Grown-Up Mac and Cheese (Sort-Of)

This is delicious and fast…highly recommended!

Pasta with Butternut Squash
http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/recipe-of-the-day-pasta-with-butternut-squash/

Russian Blini

Unfortunately I lost my old, favorite Blini recipe.  But this one is good and significantly easier…

2 cups 2% milk
3 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 packet yeast
1 Tbso sugar
1 1/4 cups flour

Heat milk to a medium warm temperature (not too hot!  you don’t want to cook the eggs!)

Mix in eggs, salt, sugar and flour.

Add yeast

Let sit at least 1/2 hour

Heat pan to medium (4.5 if your stove measures 1-10).  Butter the pan and ladle some batter on the pan.  You should have a thin layer of batter covering the bottom of the whole frying pan.  Cook for a minute or so, until bubbles appear on the surface.  Flip to the other side, and cook about half as long as the first side.  Remember, the first blin is for the bears, so adjust based on what happened with that one.

Serve the blini with condiments, some poplar ones are nutella, jam, sour cream, caviar or cheese, but you can put anything you want on them.

-Emma

Cheesy (American) Biscuits

Red Lobster Style!

2 cups Bisquick
½ cup cold water
¾ cup sharp Cheddar Cheese, grated

¼ cup butter
1 tsp. dried parsley flakes
½ tsp. garlic powder
½ tsp. Italian dressing

Preheat oven to 450°F. In a bowl, mix first three ingredients until thoroughly moistened. Drop by tablespoons onto a greased baking sheet (or in a greased muffin tin). Combine rest of ingredients and brush mixture onto biscuits. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Enjoy!
Emma

Roasted oregano chicken breasts

A tasty and reasomably simple chicken recipe from Martha, adapted for my taste and the chicken I had. I didn’t use the large, whole breasts she specifies (which seem scary big – are US chickens larger?) but the kind of ordinary single boneless chicken breasts you buy in the supermarket (four single breasts). This was a plentiful amount for two, which was served with roast potatoes and a salad.

2 heads garlic, cut in half along the middle with a sharp knife
8 sprigs fresh oregano
4 single boneless chicken breasts
Vegetable oil
Salt and pepper

1) Preheat oven to 200C / 400F. Rub garlic half with oil. Place each garlic half, cut side up, in the centre of a roasting tin (I actually baked this on the rack above the roasting tin while the tin itself held the roasting potatoes, and it worked well). Place two sprigs of oregano over each half. Rub chicken breasts with oil and salt and pepper to taste. Place a chicken breast over each garlic half.

2) Roast for about 30 minutes (if you do roast potatoes with, let them roast for 20-30 minutes before adding the chicken so they crisp up), or until juices run clear and meat is cooked through.

3) Serve! The garlic should be soft enough to squeeze out of the peels and is really nice as a condiment here…

Aubergine/eggplant caviar

A nice simple roasted aubergine and red pepper spread. Next time I might add some chilli and raw garlic to sharpen up the flavours.

2 aubergines / eggplants
1 red capsicum / pepper
Half a head/bulb garlic, unpeeled
Squirt of lemon juice, to taste
Salt, to taste
Olive or vegetable oil, to grease

1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (about 350F). Cut tops off aubergines, prick several times into the body with a sharp knife or fork (to let steam escape so they don’t explode, like when you bake potatoes!). Do not peel aubergines.

2) Grease a baking sheet. Lightly grease aubergines. Place onto baking sheet and bake for about 20 minutes.

3) Cut capsicum in half and remove seedy core and stem. Rub oil over it lightly. Oil the unpeeled garlic bulb. Add to baking sheet; bake, along with aubergines, another 20 minutes or so. Aubergine should be soft, the capsicum should be collapsed with the skin lightly blackened and coming away, and garlic cloves should give way when pricked with a knife.

4) Peel capsicum. Cut aubergines in half and scoop out cooked flesh; discard skins. Peel softened garlic (this should be easy). Blend together in a blender or using a stick blender – or just chop very finely. Add splash of lemon juice, to taste. Season with salt. Make sure to taste and adjust the flavours, adding more lemon juice if you need to. Don’t skip it – it really lifts the flavour.

Banana cookies

In an attempt to use up two bunches of blackening bananas, I made a recipe I’d found on Simply Recipes, adapted for my starter (read: no spices) kitchen and my preferences. These come out as very soft, cakey cookies – almost spongey, in fact, even after cooling.

Ingredients

120g butter, room temperature (I used salted; if you use unsalted, add a pinch of salt when you add the flour)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 cup mashed bananas (I used three bananas, which was a heaping cup)
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour
Scant cup chopped white chocolate chunks

1) Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius (or 350F)

2) Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add egg and keep beating until creamy.

3) Add baking soda to mashed bananas and let stand a minute or two (this apparently helps give the cookies their lightness)

4) Mix banana mixture into butter mixture. I did mix it pretty thoroughly using a mixture to get rid of any latent banana chunks and to beat in air.

5) Sift flour into banana-butter mixture and stir until just combined.

6) Fold in chocolate chunks.

7) Drop onto a greased baking sheet. I used a tablespoon measure. They do spread a fair bit so take that into account. Bake for 11 – 14 minutes until ligtly golden brown. Let sit for a minute or so to firm up, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Melt-in-your-Mouth Indian Eggplant

eggplants, sliced thin, salted and dried on a paper towel to remove bitterness

For frying:

8 whole fenugreek seeds
1/2 tsp whole fennel seeds
1/4 tsp whole cumin seeds
1/2 tsp kalonji

To garnish:
salt
tabasco sauce
lemon juice
sour cream

Take the prepared eggplants, and fry them in the spiced oil until golden and crisp.  Garnish with salt, lemon juice and a dash of tabasco sauce, and serve with sour cream.

Delicious!  You won’t be able to find an eggplant big enough to make as many as you’d want to eat.

-Emma

A Twist on Thanksgiving

Although I love cooking and food, Thanksgiving has never really been a favorite holiday of mine.  I’ve never enjoyed turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, or pumpkin pie, so the Thanksgiving feast usually turned into a sad little plate of mashed potatoes and cranberry jelly.  The rest of my family wasn’t averse to experimenting with the traditions, though, and we’ve developed some very tasty twists on the tradition.

My aunt made this turkey recipe, and it was delicious.  It doesn’t have the impressive presentation you get from roasting a whole bird, but it sure tastes a lot better:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/dining/12mini.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=braised%20turkey&st=cse

One of my favorite recipes of all time, which fits perfectly into a Thanksgiving feast (or really any other meal) is spicy roast sweet potato wedges.

Spicy Roast Sweet Potato Wedges:

1 tsp coriander seed
½ tsp fennel seed
½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp dried red pepper flakes
1 tsp kosher salt
2 lb medium sweet potatoes
3 Tbl vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 425; grind together first four
ingredients; cut potatoes in 1 inch wedges; toss
together with oil, ground spices and salt. Spread
out in a shallow pan, roast 20 minutes; turn
wedges over; roast an additional 15-20 minutes, until golden and tender.

Happy Thanksgiving!
-Emma

A very French tuna salad

This is an untraditional salade nicoise, which is to say made the way I like it. Yes, it’s a summery side or main, but some of us are lucky enough to be enjoying perpetual summer for the moment…

Salade Nicoise

200g cherry tomatoes, cut in half
190g tin of tuna packed in water, drained
125 – 250g green beans, topped, tailed and cut in half cross-ways
4 – 6 medium-sized potatoes, scrubbed and cut into chunks
1- 3 T extra-virgin olive oil
A squeeze of fresh lime juice

1) Cook potatoes until tender. Drain
2) Bring water to boil and blanch green beans until just tender, about 3 minutes maximum
3) Mix together potatoes, green beans, cherry tomatoes and tuna into a large bowl. Toss to mix.
4) squeeze over the lime juice and add the extra-virgin olive oil. If the salad seems too dry, add a little more oil. Taste. Add salt if you like.

This served about two as a main. But we were really hungry.

Eat well…life’s too short not to!

Chloe

Proper Brownies

In my house cake, muffins, and brownies all had distinctly different textures.  I notice this difference disappearing in most commercial bakeries.  Try a proper brownie, they really are an entirely different food than just small pieces of chocolate cake!

Recipe for a 13×9 (in.) cake pan:

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease a baking pan lined with foil.

Melt in a small saucepan:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate

Let cool.

Beat until light in color and foamy in texture:
4 large eggs
1/4 tsp salt

Gradually add and continue beating until thick:
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

With a few swift strokes, stir in the cooled chocolate mixture just until comvines.  Even if you are using an electric mixer, switch to a wooden spoon for this.  Stir until just combined:
1 cup all-purpose flour

Gently stir in, if desired:
1 cup chopped nuts (or other goodies)

Scape batter into the prepared pan.  Bake about 25 minutes.  Cool completely in the pan on a rack.

-From “The Joy of Cooking”

Enjoy!
-Emma