Recipe Exchange!

Cinnamon-y goodness ahead!

 To be completely honest, I usually despise forwarded email "games" and chain letters.  If I don't know who my true friends are just by my interaction with them, I sincerely doubt that asking them to send me back a picture of a kitten professing undying friendship will clarify the matter.  Having said that, there are a few that I enjoy (usually when attempting to procrastinate, as I am now).  One of them is the recipe exchange.

This sounded like fantastic fun to me, and came from one of my coworkers.  ALMOST everyone I sent this to, however, declined to participate.  Most excused themselves on the grounds that they don't use recipes.  My dad sent my coworker his recipe for Kraft Dinner (at least she got a laugh!).  Only a few people gave it a go, but I still got a few yummy new ideas.  One, coming via my dear friend Andrea's mom, was for quick cinnamon buns.  Having spent quite a bit of time on some failure-to-rise sticky buns a few months ago, I appreciated this recipe using more of a baking-soda-leavened biscuit dough base:

Jiffy Cinnamon Rolls

From Barb Hoath (not sure of her original source)

Makes 12 buns 

• 2 cups flour
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• Dash salt
• 1/4 cup cold butter
• 1 cup milk

For Filling:

• 1/3 cup softened butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400ºF.
2. "Crumble" butter into the dry ingredients (easier to accomplish with a pastry blender; I had to stick to the two knives technique.  You could try freezing and grating the butter, too)
3. Add milk and mix all ingredients with a fork. 
4. Roll out on a floured counter to a rectangle shape about 12" long by 8" width.
5. Mix softened butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon for filling. Spread this mixture over the dough.
6. Roll up dough from the 12" side and pinch 'seams'. Cut the rolled dough into 12 individual pieces. Place each piece in a greased muffin tin.  Bake at 400ºF for 20 minutes.
7. Optional: glaze with 2 tbsp icing sugar mixed with 1 tbsp milk (I opted out of this; they're great on their own!)

Pre-oven... the dough was a bit sticky, but the end result was worth it!

Somewhat surprisingly, I actually received a number of other recipes.  I have yet to try these, so there are no pictures, but I'm happy to share them with you:

Cream Cheese Brownies

Sent by Sheri Moore, originally from 'Cookies and Brownies' by Alice Medrich

Makes about 16 - 2 inch squares.

Brownie Layer:

• 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 4 ounces (115 grams) unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1 1/4 cups (250 grams) granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup (65 grams) all purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 

Cream Cheese Layer:

• 8 ounces (227 grams) cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/3 cup (65 grams) granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 large egg

1. Preheat oven to 325ºF (160ºC) and place the rack in the center of the oven. Have ready a 9 x 9 inch (23 x 23 cm) square baking pan that has been lined with aluminum foil across the bottom and up two opposite sides of the pan.
2. In a stainless steel (heatproof) bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, melt the butter and chocolate. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar and vanilla extract. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well (with a wooden spoon) after each addition. 
3. Stir in the flour and salt and beat, with a wooden spoon, until the batter is smooth and glossy and comes away from the sides of the pan (about one minute). 
4. Remove 1/2 cup of the brownie batter and set it aside. Place the remainder of the brownie batter evenly onto the bottom of the prepared pan.
5. Then, in the bowl of your food processor (or with a hand mixer), process the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar, vanilla, and egg and process just until creamy and smooth. 
6. Spread the cream cheese filling evenly over the brownie layer. Spoon small dollops of the reserved brownie batter evenly on top of the cream cheese filling. Then with a table knife or wooden skewer, swirl the two batters without fully mixing them.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes or until the brownies start to pull away from the sides of the pan and the edges of the brownies are just beginning to brown. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. 
8. Refrigerate the brownies until they are firm enough to cut into squares (at least two hours). Once chilled, remove the brownies from the pan by lifting with the ends of the foil and transfer to a cutting board. With a sharp knife, cut into 16 squares. It is a good idea to have a damp cloth nearby to wipe your knife between cuts. 
9. These brownies can be stored in the refrigerator for several days.

Apple or Rhubarb Cake

From Grandma Mary of the Morris Family

Makes about 9 pieces, judging by how I cut a 9"x9" cake

• ½  cup butter
• 1½ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• Pinch salt
• 1 cup sour milk or buttermilk (add a tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice to a cup of milk if you don't have buttermilk)
• 2 cups diced rhubarb or apples (blueberries also work well!)

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Mix as you would any cake; wet ingredients first, then mix in dry ingredients.  
3. Fold in apples or rhubarb and place in buttered 9X9 pan.  
4. Mix ⅓ cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon.  Sprinkle on top of cake before baking at 350ºF for 25-30 minutes. 

Roasted Pepper and Goat Cheese Baguette

From the McCormacks (not sure of original source, but I really want to try this!!)

Makes 1 loaf

• 1 loaf of French bread
• Goat cheese or Feta (enough to spread over the insides of the loaf on both sides)
• 1 red pepper
• 1 yellow pepper
• Fresh basil leaves ( 1 package should be good)
• Olive oil

1. Split bread lengthwise into two long halves.
2. Cover both sides with cheese and lay basil leaves on top of cheese
3. Thinly slice peppers and cook the in a skillet with olive oil until tender
4. Spread sliced peppers inside the loaf
5. Close loaf and compress; wrap tightly in foil if taking to a party
6. Slice 1 inch pieces with bread knife and serve!

Ed. note: This sounds delicious; when I make it, though, it'll probably be comprised of actual charred roasted peppers, mixed with sautéed onions and garlic in olive oil.  I would also probably pop the foil wrapped loaf in a 350ºF oven for about 20 min. to heat through before slicing.  But that's just me!

So despite my distaste for email "games", I think I really benefited from this one.  It was a bit strange to be getting emails from people I'd never met before, but I think that just lends more evidence to my belief that food is a universal unifier.

Hoping to share another community food event with you before the weekend is out,
-Honeybee

Baker's Dozen

I, quite simply, love bread.  I can't begin to fathom how the combination of flour, water, salt and yeast can yield so many fantastically delicious variations (have I said that before?)  At a maternal-family (read: Italian) dinner, Hubs once commented that he NEVER would have guessed that so many people could wax philosophical on the topic of bread for an entire meal.  It's true.  We're carb junkies, and proud of it.  Last weekend, I experienced bread in three glorious forms: artisan bakery, homemade, and prepared in a café.  Let the yeast-leavened worship begin!

How could you NOT talk forever about this?!  Silly Hubs.

Making my own bread has had its ups and downs.  I can remember making a recipe for simple dinner rolls when I was about ten years old.  This particular variety was made from a soupy, batter-like dough poured into muffin tins.  The recipe yielded 18, but not wanting to do two batches, I distributed the dough among one twelve-cup standard muffin pan.  Mistake.  Disaster.  Dough everywhere, mushrooming out of the cups, dripping into the oven.  I recall that my dearest, kind, and patient mother was none to pleased.  That's when I learned to put a cookie sheet under precariously full baking vessels.

These buns were more successful, if slightly more complicated.

Above you'll see today's experiment: paposecos, or Portuguese bread rolls.  I was introduced to these a few years ago while working in a government lab, trying to engineer the perfect human race (not really, that's just what most people feel that someone with a genetics degree would be doing).  Anyway, the social committee, designed to lure the reclusive scientists out of their labs, put on a chili cook-off.  The advertising flyers also boasted the presence of "Fresh Portuguese BUNZZZZ!!!!!!".  Hmm.  What was it about these "bunz" that warranted the all-caps and multiple exclamation points?  I soon found out.  Oh, my.  Still warm from the bakery, these reminded me of what Italian panini rolls SHOULD be.  Slightly chewy crust, with a soft, open-crumb interior that was miles away from the dry flakiness of the Ciociaro Club's traditional bread-basket fillers.  DELICIOUS, and well-deserving of capitalization.  I must have eaten about six of these, no word of a lie.

My "little soldiers", as Gina Neely would say, shaped and ready to rise.

Even though I had just had some of these tasty treats at Ni and Aron's wedding picnic, I attempted these on my own, following this recipe.  My only substitution was actual lard instead of shortening; I didn't think that Crisco would be frequently used traditionally.  They didn't turn out exactly like the paposecos I'd had in London, but they were still a delicious bun.  I think the error of my ways came in shaping them; I tried to follow the directions closely, but I imagine it takes a well-practiced vovó (Portuguese version of nonna) to get it right.

The bottom-middle bun looks the most like what I was aiming for, shape-wise.

As for my bakery adventures: earlier in the day, I stopped by a bakery/café that I'd been eyeing for a couple of months: Bread & Circus.  I wasn't looking for a sit-down meal, just a unique loaf of bread.  I spotted the "sun bread": round golden-brown loaves displayed on wooden racks in the window.  As soon as the girl behind the counter told me that sun bread = hazelnut maple bread, I was in love.  The staff packaged a loaf and brought it down to the register... where the hipster-esque male cashier proceeded to swap it for a different, slightly larger, "less pathetic" loaf of the same for me.  He was very chatty and extremely pleasant... and it wasn't until I was back in my car that I realized he MIGHT have been flirting with me.  Maybe.  I'm so oblivious to these things now, having been with Hubs for almost a decade, that I'm sort of slow on the uptake.  Ah well, nice to be noticed.

Sun bread, basking in the sun.  I hate that this falls into the category of "things that would kill Ni and Tori", since it was super-delicious

Cross-sectional view.  The bread was actually quite dense, and almost a little doughy still in the middle.  I'm not complaining, though... it was a prime candidate for toasting.

Ready for toasting (see the slices in my $10 Walmart appliance??).  The only thing that made this bread better?  A generous slathering of Nutella.  Not for the faint of heart.

Last but certainly not least on my weekend of dough-based goodness: the in-house baked bread at The Tallest Poppy.  Went for brunch there with my friends/coworkers on Saturday morning... definitely a treat.  It may be on a stretch of Main Street that's juuuuuust starting to get into the sketchy zone, but still worth a visit!

My café breakfast: delicious local eggs, over-easy, hashbrowns made with red-skinned potatoes, thick-sliced peppercorn bacon, homemade mixed berry compote, and (drumroll please...) slices of their in-house loaf, a dense, slightly sweet, flat-ish bread brushed with butter and dotted with poppyseeds.  This was fantastic with the berry spread, which I suspect may have contained Saskatoons.  Mmm.

Jess' French toast, made with the same in-house bread.  The density really helped it soak up the egg mixture; this went great with their locally-roasted Black Pearl coffee.  Also of note: the little index card in the background contained a little story about how a king had once built a castle using breadsticks stolen, over time, from restaurants.  It encouraged others to do so.  With the price of real estate in the city, I might just.

Please forgive the quality of the café pics... I accidentally left home without my Canon PowerShot A430 and had to rely on my cell phone camera (which has a crack in the lens, boo).  I really enjoyed The Tallest Poppy's bread; I'll have to see if I'm up for a bit of DIY recreation.  We'll see... I'm running out of yeast packages rapidly now!

Thus concludes my bread weekend.  If I haven't inspired you to either go out and buy a loaf of interestingly-flavoured bread, or to attempt to make your own, then I've failed myself here.


Feeling incredible sympathy for those on gluten-free diets,
-Honeybee


P.S.- It's not bread-related, but check out this pic from the décor at The Tallest Poppy:

This café is eclectic.  How eclectic?  In addition to mismatched chairs and wood paneling, it has a statue of a very angry-looking bear wearing a sombrero in its front window.  Hmm.  But is it art?  It didn't really speak to me, personally.  Or literally.  Yeesh.  He does look rather upset... maybe he's waiting for coffee?  That's my only complaint about this café; service was a tad slow.

Last weekend (aka "the inspiration")

So, as Hubs kindly pointed out to me last night, I haven't yet fully shared all the deliciousness from last weekend that prompted this blog.  Yes, dear.  Sorry that I beat you to the blogging game, though I'm looking forward to reading yours once it's up and running :)

Before I get to the good stuff, though, a quick note: I'm not 100% sure if I'll be posting recipes here to accompany the pictures.  Reason being: a lot of them will likely come from my G.I. Diet cookbook (more on that some other time), and I'm really not up on my copyright laws.  If Hubs (a font of useless obscure knowledge) or any fellow food bloggers want to jump in and clear things up for me, feel free; but for the time being, we'll stick to stories and pics.  If I yanked a recipe from the World Wide Web, though, I'll link to it... it's public domain at that point, right?? :)

So here we go.  This is what happens over a 24-hour period, when you're all alone (save for a dog and two cats) with a well-stocked fridge and pantry and about six different J.D. Robb books from the library:

Breakfast, of the "-in-bed" variety.  L-R: ramekin of peaches and mandarin sections, cherry pomegranate yogurt, ancient grains toast with margarine and cherry-blueberry jam, royal gala apple slices, my secret coffee blend, OJ, and a Lieutenant Eve Dallas tome.  Perfectly lazy.

 I know what you're thinking.  That breakfast looks... simple.  Bordering on lame.  Those who know me know that I went through a huge period in my formative years where an indulgent breakfast would include a homemade belgian waffle, smothered in chocolate syrup, maple syrup, and whipped cream.  In comparison to that, yes, this looks a touch meager... but think of the goal here.  Bed.  Sweet, comfortable bed, while reading.  I didn't want to have to muck around with a fork, knife, and ridiculously gooey pastry while trying not to smear the pages of my library book.  I wanted to be LAZY, and I was.  The real star here was the tray.  As my parents can attest, all my early attempts to serve them breakfast in bed came on a well-seasoned baking sheet... not the most elegant.  But thanks to Walmart and my sister Sara's mad assembly skills (thanks again, sis!), I have a coffee table with a drawer/tray insert. Voilà!

Lunch was a similar affair that day: tray, collection of food, little preparation.  It was more the feel of the meal than the complexity; I yearned for the simplistic but amazingly delicious lunches that I shared with my family during a trip to Europe two years ago.  Nothing, NOTHING will beat our simple picnic of baguette, olives, cured salami, aged goat cheese, and cheap inexpensive French wine on the banks by the Pont du Gard... but I came somewhat close.

Lunching on the patio. L-R: Water with lime, platter of aged cheddar, farmer's cheese, smoked gouda, seedless red grapes, Breton-like copycat crackers, Wasa rye crispbreads, and the remainder of my last bottle of my Gewürztraminer 2008 (yeah, I'm cheap, I bottle my own).

The view from the top... I love being seventeen stories up, even if my side of the building doesn't face the river...

A toast to the city I'm currently calling home!

 Midafternoon snack follows.  I swear, if I were completely left to my own devices, I'd be like a hobbit: breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, tea, dinner, supper...  Baking is one of my passions, though I'm usually too chicken to get too far into the realm of pastries.  Something about needing all that cold butter, plus the astronomical failure rate, keeps me away.  Maybe someday that'll change, but for now I stick pretty closely to cakes, cookies and breads.  Many will attest to how strongly I cling to my Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (yes, it deserves capitalization).  It's one of Anna Olson's, and is just about perfect in every way.  With this last batch, I think I expanded on the perfection: I used not only a bar of Hershey's Special Dark chocolate chopped into chunks, but also two packages of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, hacked into small pieces.  Oh my.

Delish chocolate-chunk-and-peanut-butter-cup cookies, with more coffee and more mystery/smut.  Yes, it's a different book than at breakfast.  No, I didn't just switch them for the pictures; I'd actually finished reading the first and moved onto a second.  My voracious appetite extends to more than food, it would seem.

The aptly-named Snickers, my canine charge for the weekend, joining me in relaxation.  HUGE thanks again to Tori and Graham for not only buying me patio furniture, but also making the ungodly 2-day trek to the 'Peg to visit me for a week.  You guys are true friends!

 Dinner, of course, was conceived in my mind before the last cookie was devoured.  I wanted a BURGER (yes, all caps this time).  I wanted a burger like my mother used to make- thick, juicy, flavourful.  I'd never quite hit on the right combo of additions ("fillers" for the ground-beef-only purists) to mimic hers.  Today would be the day.  Slight problem: at this point, I'm still lounging in PJs, and don't feel like leaving the sanctuary of laziness that is my apartment to buy hamburger buns.  No worries; I'll MAKE them.  See above feelings re. baking: breads are okay.  Though, past attempts at light and fluffy buns typically ended with quite hard, dense rock-like substances.  I must've really been feeling it, since I decided to tackle these, too.

Ready to rise.  See the green flecks?  I decided to put herbes de Provençe on my counter while kneading and rolling out the dough; I was craving something like the Italian herbs D'Italiano packaged buns (but without all the preservatives)

Finished product.  If you attempt these, don't skip the egg wash; it made such a delicate, delicious light brown crust.

Now the beef.  I just tried to stop over-analyzing mom's tried and true recipe, and go with gut instinct.  I, of all people, should know that the knowledge of how to make a fantastic, meaty, juicy burger isn't inherited... but still.  Call me superstitious if you want.  I reached for some dried breadcrumbs, an egg, some grated parmesan cheese, a packet of onion soup mix (which, I suspect, was the key ingredient I'd been missing all these years), and an extremely healthy splash of Worcestershire sauce.  Done and done.

Grilling away, crossing my fingers that they'll come out meeting all expectations.  And I know, I'm a terrible person: I don't have a proper grill (indoor, outdoor, propane, charcoal, or electric), despite being able to keep one on the patio.  I'll leave the procurement and installation of such a contraption to Hubs; he uses it more anyway.

The "accoutrements", as Irene would say... pesto aioli, smoked gouda, tomatoes, red onions, and baby spinach.

Side dish: blanched baby potatoes, fried up in the same delicious beefy juices that the burgers gave off, with another healthy sprinkle of herbes de Provençe.

The finished product, with some asparagus to assuage my guilt.  Don't lie, you want to sink your teeth into this (barring vegetarianism, of course...)

Et voilà.  My day in food.  This obsession with preparation and photography continued into the next day, but I'll leave that for another time.  Like any proper foodie, I'm off to peruse the offerings at the fantastic seasonal outdoor market in St. Norbert.  Those Hutterites sure know how to grow their veggies, no doubt about it... and maybe this time, I'll spring for some bison meat and really get into the Prairie flavour.

To quote my nerdy/foodie crush, Alton Brown, I bid you good eating ;)  Cheers!
-Honeybee