Ginger Peach Muffins

Wow, our posting has really slowed down since fall semester started! Who'd have thunk it?

I'm supposed to be working on screening documents this weekend, and I swear to God I have been. But I need the occasional break. Also, I had a very vivid dream last week about ginger peach muffins, which I'm sure I had never eaten before--or even seen, although a quick scan of the interwebs tells me that they are not unknown.

The ginger peach muffins in my dream (which had flavors. I don't often have dreams with flavors) were laced with a gingery swirl, sort of like the marzipan swirl in Ben & Jerry's "Mission to Marzipan" ice cream, a flavor which Amber and I have discussed in some detail. But I don't know quite how to make ginger-flavored marzipan in the first place, let alone how to put it into a muffin. However, I did have a basic muffin recipe from The Joy of Cooking, and some ideas about how to make the muffin taste good even if I couldn't recreate the swirl from my dream. So, moving on!

The next problem I encountered was the Inferior California Peach.



Look at that. That is a ripe yellow peach. That is the best ripe yellow peach I could find (at a reasonable price). I usually don't think of myself as Southern, but I did grow up in Georgia, and damn if I can't tell a Superior Georgia Peach from an Inferior California One.

The peach was so wimpy that I decided to saute it first.



Because a combination of:
1 tbsp butter, melted
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon

is guaranteed to improve almost everything, including:
1 ripe yellow peach, peeled, pitted, and finely diced

Saute it until the peach is soft and the syrup is syrupy (around 5 minutes), then remove from heat and let cool. Meanwhile, whisk together in a large bowl:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

And in another large bowl, whisk thoroughly:
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp amaretto (optional. I have a bottle from the cupcake experiment, so probably a lot of things I bake over the next couple of months will have amaretto in them.)
Cooled peach mixture

Make a well in the dry ingredients, then add wet and blend quickly, with only a few strokes. The batter should still be lumpy. Spoon into a cupcake pan - you'll want paper liners.

Before baking, sprinkle a few tiny pieces of diced candied ginger and about 1 tsp quick-cooking oats over each muffin. Like so:



Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes.



They puff nicely.

Option: If you like ginger more than I do (I don't love ginger so much, really), you could finely dice more candied ginger and add that to the batter. It does turn out that finely dicing candied ginger is hella annoying, because it goes all soft and sticky as soon as you try to manipulate it.

I also wish these were a tiny bit peachier. Or maybe my sample muffin just got short shrift on the peach bits. But I might try this with two (small) peaches next time.

Media Pairing: Sing it with me! "My muffin top is all that, whole grain, low-fat..."

Recipe review: Chef Chloe's Vegan Raspberry Tiramisu Cupcakes

As you have probably guessed from the fact that nearly every baking experiment I've blogged has involved massive, massive quantities of butter, I am not a vegan. But I've been meaning to try some vegan baking--partially because I'm curious, partially because I might one day want to bake something for a person who is allergic to eggs or dairy (or, you know, is vegan. I do live in California, after all, and "are you vegan" is not really a weird question). And my dissertation has suddenly taken an animal rights sort of bent. So when I read an article in the New York Times recently, and it linked to a recipe for apparently very good raspberry tiramisu cupcakes, I thought, "why the hell not?" even though I don't watch Cupcake Wars. Somewhere in my mind, I am aware that "why the hell not" is not always a valid reason to do something. But we're talking about cupcakes here, so why the hell not? I like raspberry, and I like tiramisu, and I like cupcakes, so I went to Whole Foods and bought vegan hippie food things and their lavender-scented shampoo which I love because it makes my hair shiny (and look, I eat butter, but I don't see any reason for toiletries and cosmetics to involve animal products or testing), and then I also went to Ralphs, because the lemons at Whole Foods were a dollar each which is absurd, and also Whole Foods doesn't stock amaretto.



My cupcakes are not as pretty as the ones pictured on Chef Chloe's blog. I did not go to the trouble and/or expense of buying carob, mint leaves, and fresh raspberries to garnish. Thus, what with the coffee-amaretto frosting, my cupcakes look a little bit like poo. I can admit that.

I think they taste more or less okay. There are some weird textural issues, and I don't know if they're my fault, or if vegan cake is just like this. Mainly, the cupcakes tested clean with the toothpick, but they seem a little underdone. Vaguely oily. The bottoms of my cupcake papers were greasier than non-vegan cupcakes. I don't know.

Problem two: the cake recipe calls for coconut milk. I love coconut and can't taste it at all in the cake. The boyfriend unit hates coconut, and thought the cake tasted overwhelmingly of coconut.

Problem three: The "soaking liquid" and raspberry sauce combine to make this a very soggy cupcake, indeed. Scroll back up to the finished cupcake. You can see that the teaspoonful or so of espresso-flavored amaretto has soaked clean through to the bottom of the paper.



This is not a cupcake to be picked up in one's hand and eaten like a cupcake. This is a cupcake requiring plates and forks.

Problem three and a half: The recipe doesn't say anything about straining the raspberry sauce. I loathe picking seeds out of my teeth, so I strained it. But maybe the seeds were meant to keep it thick in some way.

Problem four (not really a problem, but I'm mentioning it anyway): The frosting is really, really, really sweet. (Also, recipe says two tablespoons of water, but I needed four, and also added another two tablespoons of soaking liquid to it.) The raspberry sauce and soaking liquid are, respectively, tart and bitter (though the former has sugar).



If you manage to get all of the components in one bite, it's pretty good. If you don't, it's either tart, bitter, or makes your teeth crumble right out of your head. Since the cupcakes do not have tops and the frosting is stiff, you pretty much have to pipe the frosting on, which means there is more frosting, which means more feeling like your teeth are crumbling.



I need an actual vegan to come eat the cupcakes and tell me if I've done this right and vegan baked goods are just like this, or if I actually did something wrong somewhere. One of the professors I'm TAing for this year is a vegetarian, and his daughter owns a vegan bake shop somewhere on the east coast. He asked to read one of my academic papers a few weeks ago; showing up on Monday with a cupcake and asking for a critique of it is similar, right?

Media Pairing: I haven't seen this film yet--like so many other films I'm supposed to have seen by now, it is languishing in my Netflix queue. Regardless, may I recommend Examined Life? The director, Astra Taylor, and her sister Sunny Taylor (who's in the film, and pictured briefly here in the trailer, with Judith Butler) are both vegans/animal rights activists/all-around awesome people. We used to be in a homeschool group together, back in the years when we would've been in middle school (or Sunny and I would've been; Astra's a few years older). Support independent documentary filmmaking!



Slavoj Zizek appears to be dressed as a construction worker. What's not to like?

Sal's Sweet Raspberry Ravioli

I'm disgusted with how fast and easy this was.

So, I made like, three dozen leek and shrimp potstickers. Big whoop. I didn't even eat any yet. They're in the freezer. I'm so not down for delayed gratification.

SO... I decided the leftover 9, count them 9 wonton wrappers needed to be put to use.

This literally took less than 5 minutes.

1a. Put 1/2" of vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet and turn it on medium high heat.
1b. Lay four wonton wrappers out.

2. Mash about ten raspberries with about two tablespoons of berry jam.



3a. Place a dollop of this berry mixture in the center of each wonton wrapper.
3b. Use brute force to marry the wonton edges, because with a filling this wet, there's no assuring a mere brushing of water will hold back the fruity tide.



4. Whip a cup of whipping cream with two tablespoons each of sugar and good cocoa (I like Droste).



5. By now your oil is hot, so drop the raviolis in one at a time.

6. Garnish with powdered sugar (I am out of this, sadly) the chocolate cream, and fresh berries.



Media pairing: Mad Men.

Because it's 9:36 on Sunday so I'm thinking about it coming on in a minute. And because these raviolis are A. Tough on the outside B. Fruity on the inside and C. Italian-American and D. Gone, goddammit, like Sal who I am still mad got written out of the show. I don't forget.

Castle Dweller's Coffee Cake

A long, long time ago--so long ago that phone booths still existed and were culturally relevant--I spent a semester abroad, living in an honest-to-God castle in the Netherlands. It was pretty awesome, I'm not gonna lie. My favorite part might have been the email I sent to my parents, informing them that I had signed up for skydiving. "Don't worry," I assured them, "my desire to jump out of a plane over the Swiss Alps has absolutely nothing to do with my performance on midterms."

"If you're going to jump out of a plane," replied my father, "don't you want to land somewhere flat?" Dad tries to think practically about things.

There were many adventures to be had in Europe, and quite a few could be had in the tiny town of Well. I got my feet stuck in the mud by the river! During Carnival, I got groped by a six-foot-five adult man wearing leiderhosen, and while I recoiled in pain (he left finger-shaped bruises on one breast; it hurt), someone on a parade float threw a can of Heineken at my head! I had to eat the cafeteria food!

The first sign that we were going to be served bad food all semester: the Kasteel's dining hall is in a dungeon. Suffice to say that there are some things one should never be exposed to and one of those things is the Dutch interpretation of tacos. Seven years later, I still recoil in horror at the thought of them. The cafeteria was run by a lady named Nellie, who had a restaurant in the area that was supposed to be pretty good. I never ate at the restaurant. The cafeteria food was not good. "What kind of meat is this?" you might ask while staring at an unidentifiable croquette. "Pork," Nellie would respond. "It's pork AND meat." Oh. Helpful.

Many meals, therefore, consisted of the Peanut Butter Cup Sandwich, aka peanut butter and store-brand Nutella on toast. In tribute to the memory of that sandwich - although it has no peanut butter - I have invented a chocolate hazelnut pound cake. And when I say "invented," I really mean "the cookbook from which I got the recipe for the Almond Brown Sugar Pound Cake had variations listed for both chocolate pound cake and hazelnut pound cake, but I can't leave well enough alone, so I decided to combine them."



I will admit that the combination of icing and flash photography is rather unfortunate.

So, follow the above recipe, but using 2 cups white flour, 1 1/4 cups hazelnut flour, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 3 cups granulated sugar, and omitting the almond extract. I also made a cream cheese glaze instead of the butter glaze.

The boyfriend unit chose to eat his piece with additional glaze, making it look even more unfortunate.



Gromit still wanted some, though.



Conclusion: This is good, but a touch sweet for my taste. It was actually better on the second day. I think I might want to reduce the sugar a little bit. And maybe try the plain hazelnut variation. Since the semester started, I took a couple of pieces to campus to my Official Testing Committee. They both approved.

Media Pairing: This film, subtitled in Dutch, was pretty much the only movie we had access to at the Kasteel. There are still a few folks who know me as Bob Ghengis Khan.

Roasted Banana Ice Cream

Bananas are an herb!

Monkeys eat bananas from the opposite side than we do — try it! Just pinch the banana button! It's much more reliable!

Bananas are much more fun to discuss in a British accent!

Gwen Stefani, despite all her fame and fortune, made sure America's youth knew how to spell the name of the most popular fruit! Now that's not bananas. It's very sensible, commercially appealing, pop philanthropy.

If your banana rings, do NOT answer it. You will go mad. Or... maybe you were already?

The strings that go up and down bananas are called phloem bundles. They deliver phloem, nutrients for the fruit's development. And I hate them passionately.

So... discard them before you slice your bananas for this recipe.

Take 6 ripe ripe bananas. These are ideal. Unriper is ok, but may require more roasting.






Chop and toss with 1.5 cups brown sugar, and roast in a 400 degree oven for 30-40 minutes. Oh motherfoster. That looks good.



Puree with

1 pint half and half
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tsp cinnamon
1 Tsp salt
2 Tsp Vanilla.

It might seem like a lot of lemon juice, salt and vanilla for the amount of banana/cream. Frozen, it will taste just right. I mean, it tastes awesome as slop, but kind of strong.

To egg or not to egg? New York or Philly style? In ice cream, this is a big, overblown question. The bananas do a wonderful job as emulsifiers, so without worrying over how to make a real custard, you attain a custardy texture.

Be sure your mixture is cool before putting it into your ice cream maker, if you use a frozen core style maker as I do. Warm mixture will raise the core's temperature too much and the mix will never firm up.



This is another amazingly good ice cream recipe without any hard work. One I'll be taking to an upcoming ice cream swap.


Media pairing: Oy. The Cavendish banana was bred designed by GOD for human consumption.



Only monkeys open them better.

Pappardelle with Asparagus and Prosciutto Cream Sauce

God, this is easy.

You get a bag of pappardelle.




You slice up about 6 ounces of prosciutto.




You pour a pint of heavy cream into a pan, sprinkle in some black pepper and a tiny bit of salt, and reduce it over low heat. While it reduces, you can boil pasta water/cook pasta and give a very quick steam to some three-inch-long segments of fresh asparagus (which you should be very careful not to overcook).




This is one of those fun dishes that's really easy to time. Pasta water goes on, steaming water goes on, wash and cut asparagus, put on cream to reduce, steam asparagus, put pasta in boiling water. Right before you take the pasta off, add the asparagus and prosciutto to the cream - don't add it too soon or else the prosciutto will cook, which is just weird - and bang! Dinner. Oh, add parmesan or romano or what have you.



I do realize that even the asparagus can't keep this from essentially being a plate of carbs soaked in heavy cream. Which brings me to my next point: there's no way to keep the sauce from being runny, so I recommend serving with a nice crusty bread, and using that to sop up the extra cream. I also recommend serving this with Lactaid. Because being mildly lactose intolerant (which I am) is no excuse. And a salad might not be out of order, either. You know, if you care about your arteries.

Hazelnut Gratin of Leeks and Turnips

Handsome Consort and I have a vegetable garden for the second year now. It's not much, just about a 2' x 25' strip along the side of the house. But along with the strawberries and herbs in the front, and the passionfruit and concord grape vines on the back trellis, we produce a fair amount of edible treats. Or in the case of zucchini, an unfair amount. Mon dieu, what did moi ever do to bring this plague d'courgettes?

This year's veggies so far have been peas (oh, fresh peas are the bessssst), zucchini (Beware! It's calling from inside the house!), peppers, tomatoes, turnips and leeks.

Oh, leeks. Leeks, leeks, leeks. Deleektable, deleekcious leeks. Rather pricey to buy, leeks are a cinch to grow. But mine never got the chance to get quite as beefy and thick as storebought. We've been harvesting them when a little thicker than a thumb. Fortunately, it was determined that they stay much more tender and sweet than storebought this way, so more of the greens can be eaten as-is (rather than used in puree or broth, which are just fine for the stringier tops.)

Also fine for stringy tops: kitty torment!


Fear me, leeks! Fear my teeth that shred! and paws! that kind of ...ineffectually grasp! when I teeter on my back feet!




Sven thinks the leeks are destined to be with him. He's kind of in love with them. Maybe because he's a turniphead. Because actually, this bunch of leeks is destined for a gratin with turnips and crunchy hazelnuts.



First, you take a leek.


And cut into small pieces while your Handsome Consort wrangles with A Ginormous Turnipohedron. Here, I did pieces about 3" long. Next time, I think I'd do only 1" pieces, so they could be laid in the gratin on their ends rather than on their sides.



Since the turnip was such a monster, the usual peel and slice rounds routine was no-go, so bascially the turnips are thin-sliced into little cracker-sized pieces.

Then they all got loaded into a very Alton Brownified steaming rig for about 15 minutes.



The mixture which will enswath the veggies in augratinny goodness begins with two eggs and 2/3 C half and half.



To which I added a teaspoon of garlic, and half a teaspoon each of kosher salt, white pepper and freshly grated nutmeg.



Whisk these together and then add half a cup of finely grated parmesan (or asiago, which I often use instead.)



Layer the steamed turnips in your baking dish and top with the leeks. Pour the cheese mixture over them.



*pat pat pat* There. Now you feel butter, hmm? (I think that leek joke envigorated some kind of zinger gland I didn't know I had.)

Now pop that in the oven at 375 for about 20 minutes, after which you'll top it with the crunch crumb mixture:



Crush half a cup of hazelnuts, mix with another quarter cup cheese and about a cup of good bread crumbs. Plus maybe a tablespoon or two of softened butter.

Crumbs, chief!


Have you seen this, have you heard about this? You buy one of those store bakery french loaves and you eat some of it with brie, and some of it with ascolana olive oil, and the rest goes stale immediately. So you put it in a bag and whack it with a shoe, and viola! Good bread crumbs. Keep them airtight.

So, you top the gratin with the crumb mixture after about 20 minutes, and bake for another 10-15. Then you get this!




Mmmmmmm it's goooood.


It breaks up into a hash of noms like so:




That was my seconds. Very tasty, served with a lemon pepper sockeye salmon. Of course, you know what happens when the blogging project is dinner...



Delicious lazy dessert!


Media pairing...

The whole internet knows that nothing goes better with slinging leeks than Finnish polkas!

Grandma's Macaroni and Cheese

Although I usually have a box or two of the boxed stuff in my pantry these days (it's one of the things the Boyfriend Unit knows how to cook), I honestly don't think I'd ever eaten Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, or Velveeta Shells and Cheese, or any other boxed wonder until college. In college, of course, there was the alarming conundrum of Easy Mac: technically it is edible, but it is not actually a food substance. I ate it anyway, because the dorms were equipped with naught but microwaves.

Grandma's macaroni and cheese is way better. By the way, the abbreviation "mac and cheese" annoys the living daylights out of me. I have no idea why. I also have an irrational hatred of the word "tasty."

I'm going to go into possibly unnecessary detail here, in case for some reason anyone is unaware of how to make a simple cheese sauce. Possible translation #1: the culinarily challenged are reading this. Possible translation #2: I took pictures and am determined to use them.

You decide.



3/4 lb dried pasta - elbow macaroni, fusilli, or shells work well. Here I am using up partial bags of shells and fusilli.
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 cup skim milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Garlic powder (optional)
8 oz. cheddar cheese, preferably sharp, cut into 1/2 inch cubes. (You can also use shredded cheese, of course, but it's cheaper just to buy a brick and cube it.) If desired, get an additional 3 oz. of cheese and slice it so that you can lay it over the top of the casserole before putting it in the oven. My grandma shops at Sam's Club, and I have never known her to have less than two pounds' worth of cheddar cheese brick in the house at all times. I usually don't put cheese across the top of my casserole, because I always forget to buy either a giant brick of cheese or a second small block...

1. Preheat oven to 350. Put water on to boil. Cube the cheese while you're waiting. Add pasta to boiling water.
2. Start making cheese sauce right after you put the pasta in:

a) Start by making a roux: melt the butter in a saucepan or skillet over medium heat.



b) Whisk in the flour - whisk out all the lumps, very important - and let it bubble until it starts to get thick and a little brown.



c) Slowly stir in the milk, whisking constantly. Keep whisking until the sauce begins to thicken. Then add the cheese cubes:



...and keep whisking until they melt. You should end up with this:



If I'm feeling fancy, I'll add 1/4 cup shaved parmesan, or a generous sprinkling of garlic powder, but really all the seasoning you need is salt and pepper to taste.

Turn the sauce down to very low heat until you've ascertained the state of the pasta. It should be slightly less done than al dente, because it's going in the oven. Drain (rinsing isn't necessary), dump the pasta in a casserole dish, and stir in the cheese sauce. Bake uncovered for 30-60 minutes, or until the top forms a nice, bubbly, slightly browned crust. Or bake covered, if you have other things still to cook and don't want it to get too browned. One of the great things about macaroni and cheese is that you can basically just throw it in the oven at whatever temperature you want and more or less forget about it, and it will still be delicious.

I suppose that if you wanted to, you could top this with bread crumbs (I never do). Or do what my grandma does, and top with additional thin slices of cheddar. I never remember to save sliced cheddar for this purpose. Pairs well with any meats of the midwestern farm family ilk, although I usually just make it as a main dish.


Media Pairing: Cheddar is the single most popular cheese in the world, although rumor has it that Wensleydale is staggeringly popular round here.

Easy Mango Sorbet

Using very, verry ripe mangos makes this recipe, essentially a granita, hold the soft texture of sorbet.

3 ripe mangoes, peeled and pureed (note: SMUSH THEM. WRING the pulp off the skins and pits. Punish!)
Juice of 2 oranges
Juice of 1 lemon or lime
1 Tbsp Grand Marnier

So, smush all the juicy goodness out of those mangos, strain the pulp, and mix the thick, syrupy juice with the lemon/lime, orange and liqueur.

That's it. Well, spread the mixture on a clean baking sheet and pop into the freezer. Use a melon baller to scoop off once frozen.

Make sure your camera is annoyingly corrupted, for optimal color banding accompaniment, which underlines the bright orange flavor of the blogfood nicely.

Thai Silk Pie

I can't resist gimmicky names. But hey, I make up my own recipes, so they have to be called something, right?

I had a flat of perfect mangoes that I paid $7 at 99 Ranch. That's not a problem. The problem was, I love, love, LOVE Thai mangoes with sticky rice. It's possibly the best food in the world. I suspect that many, many people have seen that dish listed on Thai menus and thought it too boring to order. That makes me SO SAD. The warm, sticky glutinous rice, coated in sweetened coconut milk, salty and warm and toothsome, pairs ideally with the cool, tangy mango. Mangoes are great, but I just don't know if there's any better way to eat them.

I considered a lot of things. I had some milkshakes. Yum. But I wanted to create a coconut-mango pairing that was unique, not a by-the-book take on a South Asian classic... and hopefully not using mochi flour, which I love, but isn't worth messing with. So dang sticky.

What I came up with was a pie with a custard layer just like a pumpkin pie's, topped with a coconut milk pudding. This is simple and delicious. The textures are smooth and lovely, and the flavors play off each other in a way almost like mangoes and sticky rice.

I used two frozen pie crusts, unbaked. First, the mango layer:

4 mangoes
14 oz (1 can) condensed milk
3 eggs
1/2 cup honey
1/4 tsp ground cardamom

All into the food processor until evenly pureed.

Then fill the crusts each about halfway and bake them for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Meanwhile, heat two cans of coconut milk and 2 cups of sugar on the stovetop, plus salt to taste. Make this a little salty. I used about a tablespoon of kosher salt.

When the milk comes to a boil, slowly stir in one cup of corn starch which has been mixed with enough water to make an even wet paste. Take it off the heat immediately and stir as it sets up. This will get quite firm as it sets, but the fatty, flavorful coconut milk helps this not taste like nothing but corn starch.

Spread the coconut milk pudding on the cooled mango layers, chill, and enjoy! I topped it with some powdered coconut milk I had on hand, but that can easily be left out.



Media pairing: Mango in Silk!