One woman's quest to find yummy food besides waffles that her whole family will eat.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Peppermint Pasta with Chocolate Ganache
Some weeks back, as I was looking at Pinterest for dinner ideas, homemade pasta collided with all the peppermint-chocolate holiday desserts I was seeing to create a crazy idea in my brain: What if I created a peppermint chocolate pasta? Homemade chocolate pasta is something that we've done several times now, both in savory dishes and in desserts- why not a fun Christmastime version with peppermint chocolate? I couldn't come up with anything good to use as a sauce for the noodles, though, so instead I decided on peppermint noodles with a chocolate sauce, and crushed candy canes as a garnish. And then, inspired by all of my family members who are allergic to chocolate and get left out of being able to eat so many Christmas goodies, I decided to make a white chocolate version as well.
I'll admit that I've never been as fond of white chocolate as the regular kind, so the chocolate version is still my favorite, but I think the white chocolate still went superbly, and it dampened the peppermint flavor just a tad less than the chocolate did- plus it also does a bit better job of showing off the pretty pink color of the noodles. :)
For the peppermint pasta:
1/2 lb all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1-3/4 tsp peppermint extract
1/2 tsp vanilla
A couple drops of red food coloring (optional)
Mix together the flour and sugar in a large bowl and create a well in the center. Place the eggs, vanilla, and peppermint extract into the crater. Using a fork, lightly beat the eggs and extracts together, then slowly incorporate the flour, starting with the inner rim of the crater. Eventually, this will become a sticky mess of dough that you can knead together to form a dough ball. Add flour as you knead the dough until it is soft, but doesn't stick to your fingers, and keep kneading until it is moderately smooth. Cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature. Then, either send through a pasta machine, or knead for another 10 minutes or so, until the dough is completely smooth and elastic, and roll on a floured surface out with a rolling pin. In order to get a pretty marbled pink color in my noodles, I sent the dough through the pasta machine once or twice, and then put a couple drops of red food coloring onto half the dough, folded it in half, then continued with the pasta machine like normal, which caused the food coloring to stretch out with the dough.
I'm not sure you could do this if you're using a rolling pin, but if you don't care whether the dough is marbled looking, you could just add the food coloring in with the eggs and extracts, which would give it a more uniform pink color- or you could just leave the food coloring out altogether, since it doesn't affect the flavor. :) Roll the dough out until desired thickness and then cut into noodles, and cook until al dente. While pasta is cooking, crush up the candy canes (I put a couple of candy canes in a sandwich bag, closed it up, and hit it with the flat side of a meat mallet a few couple of times) and make the sauce:
For Sauce:
4 oz semisweet chocolate chips (or white chocolate chips)
1/2 cup cream
Put the chocolate chips in a small bowl. In a small saucepan heat the cream over lowish heat (or medium heat, if you're using our stove), stirring occasionally until steaming hot (but not boiling). Remove from heat. Pour half of hot cream over chocolate. Allow to stand for a minute, stir until smooth, and gradually stir in rest of cream.
Drain the pasta, and drizzle chocolate sauce over individual servings. Sprinkle liberally with the crushed candy canes- the chocolate and cream combo is very rich and really dampens the peppermint flavor of the noodles, so a lot of the peppermint flavor you're going to get will come from the garnish. Enjoy!
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Apple Sausage Breakfast Patties
1 slightly beaten egg white
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh apple
3 Tbsp quick-cook oats.
2 Tbsp fresh parsley or 1 Tbsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground sage
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp pepper
dash of ground red pepper to taste
1/2 lb lean ground pork or ground turkey breast (we've only ever made this with ground pork, because it tends to be cheaper)
In a medium mixing bowl, combine the egg white, onion, apple, oats, parsley, salt, sage, nutmeg, pepper, and ground red pepper. Add ground meat. Mix well. Shape the mixture into eight 2-inch-wide patties. Spray a cold 10-inch skillet with nonstick cooking spray and preheat over medium-low heat. Cook patties over medium-low heat for 8 to 10 minutes or until meat is no longer pink and juices run clear, turning once. Drain off fat.
Rhubarb Belgian Waffles with Buttermilk Syrup
As evidenced by the title of this blog, we make a LOT of waffles around here. :) These rhubarb waffles do take a slight amount more prep work than normal if you don't just keep Greek yogurt sitting around, but they are definitely worth it (we make our own Greek-style yogurt by putting 2 cups of yogurt in a strainer lined with a flour sack towel. Put a couple cans on top to weight it down, and then hang it over a bowl for 2 hours). Either fresh or frozen rhubarb will work, nicely for the recipe, and the most recent time I made it, I actually put the mostly-thawed rhubarb into my food processor to chop it into very small pieces, and the rhubarb flavor was really spread out nicely so I'll probably keep doing that in the future. The buttermilk syrup has a kind of caramel taste that offsets the sourness of the rhubarb really well.
Rhubarb Belgian Waffles (Original recipe found here)
4 eggs (separated if you want to make the waffles more fluffy)
1 cup milk
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 cup Greek yogurt
2 cups flour (we used 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup all purpose)
2-1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp sugar
3/4 cup rhubarb chopped into 1/4 inch pieces (3/4 cup always seems like not quite enough rhubarb, so we tend to add a bit more, plus another couple tablespoons of sugar, but I never manage to actually measure how much we're adding. Your tastes may vary).
Separate the eggs into two separate bowls (this step is optional, but can help to make the waffles more fluffy). In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the egg yolks, butter, milk, and Greek yogurt. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar. In a small bowl, beat the egg whites until fluffy and stiff peaks form. Mix together the wet and dry ingredients and whisk until smooth, then fold in the egg whites. Stir in the chopped rhubarb, and cook in a waffle iron.
For the yummy buttermilk syrup, you'll need:
1 stick of butter or margarine
1/2 cup of buttermilk
1 cup of sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add buttermilk and sugar. Bring to a boil. Let boil one minute stirring constantly. Take pan off heat and add vanilla and baking soda. Spoon over your waffles and enjoy!
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Garlic Herb Crusted Pork Roast
Ingredients:
3 Tbsp olive oil
3 cloves crushed garlic (should be around 1 Tbsp)
3/4 tsp ground black pepper
3/4 tsp ground dried sage
1/2 tsp dried crushed rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp fresh orange zest
6 cloves of garlic, sliced in half (optional- or you can use even more if you're a garlic lover, like me)
2-3lb boneless pork sirloin roast (Note: Most of the roast recipes I've seen that use this high/low heat roasting method recommend that you let your roast sit out at room temperature for half an hour before cooking it- supposedly it helps it to cook more evenly- but I've never had the time to try it and my roasts have turned out fine, so make of that what you will- maybe they've already sat out for half an hour while I slice and stuff the garlic and rub it with herbs).
Preheat oven to 500º. Using a sharp knife, make deep slits all over the roast and stuff the garlic slivers inside the the slits. In a small bowl, mix together the 3 cloves of crushed garlic, pepper, sage, rosemary, thyme, orange zest and olive oil, and rub it all over the roast, then place it onto the rack of a roasting pan. Put the roast in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 475º. Cook the roast for 7-8 minutes per pound (so, for a 2 lb roast, you would want 14-16 minutes). Reduce the heat to 150º and cook for another 2-1/2 hours, or until meat thermometer inserted in roast reads 145º. (Originally the recipe called for completely turning the oven off and making sure the door stays shut tight for 2-1/2 hours. My oven is badly insulated and loses heat way too quickly for that to actually work to cook the roast, but if you've got a better oven, you can try it that way!). Let roast rest for 3 minutes before serving.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Crock Pot Apple Pork Chops
Ingredients:
2 lb boneless pork chops
1 onion, halved and sliced
2 apples, chopped (we used granny smith)
3/4 cup apple cider or juice
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp chicken bouillon granules
salt, pepper, thyme, and garlic powder
Flour and margarine for gravy (instructions on how to figure out how much you want below)
Put onions into a medium sized crock pot. Liberally sprinkle pork chops with salt, pepper, thyme, and garlic powder and place into crock pot. Sprinkle apples on top. Stir together cider, honey, and bouillon, and pour over the top. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4. Serve topped with gravy.
For Gravy:
Remove the apples and pork chops from the crock pot onto a serving platter and cover to keep warm. Measure the crock pot juices- we ended up with about 2 cups, which made a TON of gravy, so you might want to dump some out so you just have 1 cup of juices. For each cup of liquids, you'll want 2 Tbsp margarine and 2 Tbsp flour (so, for the full 2 cups, you'll want 4 Tbsp margarine and 1/4 cup flour). In a large saucepan, melt margarine over medium heat. Add the flour and stir to combine, then add the juices. Cook and stir until thickened. Season gravy with more salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Wheat Berry Porridge
Wheat Berry Porridge
2 cups wheat berries
5 cups water
(I don't really measure any of the rest of this- I just kind of sprinkle on spices and drizzle in the honey to taste- but the spice measurements from the original recipe are a good starting point)
1/4 cup honey (or more to taste)
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup dried apples, chopped (lots of other dried fruits would work well- this time around I actually added some dried coconut)
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
dash of ginger
dash of allspice
Plain yogurt (I don't measure this- just enough to make it have a good porridge-like texture)
To cook the wheat berries, bring the water to a boil in a large pan or stock pot and add the wheat berries. Reduce heat and simmer for an hour. Drain, and place the wheat berries in a large bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients.
Pumpkin Spice Waffles with Apple Cider Syrup
Pumpkin Waffles:
2-1/2 cups flour (we used half whole wheat)
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp round allspice
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 cups milk
4 eggs (separated for fluffier waffles)
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
Preheat a waffle iron according to manufacturer's instructions. Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, salt, and brown sugar in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, stir together the pumpkin, milk, and egg yolks (or the whole eggs if you aren't bothering to separate them). Beat the egg whites in a clean dry bowl until soft peaks form. Stir the flour mixture and 1/4 cup melted butter into the pumpkin mixture, stirring just to combine. Use a whisk or rubber spatula to gradually fold the egg whites into the batter, stirring gently until incorporated. Cook waffles according to the instructions for your waffle iron.
Apple Cider Syrup
2 cups apple cider (or juice)
1/2 to 1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 cup sugar
4 Tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp cinnamon (if your cider is pre-spiced, you'll probably want to leave the spices out)
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup butter
In a medium saucepan, mix together cider, lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and nutmeg Bring to a boil, and boil for 1 minute. Take pan off the heat. Add the butter and stir until melted. Serve warm over pancakes or waffles.
Monday, September 1, 2014
Honey Fenugreek Tea
Honey Fenugreek Tea
6 cups water
2 Tbsp fenugreek seeds
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp cardamom seeds
grated gingerroot to taste
dash of powdered nutmeg to taste
Lots of honey (to taste. I don't measure it at all, but I suspect I probably use at least half a cup- I put lots in because of how soothing it is on the throat)
Instructions:
Bring the water to a boil. Meanwhile, put all the other ingredients except the ginger into a plastic sandwich bag and crush by banging with a meat mallet or rolling pin. Add everything to the water and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and let sit for another 10-15 minutes (yes, this is longer than your typical herbal tea, but fenugreek seeds are evidently tough and therefore take a bit longer to brew). Pour the tea through a mesh strainer to get out the bits of seeds and cinnamon stick and add the honey. Reheat if you'd like it warmer, and enjoy!
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Honey Balsamic Roasted Chickpeas
Ingredients:
16 oz bag of dry chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans)
Lightly salted water (for soaking the beans- salt optional)
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp Honey
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp salt, or more to taste, depending on how salty you like your chickpeas
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
Soak the chickpeas in a container of lightly salted water for at least 24 hours. You'll want to be sure the beans are covered with at least an inch of water, because they'll be soaking a lot of it up. After soaking for 24 hours, drain and rinse the soaked chickpeas and spread them out in a single layer on a large greased baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 400º. In a small bowl, mix together olive oil, honey, balsamic vinegar, basil, rosemary, salt, oregano, thyme, garlic powder, and red pepper, then drizzle over the top of the chickpeas and stir until well coated. Bake at 400 for 30-40 minutes or until fairly well browned, stirring halfway through.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Beet Pasta
Put the flour into a bowl and make a well in the center to form a "volcano." Pour the beet and egg mixture into the center of the volcano and then beat together, slowly mixing more and more flour in from the edges until it forms a dough ball. Add more water if needed, 1 Tbsp at a time, continuing to knead by hand until all the flour is incorporated into the dough ball, and it is soft, but doesn't stick to your fingers. Knead for 5 minutes or so by hand until the dough is cohesive and moderately smooth.
Cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature. Then, either send through a pasta machine, or knead for another 10 minutes or so, until the dough is completely smooth and elastic, and roll out with a rolling pin until desired consistency, and cut into noodles.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Cardamom Vanilla Cherry Jam
Ingredients:
3-1/4 cups finely chopped cherries (the instructions specify to use a dry ingredients measuring cup for the fruit)
1/4 cup lemon juice
4-1/2 cups sugar
1 box pectin
5 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp plus 1/8 tsp cardamom
(1/2 tsp butter or margarine- optional)
Directions:
Add fruit, lemon juice, vanilla, cardamom, and pectin to a small stock pot. Add butter or margarine to reduce foaming, if desired (we didn't do that). Bring to a rolling boil (one which doesn't stop when you stir it). Add sugar to the fruit mixture in the pot. Return to a rolling boil and boil for 4 minutes. Remove pot from heat and skim off any foam with a metal spoon. Ladle immediately into prepared jars, and can using the instructions that come with your canner. :)
We doubled this recipe (made 2 batches simultaneously in different pots) and ended up with a little bit more than 2 quarts plus a pint.
Update: Originally we used 1/2 tsp cardamom, but that seemed a bit too strong of a cardamom flavor. Redoing the recipe with 1/4 tsp plus 1/8 tsp ended up being just right, so I've updated the recipe to reflect the change.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Fried Crispy Dessert Pasta Puffs
This afternoon I made the rest of the raviolis out of all the filling that I didn't quite get finished yesterday (the ravioli press makes ravioli that only hold 1 tsp of filling. That means that a recipe that makes around 29 oz of filling makes a TON of raviolis). After the filling was gone, I was still left with a bit of extra pasta dough, so I decided to make it into some fried dessert ravioli.
In a small bowl put either 1 cup buttermilk, or 1 cup milk plus 2 Tablespoons lemon juice. In another bowl, mix together some breadcrumbs, sugar, and cinnamon- I don't know the exact ratio, but there was probably a bit more sugar than there were breadcrumbs. Then, take a couple sheets of that pasta dough that I gave the recipe for yesterday. Instead of putting filling inside, however, use the ravioli press to make the hollows, and then lay the second sheet of dough on top and roll it out with the little air bubble trapped inside. If you don't have a ravioli press, you could easily use the cookie cutter method (folding it in half- but making sure to trap a bubble of air inside the pasta). Then, dip the pasta into the milk and dredge through the breadcrumbs and cinnamon.
Heat up some oil either in a deep fryer or in a deep pot on the stove to 350º. Fry the coated ravioli until golden brown- I did mine for about 3 minutes, then flipped them over and cooked for another minute or two so that both sides got well done. Take them out of the oil, and let drain on paper towels. The sugar really caramelized nicely, and the pasta puffed up beautifully and had a very nice crunchy texture that kind of reminded me of a fortune cookie. Enjoy!
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Deep Fried Cheesy Spinach and Canadian Bacon Ravioli
Today we tried something new with our pasta machine/ravioli mold: We made fried ravioli. They turned out really tasty:
The filling (adapted from this recipe):
Mix together:
15 oz cottage cheese
10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
4 oz Canadian bacon, chopped
2 eggs
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly round black pepper
a dash of garlic powder
a dash of nutmeg
For the pasta dough:
6 oz all purpose flour
6 oz whole wheat flour (the finer ground the better- you can also just use entirely all-purpose flour)
3 eggs
Water- amount will vary, enough to get the dough to the right consistency
To Deep Fry:
Vegetable oil
2 cups Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs
Combine the flours together and make a well in the center to form a "volcano." Add a couple tablespoons of water plus the eggs into the center of the volcano and then beat together, slowly mixing more and more flour in from the edges until it forms a dough ball. Slowly add more water, 1 Tbsp at a time, continuing to knead by hand until all the flour is incorporated into the dough ball, and it is soft, but doesn't stick to your fingers. Knead for 5 minutes or so by hand until the dough is cohesive and moderately smooth. Cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature. Then, either send through a pasta machine, or knead for another 10 minutes or so, until the dough is completely smooth and elastic, and roll out with a rolling pin.
We filled the ravioli using our nifty ravioli press- and I really LOVE how easy it is to use- but you can also make ravioli without the press via one of several alternate methods (Warning: I've never any of the following methods, but I've seen all of them mentioned as I've gone looking for inspiration for ravioli filings). You can simply plop the filling onto one sheet of pasta and then press a top sheet of pasta around it and cut with a pizza cutter (demonstrated here). You can take the dough and cut it into small circles with a cookie cutter and then seal it up with the filling, as demonstrated here. I've also seen plenty of people (including Pioneer Woman) suggest that you simply put the filling inside wonton wrappers.
To coat with breadcrumbs and fry the ravioli:
Heat oil in a deep fryer or in a pan over the stove to 350º.
Meanwhile, get two wide but shallow bowls and fill one with 1 cup buttermilk (You can also use 1 cup milk + 2 Tbsp lemon juice, or just use milk without the lemon juice, though it will taste a bit different). In the other bowl, mix together 2ish cups of dry breadcrumbs and several dashes of Italian seasoning (or, you can save time and just buy Italian seasoned breadcrumbs from the store).
Dip the ravioli into the bowl of milk milk and then dredge in the breadcrumbs. Cook in the hot oil for until nicely golden (we did 3 minutes, then flipped them over in the basket and did a minute or two more, just so both sides were well done and nicely crispy). Take out of the oil and place on paper towels to let the excess oil drain a bit. Serve with marinara sauce for dipping.