white with the shell when I had surplus, ending up with 91 grams to the recipe’s suggested 90 grams. I measured them cold, as I ended up breaking a room-temprature egg while trying to separate it. (Quick tip: to quickly bring egg whites up to room temperature, place them in a metal–not glass–bowl and place that bowl in a larger bowl of warm to hot water. Replace water as it cools until eggs reach the temperature you desire. I do this all the time when whipping egg whites because I usually forget to leave them out. It seems to have worked fine this time.)
Technique
A) In my first attempt, I was feeling very smug to have my stick blender, with its extra fancy whip attachment. Why, whipping egg whites is a breeze with this thing. It’s handy and portable and doesn’t require the heavy stand mixer to come out from hiding. Plus, testing the eggs for firmness is as easy as lifting the blender out and seeing what peaks form.
Difference: What I learned about whipping egg whites for macarons is that the speed of the whipping matters. First you should start the whip on a low speed for about 30 seconds, at which point you increase to a high speed. When your eggs reach soft peak stage you add some granulated sugar (in my case, mixed with some maple sugar) and continue to beat until firm peaks form. One suggestion for testing the firmness of the whites was to turn the mixing bowl upside down. If the whites stay put, you’ve got the right firmness. Granted, this is a pain with a KitchenAid stand mixer, but it yields correctly whipped whites. The stick blender may have been easy, but it created air bubbles in the whipped whites that were simply too large (due to lack of slow mixing at the outset).
B) Folding was another area were my technique faltered. Following the Daring Bakers recommendations, I was very gentle when folding my egg whites into my dry mix. I didn’t pay attention to how many strokes it took, but I did make sure to handle with care.
Difference: Turns out that for the first 6 strokes of the folding phase, I needed to be a little rougher with the ingredients. That causes the air bubbles to break down a bit, which helps the macarons down the road. After six strokes I eased up into the gentle fold mentioned above. And I counted. Somewhere between 30 and 60 strokes the mixture should come together. It did for me, and had the appearance of “lava” or a thick ribbon of batter when I let it drop from the spatula.
Baking
A) Here is where my eagerness (or my laziness…or my rushing to get this done) also did me in. I did not take the time to draw circles to guide my piping efforts on my nonstick liners. I just winged it. Granted, I was probably pretty close, but because my batter was too wet, the circles spread and ran into each other while baking. I also only used one baking sheet under my nonstick liner, believing my oven to be even enough in its heating to suffice.
Difference: In my second attempt, I used parchment paper, with traced circles underneath to guide my piping. I found in the end that smaller was probably better, as when I free-formed it and made larger macarons, they just didn’t have the height that the smaller ones did. I also doubled up the trays underneath, which helped tremendously. Plus, the recipe I followed the second time directed me to cook them at a lower temperature (280 degrees F) which I believe aids in allowing them to rise and puff without the feet spreading and getting overcooked.
I also made the executive decision to dry my macarons on the counter for an hour before baking them, rather than using the oven at a low temperature to do this for me. This was fun to witness, as my macarons gained the thick skin that was predicted in the recipe. Then the baking on a double thickness of trays, at a consistent low temperature, turning the trays to compensate for an inconsistent oven helped create beautiful macarons. I undercooked the first successful batch as I was so excited that they actually grew feet. I have learned that a nice golden color for these is preferable to a lighter color…helps later for getting them off the pan.
And when my first tray of successes stuck to the parchment paper, I just popped them back in the oven for 5-10 minutes to dry them out. This did the trick, but when cooked correctly the sticking issue disappeared completely.
a great line up
I hope some of my mistakes can inspire you to try these wonderful treats. I know I will be making them again and soon, as I noticed that they taste even better and improve with texture as the days go by. It was all I could do to stop myself from eating them before I had a chance to take some photographs! Thanks Daring Bakers. This was a great learning experience for me.
In the end, it was this recipe and post from Jamie at Life’s a Feast that saved me. It is essentially the same recipe as the Daring Bakers, but halved, and with some all important pointers along the way. Most importantly, all ingredients are listed by weight. This is so very important in all of baking, but perhaps never more so than when making macarons. After all, these are an item which can be affected by the humidity on the day you are making them (rain, rain, go away!). Always go by weight to make macarons, and you’re on the right track.
Short cut sugar cookies
Halloween may offer more opportunity to create magical dishes out of everyday recipes than any other holiday. Perusing the web lately, I’ve seen witch finger cookies, devil’s eyeballs and worm covered rotten apple bars. Even over at my other site, I’m hoping to devote the entire day of Halloween to recipes and posts from bloggers around the world.
However, for those of us pressed for time, or simply uninterested in grossing ourselves out with our thematic creations, I suggest to you: sugar cookies.
holiday sugar cookies
Yes, sugar cookies may be a bit pedestrian. They lack the blood and guts of, say, a jelly-filled mummy cupcake, and they aren’t quite as ghoulish as a hairy spider layer cake, but they are tasty and offer an opportunity to ease yourself into the Halloween spirit, if brains in a punch bowl just aren’t your thing!
friendly ghosts
And here is my tip for you. This idea comes from Nancy Baggett in her wonderful book, The All-American Cookie Book. First, begin with a sugar cookie recipe that you would normally roll out and cut into shapes. Assemble the dough, and place it in a ball in the fridge, covered, for about thirty minutes. After it has firmed up a bit, take it out and place in manageable portions between sheets of waxed paper. “Manageable portions” means about 1/2 pound or so. Flatten the dough a bit with your hands if necessary, then start rolling out, using a rolling pin. Keep the wax paper between your pin and dough, and you’ll go a long way toward keeping extra flour out of the mix. If the paper starts to wrinkle, gently peel it away from the dough and replace, smoothing out the wrinkles. Roll until the dough is even and about 1/4-1/2 inch thick (your preference).
Place the rolled out dough (still between waxed paper) on a cookie sheet or flat surface and into the fridge if you are going to cut out cookies within a few days. (Place in a bag and seal if you are concerned about the dough picking up “off” flavors from the contents of your fridge. You can also bag and freeze for use further down the road.)
When the dough is chilled and quite firm (at least 30 minutes, or until it stands stiff like a plank!), have your oven preheated and take one sheet of dough (with paper) out of the fridge. Place on flat surface, with a little flour handy for your cutters. (You may find that you don’t even need the extra flour. My dough usually comes out in the cutter, making it handy to transfer right to the baking tray. Because the dough is so stiff, it simply pops out of the cutter when gently coaxed.) Peel back the top layer of waxed paper. (I leave the bottom layer there for easy clean-up. Just work gently.) Start cutting out shapes from your already-rolled dough, place on baking sheet and repeat until the you have no more usable dough.
Place cookies in oven for recommended cooking time given in recipe, and return to cookie dough scraps. Simple pile/push together and repeat rolling out between wax paper. While that firms up in the fridge, pull out another sheet of already rolled and chilled dough and repeat (or wait until the first batch comes out of the oven.)
Halloween sugar cookies
The key is to keep your dough rolled out, then chilled until firm, before beginning to cut. It will make your experience with cutting cookies much, much easier. So easy, in fact, that you will welcome help from your children because the hard and boring part (the rolling out) is already done, so they can enjoy the fun part (cutting the cookies, eating the scraps).
One final word of caution: last year I tried to roll my mother’s sugar cookie dough out in this fashion. It is a dough that she has been making for years, but she has altered the recipe to work with a cookie shooter. Hence, the dough is quite soft and no amount of time in the fridge helped it firm up adequately. So, we resorted to freezing the dough in rolled-out batches and struggled through, but it wasn’t pretty. Make sure the recipe you use for sugar cookies is one that you would normally roll out and cut.
You can purchase kitchen witch sugar cookie dough and pecan brown sugar cookie dough at RegionalBest.com. Thanks!
Pick a pic
I need your help.
Over the past two weeks I have been working to capture the perfect photo of my slice-and-bake sugar cookies to include on the RegionalBest.com website. For this task I rolled out the dough (rather than simply slicing and baking) and cut it into Halloween-themed shapes. Once cooled, I frosted the cookies with either chocolate or white icing, depending upon the shape, and decorated accordingly.
As the kitchen witch, I strive to make beautiful cookies using only all-natural ingredients, which means no artificial color. I haven’t invested in many all-natural food colorings, other than what I can make myself (from beet juice or raspberry puree). I did happen to have naturally colored orange sprinkles in my bag of tricks, so those served well for the pumpkins. However, most of the cookies are simply white or chocolate.
Along the way, this became a journey of actually trying to take a nice photograph of my products. Despite my claim to settle for mediocre in most of my endeavors, this was different because these photos will represent me to potential customers. Here are a few of my attempts, during what turned out to be a stretch of rainy, gray weather (which never helps an amateur photographer).
A) a mix of holiday cookies
B) Halloween themed cookies
C) ghost cookie
After putting a call for help out on Twitter, I attempted some photos during a sunny afternoon.
D) ghosts in a cup
E) pumpkin and black cat cookies
In the end, it seems that baking and decorating (oh, and eating) sugar cookies is infinitely easier and more enjoyable for me than photographing them. In fact, I’m still not sure after the hours of decorating and composing shots and taking pictures that I have something I like.
Here’s where you come in. I would like to hear from you about these here photos. Which one is the most appealing? (Granted, they may provide for slim pickings, but which is the lesser of all evils and all that.) Which stands the greatest chance of being accepted at say, TasteSpotting or FoodGawker? (If none, I can live with that, too. But I’m still going to submit them because, hey, what doesn’t make it goes over to TasteStopping anyway! So help me narrow it down.)
In the comments, please leave me your honest feedback. I know that they are lacking in many ways, so feel free to elaborate for me. Then tell me whether you like A, B, C, D, or E best.
And keep an eye out for the Great Halloween Tweet, which you will notice over on the sidebar. Lots of spooktacular (couldn’t resist…how often to you get the chance to use that word in a sentence?) blogs to visit.
Thanks for your help. In return, enjoy this easy to make, easy to use “Easy Powdered-Sugar Icing” from The All-American Cookie Book by Nancy Baggett. It’s what you see on the ghosts and pumpkins above, and it is truly easy to work with. Easier than my Canon PowerShot, anyway.
Easy Powdered-Sugar Icing
(makes enough icing to completely cover, then add piping to, about 50 (3-inch) cookies)
1 16-ounce box powdered sugar, sifted, if lumpy, plus more if needed
2 t light corn syrup
1/8 t vanilla, almond or lemon extract (optional)
liquid food coloring (optional)
In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on low speed, beat together the powdered sugar, 3 Tablespoons warm water, the corn syrup, and the extract (if using). Increase the speed to medium and beat until well blended and smooth. (Alternatively, in a medium bowl, stir together the powdered sugar, water, corn syrup and extract until well blended and smooth.) I tried the latter and it worked just fine. No need for an electric mixer on this.
Adjust the icing consistency as needed by adding a bit more water to thin it or more powdered sugar to stiffen it. A fairly fluid consistency is needed to spread the icing easily and form a perfectly smooth, glossy surface; a stiff consistency is needed to pipe and form lines that hold their shape. If desired, divide the icing among separate small bowls and tint…blah, blah, blah. If you honestly don’t know how to tint icing with food coloring, you need more than this recipe. I won’t bore you with the rest of the directions. Suffice it to say that you should let icing set in between piping and flooding, so as not to cause the colors to run. At least six hours, preferably longer ought to do it (and also allow to set 6 or more hours before storing cookies.) Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days (I’ve been known to hold mine for weeks this way, allowing to come to room temp and adding some warm water to create the consistency I need).
P.O.W.
If you are even moderately familiar with the jargon of the day–or the fall line-up of television sitcoms–you have probably heard of the term “cougar.” I’m not sure if I can sum it up here, other than to say this is a term that has been coined to describe a woman of a certain age and marital status, who is on the prowl for a man, preferrably a younger man, with whom she can put to use her yoga-toned and botox-honed body. I cannot, legally, be considered a cougar because I am married. Because of that, I am not on the prowl for a man, other than the one who stands between me and that feline moniker. My husband, that is. And, P.S., I love him for that, and so much more.
Moving on, though, a new phrase has come into my awareness, via a friend with two small children and one on the way. After the first several weeks at their pricey preschool, she noticed a lot of the mothers who, but for the presence of a husband, looked and maybe even acted a little like this mythical cougar. However, these moms were not on the prowl for men, so much as the bottom of the next glass of wine over a nice plate of gossip while sneaking a smoke on the patio during naptime. Moms with babysitters who could drive themselves home, allowing mommy to stay out until the wee hours with her gal pals at the trendy tapas bar in the next borough.
And so, my friend and her friends did what every good American does, they created a stereotype for this worn-out yet put-together, designer labeled, puffy-eyed, sleek-haired mom. The P.O.W.
Partied Out…(ahem, the last word rhymes with “more” and starts with “W” of course)
I neither judge nor condone this kind of labelling. I just laugh my head off when I hear it. Oh, and post it for all the Internets to read.
Now, the month of September is a busy one in the kitchen witch household. In our family of four, it marks the celebration of one wedding anniversary and three birthdays. The adults in this house (also known as parents) don’t do much to acknowledge their own birthdays (my gift this year: a bag of Pop Chips, a RitterSport chocolate hazelnut bar and a Diet Coke–which I just found out came from our own garage fridge. I don’t really drink Diet Coke, but the others “gifts” were spot on. The point is, not a whole lot of planning and hoopla went into this gift.) The real reason my birthday was noticed at all was due to the presence of the “under seven” set. My two daughters love birthdays, any birthday (strange little girls that they are), so my husband bought those items for the girls to hand to me with giant smiles and goodwill all around. And that was that.
However, you’ll notice that I said September marks three birthdays in our family. If two of them are allotted to adults (they are) that leaves one a child’s birthday. My oldest daughter turned six in September and I kid you not, what my husband and I omitted in our birthday celebrations, the eldest received in spades. Exhibit A: she had four days of parties.
The first, on Thursday, was her kindergarten class celebration. As the kitchen witch, I will always send my kids to school parties with homemade treats, as I can control what goes into them. Plus I love, love, love making cupcakes (which are also perfect for classroom birthday parties). The theme of her official birthday party (planned for Saturday…just hang in there) was “Wizards of Waverly Place” (My husband thought it up and then headed for the hills once she agreed. He didn’t learn so much as one magic trick, the stinker.) So in keeping with the Wizards theme (for the official party), these are the minicupcakes that I made for the 17-something children/teachers in her kindergarten class on Thursday.
mini vanilla cupcakes with handmade chocolate witch hats
My husband demanded a face-to-face, wherein he shook me by the shoulders until I agreed to rethink this offer. In an unexpected gesture of goodwill from the school district, on Friday of my daughter’s birthday week, the school had a half-day, leaving all of the neighborhood kids free for a little lunch party at our house (still not the “official” birthday party, mind you). So, I bargained with her: Thursday you can take in witch hat cupcakes (see above) and Friday we’ll make Dora cupcakes, as it only entailed six customized cupcakes.
This is a photographic journey of the making of those cupcakes:
Create outline with dark chocolate, fill in with milk chocolate. Do not let children help! It is frustrating and messy.
First attempt at decorating Dora.
A gaggle of Doras
Now we're starting to get somewhere. Can you spot the differences? (Hint: white behind the chocolate chips for eyes.)
Before her mouth was outlined. Can't decide which I like better!
First, I pulled out some frozen raspberry puree, and attempted to reduce it on the stove. This happened more quickly than I expected, so if you try it at home, keep an eye on it. I actually had to add a splash of water to the pan to release the raspberry juice that had adhered. I put this into some vanilla buttercream for the mouth. Then, I added some raspberry puree and cocoa powder to some vanilla buttercream to make the skin-tone frosting. The hair is melted and piped milk and dark chocolate. The eyes are vanilla buttercream triangles, with a regular size chocolate chip pushed into the triangle (tip down). Then I added some milk chocolate and buttercream details to the eyes. The nose is a small swish of milk chocolate, but that was difficult to get right, as was the milk chocolate outline of the mouth.
All in all these cupcakes were fun to make, and I gather even more fun to eat. But they are a little messy and hard to make look perfect.
But wait! The birthday week wasn’t finished there! On Saturday, we hosted the “official” party, which ended up being very small due to the barfing disease running through one of the families invited. Their absence meant three less girls at the party. Along with Wizards activities (wand-making, black nail-polish manicures, running around the yard like crazies), each attendee decorated her own cupcake to look like a witch. (In all honesty, I had desperately wanted to make an all-natural green-tinted buttercream for the witches’ faces, but lost my gung-ho for the whole thing on Saturday morning. I just couldn’t decide whether pureed basil or mint would do the trick. Weighing the chances of it tasting odd against the chances that the girls would even care that their witch cupcakes had plain old buttercream faces, the scales tipped in favor of plain old buttercream faces.)
Here are two of the youngest girls’ efforts (which in reality are two of my efforts):
candy corn pointing in.
candy corn pointing out.
On Saturday, when my daughter found out three of her friends (the barfers) weren’t coming to her official party, she said, “Why are we having another party?” So you can see that even she was feeling the drain of three days in a row of cupcakes, buttercream and adrenaline. By this point, we were facing Sunday, which was my daughter’s actual birthday. Guess what? More cake, in sheet form, with Ina’s fudge frosting on half and vanilla buttercream on the other half, to mollify the folks at church who would be eating it. This was a first for me, sheet cake and its preparation. I used the yellow butter cake recipe from this post, baked it in a half sheet pan and froze the baked, cooled cake until the night before I needed it. The cake suffered not at all for the freezing. Which is nice to know.
I will admit, I never tire of cake and frosting. It is the food of the gods. Okay, maybe not. But I love it, and I love making it. However, this particular stretch of cupcakes, chocolate decorations, buttercream and candycorn has left me feeling a little…fatigued. Partied out, one might even say.
Which causes me to hang my head with the realization that at the end of September, I joined the ranks of the P.O.W.’s who have gone before me. There just wasn’t any booze or tapas involved. This time.
And he stuffs it!
The mildly sweet marinade perfectly complements the tartness of the apple stuffing.
Daring Bakers and puff pastry
Daring Bakers Vols-au-Vent
Whew! I feel like falling into a chair and closing my eyes for the rest of football season. My first Daring Bakers challenge is behind me, and though I am very happy that I took part in it, I’m a wee bit exhausted.
The September 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.While not an exceptionally difficult recipe in theory, I found myself mentally tied up over this challenge ever since it was announced on September 1. When would I make it? How long would it take? Would my husband corral the kids long enough for me to do this? When would I bake it? Would I fill the final vols-au-vent with savory or sweet? These questions seemed to repeat on a loop in my brain for weeks, until I finally dug into the challenge and got a little (okay, much) flour on my hands.
I have several cookbooks on my shelves with recipes for classic puff pastry, and if you are interested in the instructions given by the Daring Kitchen for this assignment, you can visit them here. The recipe takes patience, a close adherence to timing–such as giving your pastry dough time to chill in between “turns” (rolling it out again)–and attention to detail, with fork-pricking, egg-washing, shape cutting all jockeying for position in the process. All in all you are simply creating layers of butter and dough, folding, rolling out to create more layers of butter and dough. With a tri-fold before every turn, and six turns, you end up with fourteen million layers of butter and dough. Which means when you bake the puff pastry, the moisture and fat in the butter create air pockets inside the flour dough, resulting in a light, layered, delicious pastry.
I decided to turn my puff pastry into a savory meal, filling the vols-au-vent with my favorite chicken pot pie recipe. It comes from Emeril’s TV Dinner, and is absolutely the best chicken pot pie recipe you can find. It is mildly labor intensive. All that really means is that you should look this recipe over and plan ahead. If your potatoes, carrots, onions, celery and parsley are chopped and your chicken is cooked and shredded or cut up, the recipe itself will fall together quite quickly and easily.
First a few photos of my puff pastry process, with Emeril’s recipe below. I’m sure that my final product is quite amateurish by some standards. My The New Making of a Cook cookbook, is almost oppressive in its directions on making puff pastry. However, rather than turn that into a reason never to make this again, I would simply agree to accept mediocrity (as I have in the past) in order to obtain this delicious result.
the dough
the flattened butter
dough rolled to 10 inches
corners of dough rolled out to form flaps or ears
folding the flaps over the flattened butter
all flaps sealed over flattened butter
first roll out: notice sticks of butter clearly through the dough
first turn complete; repeat five more times
poking cut out vols-au-vent gently with a fork
assembled and egg washed vols-au-vent (top) and cut out tops (below)
the finished vol-au-vent filled with savory, homemade chicken pot pie
Chicken pot pie
6 T unsalted butter
1 c chopped yellow onion
½ c chopped celery
salt and pepper to taste throughout cooking process
6 T flour
2 c chicken stock
1 c half-half
2 c peeled diced potatoes, cooked in boiling water 6-8 minutes
1 c diced carrots, cooked 4-5 minutes
1 c peas (fresh or frozen, thawed)
2 c shredded cooked chicken (one full chicken breast usually makes 2 cups diced meat)
1 T chopped parsley (Italian flat leaf)
Melt butter over medium high heat and sauté onions and celery, season with s & p, stirring for 3-4 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring for 3-4 minutes to make a blond roux (this will thicken almost to a paste). Stir in the chicken stock and bring liquid to boil. Reduce heat and simmer as sauce thickens (4-6 minutes). Stir in half-and-half and cook for 4 minutes. Season with s & p. Stir in the potatoes, carrots, peas, chicken and parsley, season with s&p and mix well. Pour a generous 1 1/2 cups or so of the hot pot pie mixture into a freshly baked vol-au-vent (it will probably spill over) and serve.
Hope you enjoy this chicken pot pie either with your own vols-au-vent, or in a casserole lined and topped with a pie crust (which you would then bake at 400 degrees for about 25-20 minutes, until the crust turns a nice golden brown).
I’m baking for Paula Deen, y’all!
I am up early to tackle my latest opportunity. Today Paula Deen will be visiting my daughter’s school to talk to the students about her Cookbook for the Lunch-Box Set, and I have been asked by the school to bring some kitchen witch treats to the reception for her. I am thrilled to be able to do so, not only because Paula Deen will be on hand, but because I really do enjoy sharing my goodies with the world. In this case, the K-5 world!
Here is what I have decided to provide for Ms. Deen as well as all the teachers, staff, administrators, and PTO volunteers who will be on hand.
Scones. Of course, scones. These are the best scones anyone will ever taste. Perhaps that’s because I bake them fresh, which means they are moist and tender, instead of dry and stale like most scones available at cafes and grocery stores. But, my combination of add-ins are also fun and mouthwatering (apricot ginger, with just a little kick from the ginger; cherry almond, which has vanilla in the dough to heighten the experience; oatmeal raisin, with a dusting of cinnamon sugar on the top for a unique crunch.)
These beauties are bound to be crowd pleasers
And in looking for a real showstopper, I decided to revisit the mini whoopie pies that I sampled back in June at the University of Pennsylvania showcase event. They are unique and beautiful, not to mention extremely tasty. Plus, the whoopie pie was “discovered” just down the road in Lancaster County, PA, so it’s a bit of an homage to serve it.
Two moist dark chocolate cakes surround a light vanilla creme filling.
And finally cookies. I have many great cookies that I could bring, but I wanted something unique. The whoopie pies have the chocolate angle covered (along with the sweet cream chocolate chip scones), so I decided that my Oatmeal Cookie would be a perfect choice. It’s chewy and delicious, with a hint on cinnamon. A nice break from the omnipresent chocolate chip cookie.
These are comfort food in a cookie.
Oh I have posts!
I have so many posts swirling around in my head, as well as photos loaded into my computer and camera, I feel like a bottleneck has developed in my brain stem. Can’t get them all out to my fingertips, to the keyboard, to the computer…
So, in lieu of waiting one more minute to have time to write the most elegant post in the history of blogging, I present to you: croutons.
It is quickly becoming soup season around here. Cold, rainy, blustery days are not far off. One of my favorite things to make is a pureed vegetable soup which contains spinach, potatoes, leeks, carrots, water and olive oil. Oh, and salt. Never forget the salt. It’s really that simple. You boil the bejeezus out of those veggies, blend in batches, and enjoy a hearty yet creamy soup that is the brilliant color of grass, depending upon how much spinach you add. In reality, it tastes like potato and leek soup, with a lot of added nutritional benefits. Delicious.
And yet, I cannot eat a bowl of this soup without some homemade garlic croutons. My first real attempt at croutons came with the help of Todd English and one of his cookbooks, The Olives Table. However, I am proud to announce that just the other day, while preparing an entirely different meal, I cubed up a quickly hardening loaf of French bread, drizzled it with olive oil, sprinkled with freshly chopped garlic and shredded paremsan, salt and pepper and placed in the oven at 350 degrees F for about 15 minutes. Until there was a nice golden hue to the cubes of bread. Totally free form. I know. I really am impressive. Croutons of all things.
Now, here they are adorning a bowl of roasted red pepper and tomato soup. Because I don’t have any of the pureed vegetable soup that I just described. But, never fear. That’s what weekends are for. Catching up on all the recipes I didn’t have time for during the week.
Taking soup to the next dimension
For those of you who want a recipe, too bad. Really, if I can do this without one, so can you. Get yourself:
a loaf of French bread, cut into roughly 1-inch cubes
3-6 garlic cloves, finely chopped (use your tastebuds as a guide and please don’t use pre-minced, jarred garlic)
a few Tablespoons of good quality olive oil (don’t be afraid to pour into a spoon and drizzle right on the bread after it’s cubed)
generous sprinkling of salt
pepper to taste (I’m not a fan, so I don’t go overboard on this)
a block of Parmesan cheese and a zester/grater. Go to town on this, use as much as you see fit
Bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees F until nice and golden. Stir the cubes a bit during baking to ensure even browning. Remove from oven and enjoy in a salad, soup, scrambled eggs, as a snack…you name it.
These onions make me cry
But only while I’m cutting them. Luckily, that part is quick and easy.
Almost like a pot o' gold
So, I’m not the model carnivore. Sure, I eat everything (well, almost) under the sun, including all types of meat, but I don’t prefer it. When taken to an upscale restaurant, if I happen to order red meat, it will most certainly be the result of my hankering for the sides that come with it. The fried parsnips and chanterelle demi-glace sharing a plate with garlic buttermilk mashed. The meat is truly secondary.
However, lately I find myself hankering for Ina Garten’s Niman Ranch burgers. They are so, so easy to put together, it’s nearly criminal to call it a recipe. (I’ll point the finger at the Contessa on this one.) What keeps me coming back, though, is the addition of caramelized onions.
This recipe, also insanely easy, results in the perfect topping for any burger, or possibly even crostini or, hell, a big fat spoon. It takes a little more time than a raw onion on a burger might, but the trade-off is a spectacular summer dinner highlight that just might make you cry.
First the recipe for the onions, and below you’ll find the recipe for the burgers. If you get that far.
Caramelized Onions:
- 2 tablespoons good olive oil
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 pounds yellow onions, peeled and sliced in half-rounds
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
- 2 tablespoons sherry wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Heat the olive oil and butter in a large shallow pot, add the onions and thyme, and toss with the oil. Place the lid on top and cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes to sweat the onions.
Sweating the onions
Remove the lid and continue to cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for 25 to 30 minutes, until the onions are caramelized and golden brown. If the onions are cooking too fast, lower the heat. Add the vinegar, salt, and pepper and cook for 2 more minutes, scraping the brown bits from the pan. Season to taste (they should be very highly seasoned).
after deglazing the pan
Yield: 6 servings
Notes: For just two of us, I halve this recipe. I have trouble finding (and then affording) sherry wine vinegar (possibly because I have only found it at Whole Foods), so I swap apple cider vinegar, and it tastes phenomenal. I’m sure other vinegars would also be suitable, so have at it! Yes, use fresh thyme leaves, please. Find someone who’s growing some and steal if you must.
And now for some meat.
Ina Garten’s Niman Ranch Burgers
- 2 pounds ground Niman Ranch beef or other grass-fed premium beef (80 percent lean and 20 percent fat)
- 1 tablespoon good Dijon mustard
- 3 tablespoons good olive oil, plus extra for brushing the grill
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 3 sandwich-size English muffins, halved
- Good mayonnaise
- Caramelized Onions, recipe follows
Directions
Build a charcoal fire or heat a gas grill.
Place the ground beef in a large bowl and add the mustard, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix gently with a fork to combine, taking care not to compress the ingredients. Shape the meat into 6 (3 1/2-inch) patties of equal size and thickness.
When the grill is medium-hot, brush the grill grate with oil to keep the burgers from sticking. Place the burgers on the grill and cook for 4 minutes. Using a big spatula, turn the burgers and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, until medium-rare or more, or cook longer if you prefer hamburgers more well done.
Meanwhile, break apart the English muffins and toast the 6 halves cut side down on the grill. Spread each half with mayonnaise and top with a burger and then with a heaping tablespoon of caramelized onions. Serve hot.
In defense of mediocrity
When I started this here blog, a few months ago, I did so with an eye toward my business. One thing I learned about SEO in the course of developing my retail site is that the more links you have coming in, the better you look to the search engines. So I started a blog with the idea that I could keep my customers informed of kitchen witch events, retail locations, new products (yadda, yadda, yadda) and also post a link to my retail site to boost traffic and rankings.
In the process of doing so, I discovered TasteSpotting, a site that allows bloggers to submit food photos in exchange for unparalleled traffic. Seemed simple enough, so I submitted a professionally taken photo of my Apricot Ginger Scones, carefully wording my entry so as to sound appealing but not spam-my (which is clearly verbotten at TS). Ultimately, that photo was rejected due to the use of the phrase “make these scones,” when the link provided did not lead to a recipe. (It did lead to a product page for ready-to-bake scones, but I digress).
This was my first submission to Tastespotting. Rejected because the caption said "make" but the link did not lead to a recipe.
All in all I think I have submitted around seven or eight photos to TasteSpotting and two to FoodGawker. I have had two published at TS and one at FG. So much for driving traffic to my site! After feeling the sting of rejection, however, I hit upon the idea to launch TasteStopping, a site which welcomes all the foodie photos rejected from the other sites.
Fast forward a few weeks, and most mornings you’ll find me scouring the TasteSpotting posts for new bloggers to contact. Most have responded enthusiastically (as you can see by the posts on TasteStopping), a few refuse to allow my comments on their posts, and some take the middle road, allowing me to leave a comment, but editing out anything that is promotional on my part. Fair enough. One morning over the recent holiday weekend, I made the mistake of submitting a comment to a blogger that I had already contacted (on different posts, and always with a personal note about their post before any mention of TasteStopping), for which I immediately apologized via a private email. When I took a look around her site, I noticed a nice section on the Basics of Photography, wherein she lays bare some of the essentials that most new photographers (or cooks-turned-photographer) lack. It was a write-up aimed at me and mah skillz (or lack thereof).
fresh raspberries
In her “article” she speaks of using natural light (got it), white balance (starting to lose me), exposure compensation (she states that every camera probably has this. I have no idea.), iso settings, macro settings, and from there I dissolve into a puddle. My eyes gloss over, my brain seizes up and I want to throw my camera into the bushes.
Why?
It stayed with me, my reaction to her advice (and that of others I’ve read). While so simply put, I just could not imagine placing most of her techiniques into play in my own photography. And I had to dig a little deeper to find out why.
Turns out there are very few things in life in which I am interested in gaining mastery of the skill set. Three that I can name today: parenting, baking and music. Writing used to be on that list, back when I was pursuing my MFA in Creative Writing and furiously trying to sell a screenplay. Alas, the children knocked that one to the curb. And I’m more than okay with that. I wouldn’t enjoy the smog in LA. Or the endless supply of fresh, local fruits and vegetables.
The rest of the endless list of interests, hobbies, and passions will have to settle for an average-at-best effort on my part. There simply isn’t enough time or fascination for me to achieve success at so many things: tennis, sewing, housecleaning, rock-climbing, sailing, calligraphy, dancing, technology (yes, the whole of technology), acupuncture, yoga…to continue listing the things I will never master is leaving me somewhat breathless, so I will trust you get the picture and move on. To be fair, even my parenting, baking and musical skills have to share the spotlight with one another. I will never know everything there is to know about music because I am not interested in studying that hard (been there, done that, and yes, for me it would take further intense study, as I am no prodigy). Although I pursue baking with a fervor (you can thank me later, hips), there are some dishes I may never get around to making (Baked Alaska, I’m looking at you). And anyone who has children knows from the beginning that there is no such thing as mastering the parenting “thing.” Sometimes it masters you, sometimes you cry.
Considering that the BIG THREE pursuits in my life are tenuously juggled on a daily basis, it’s easy to see how something as complex as food photography will have to take a back seat–a rumble seat, actually. As a food blogger, I will quite possibly never master photography of my finished product, nor of the process itself. I simply balk at the pressure.
Instead, I will wallow in mediocrity, I will embrace it, even, and free myself from the notion that I have to be good at something to justify doing it. Because that’s just silly.
brussel sprouts, after a visit with Mr. Weber
I have visited hundreds of food blogs over the past few weeks, reading the entries attached to the photos that led me there. Not all of the posts I’ve read have been grammatically perfect, syntactically perfect or even that interesting. Some have been fascinating, some have had very little to do with the food photographed (relating instead a personal history or an emotional connection that a certain food can trigger). Though none were perfect, these posts still had merit and deserved a look. Some photos link to product pages or advertorials, which, I now see, can be something of a disappointment to the reader.
It all boils down to the way we experience life. Some of my friends (blogs/photos) are smarter than me, some are not. Some are prettier than me, some are not. It is a bit subjective, sure, but connecting with these people (blogs) is what makes my life full. It offers a variety and richness that life itself, to be worth the effort, requires and demands.
romaine lettuce, growing happily in the garden
So, I am writing to suggest that not everyone who writes about food needs to become a polished food stylist. Mediocre is just fine. And if you want to achieve more with your food photography, and can find the exposure compensation function on your point-and-shoot, I will enjoy drooling over your work in between chasing the babies, baking a lemon meringue pie and learning Taylor Swift’s latest single so that my daughter can sing along.
kitchen witch 
