Tart Time

My sister got me a beautiful new pie/tart pan for Christmas, so when I set out to bake a dessert for a New Year’s party, I immediately wanted to try out my present. After a while of browsing the interwebs, I decided to go with a cranberry pear tart.

Cranberry Almond Pear Tart

You will need:

• Pie crust
• 4 lbs Bosc pears
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp ginger, plus a little extra
• Cranberries (fresh)
• Almonds (chopped)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel and chop pears. In a large bowl, combine pears, sugar, and 2 tsp ginger. Line a roasting pan with aluminum foil and add pear mixture. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until pears are soft and easily pierced with a fork.

Reduce heat to 350 degrees. I’m lazy and used a store-bought crust, but if you’re more ambitious, make a lovely homemade pie crust. Poncie has a delicious pie crust recipe that she will hopefully share on this blog at some point. Either way, roll out your crust and line your tart pan with it. Lift the pears out of the roasting pan with a slotted spoon and put them into the crust. Add a handful of cranberries over the mixture and press them down into the pears. Sprinkle chopped almonds and remaining ginger over the top. Bake for an hour and serve warm or chilled. Happy 2013!

Ginger Chai Tea

I’ve been on a huge tea kick lately. Who am I kidding? I’m always on a huge tea kick! Over the past week, the focus of my obsession has been chai. I really love it plain (no milk, sugar, or honey) and strong. My paramour on the other hand, can’t get enough of chai tea lattes. Since we both have colds and nothing to do, I decided to do something nice for him.

To make Ginger Chai Tea, you’ll need:

– 4 bags (or 2 tbsp) of tea (I used Tazo Organic Chai which already has ginger in it among other spices)

– 2 tbsp sugar

– 2 cups of water

– 1 cup of milk

– 1 inch of ginger root

Preparation:

– Brew water, tea, and sugar together in a medium sized pot. Let it boil for five minutes.

– While it’s brewing, grate the ginger directly into the pot.

– Once the tea has finished brewing, add the cup of milk and put it back on the heat. The minute it starts to boil, remove from the flame.

– Let it sit for a few minutes to cool, then using a strainer, pour into mugs.

This tea is very spicy (not so much hot, but it tickles the back of my throat). Again, I’m not a huge fan of milk in my tea, but this was very good. The proportions I listed here makes two cups of tea. Add more ginger at your own risk. This recipe was adapted from A Curry of a Life.

–Cassie

It’s Soup Season (Spicy Black Bean Soup)

I’m pretty sure my mom only observes three seasons: spring, summer, and soup. From about September until March, she goes into soup mode, combatting the chilly to freezing weather in West Virginia with every type of soup under the sun. From broccoli cheddar and chicken noodle to turkey meatball and vegetable lentil, my mom makes it all.

Because I spent the last four years living in Orlando, soup wasn’t exactly at the top of my list in terms of what I wanted to make. Even when the AC was cranked up in the apartment, the constant stifling humidity outside made eating soup just feel wrong. So now that I’m living in Boston with the cooler weather, I’m adopting my mother’s belief in soup season. I had several people tell me over the past couple months that soup is not real food. I wholeheartedly disagree. There is nothing better on a chilly night than a big bowl of piping hot soup. You’ll probably see many more soup recipes surfacing on this blog in the coming weeks.

Spicy Black Bean Soup (adapted from http://gimmesomeoven.com/spicy-black-bean-soup)

You will need:

• 2 tbsp. Olive Oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 4 gloves garlic, minced
• 1 chipotle pepper in adobo, chopped plus 1 tbsp. adobo sauce
• 2 (15 oz) cans black beans
• 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp. cumin
• 1 tbsp. chili powder
• 1 tbsp. cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp. cilantro (chopped fresh or dried)
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Shredded cheese
• Sour cream
• Tortilla chips

In a large pot, heat olive oil and cook onion, red pepper, and garlic for about 5 minutes.

Add in chipotle, black beans, and diced tomatoes.

Stir in chicken broth, bay leaf, and spices. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for 10 minutes.

Use an immersion blender to puree the soup. Add sour cream and cheese as a garnish and serve hot soup with tortilla chips.

Fig Almond Toffee Bars

New Years has come and gone yet again. Last night, I celebrated by watching the fireworks at Boston Harbor with friends. It was fantastic, but I woke up today with a cold. Whenever I’m stuck at home I  get restless, so as a remedy I cook. I don’t start out with anything in mind–when I cook, it’s a haphazard affair. Luckily, most of my experiments turn out pretty well. People brave enough to try the final product are generally pleased.

Tonight’s pièce de résistance is a modified toffee bar recipe from cooks.com.

What You’ll Need:

– 1 package water crackers

– 1 jar fig butter (I used Trader Joe’s because that’s what happened to be in my refrigerator)

– 1/2 cup regular butter

– 1 cup brown sugar

– 1 cup diced toasted almonds

– 1 bar dark chocolate (I used Trader Joe’s 85% Dark)

Baking:

– Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×12 pan with aluminum foil and line the bottom of the with crackers.

– In a small frying pan on high heat, whisk together butter, fig butter, and brown sugar until liquefied. Pour over crackers.

– Bake the pan in the oven for 3 to 5 minutes. (In the original recipe, it says the crackers should float. Because the fig butter is so viscous, they won’t so don’t worry about it).

– Take the pan out of the oven and break up the chocolate bar into pieces and scatter on top. Once it starts to melt, take a spatula and spread out over the top.

– Sprinkle the diced almonds on top and put in the refrigerator to cool then move to the freezer to harden. Once firm, slice into bars and take pretty pictures (if you’re into that sort of thing) and serve.

Here’s to kicking off 2013 with a kick-ass new recipe!

–Cassie

Grandma’s Famous Scotch Shortbread

Good day! My name is Cassie and I’m a contributing writer to this delicious blog.

I’m here to introduce you to the world’s best and easiest scotch shortbread recipe. It was my English Great Grandmother Florence Harper’s recipe, and I make it every holiday with my Grandma. (Fun Fact: My Great Grandma was named after Florence Nightingale). This year I brought it to a holiday party and it was gone within minutes.

 

What You’ll Need:

– 4 sticks of salted butter

– 1 cup of granulated sugar

– 4 cups of flour

 

Baking:

– Mash the butter (at room temperature) and sugar together with a fork in a large mixing bowl.

– Add flour one cup at a time, kneading in-between additions. Knead the dough until all of the flour is thoroughly worked into the dough.

– Place the dough into a cake pan and pat the dough down evenly into the corners. With the tips of your fingers, pinch around the edges to make a “fancy border” as my grandma says

– Poke the dough with a fork and bake in a preheated 350° oven for 30 to 35 minutes until golden. If you have a convection oven, bake at 325°.

I made it on my own for the first time tonight, and it turned out well. The texture should be dense and moist. Wait 5 to 10 minutes after taking it out of the oven to slice it into fingers. If you wait longer than that, the outside will become harder and more difficult to cut, but if you slice it too soon it will crumble. I enjoy a piece with a hot cup of strong tea.

I hope this makes the cold weather a little more bearable. Happy holidays!

–Cassie

Go-to Guac

I have a severe weakness for tortilla chips. I rarely leave the grocery store without them. My current favorite are blue corn tortilla chips, but the black bean and quinoa tortilla chips from Trader Joe’s are quickly moving up the list. I could probably sit here for a while talking about how much I love them, but that would get boring pretty quickly. So, moving on…

Because I consider tortilla chips to be the best snack food, I’m a sucker for anything that goes with them: salsa, queso, dips, and of course, guacamole. I love guacamole because it never quite turns out exactly the same twice, but it’s equally wonderful every time. I have a standard recipe I usually follow, but feel free to add your own variations according to what you like!

You will need:

• About 3 medium avocados, peeled and pitted
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 lime
• Cilantro
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Crushed red pepper
• 1/2 red pepper, diced (optional)
• 1 small tomato, diced (optional)
• 1/2 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt (optional)

Place the avocados in a medium bowl and mash them. For a creamier texture, add the Greek yogurt and mix. Mix in the red onion and garlic. If you’re using red pepper and/or tomato, mix them in as well.

Stir in grated zest of 1 lime and fresh squeezed juice of half of the lime. Mix in cilantro (dried or fresh), salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper to taste. Break out the tortilla chips and dig in!

I always have red onion in my kitchen, but I don’t always keep red peppers and tomatoes, which is why I consider those to be optional. They’ll add a little more texture, color, and flavor, but I often do without. Greek yogurt makes the guac a little fuller and creamier. I usually add it if I have fewer avocados and still want the same size batch.

Also, if you’ve never made guacamole before, be aware that it will turn brown pretty quickly even if it’s in tupperware. Science has never been my best subject, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with oxidation (I’ll let Poncie handle all science lessons). To prevent the browning, put lemon juice or oil spray on a piece of plastic wrap and place it directly on the surface of the guac before you refrigerate it. Guacamole lasts several days in the fridge, so even if it does start to turn brown on top, just stir it up to reveal the lovely green underneath. It will still taste wonderful even if it isn’t quite as pretty as when you first made it!

UPDATE 12/30/12: I recently attended a Christmas party and wanted to change up my guacamole recipe for the holiday occasion. I made my basic guac, but instead of adding in the tomatoes or red pepper, I used pomegranate seeds. They added a beautiful holiday color and fun flavor to the dish that went over extremely well with all the party guests. I had people coming up to me all evening telling me how much they enjoyed the twist on the typical appetizer.

Cranberry Orange Muffins

I’m not sure what prompted my love of baking muffins. I think it may have been because I was too lazy to ice cupcakes once. Whatever the reason, I spent the entire summer making a different batch of muffins every week (much to the joy of my coworkers). Last week after a long day, I came home and decided to give cranberry orange muffins a try. Most of my muffin recipes are adapted from Williams-Sonoma.

You will need:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup light brown sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• Grated zest of 1 orange
• 1 large egg
• 4 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
• ½ cup skim milk
• ½ cup fresh orange juice
• 1 ½ cups fresh cranberries
• ½ cup pecans or walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease 12 muffin cups with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, stir the flour, sugars, baking powder, salt, and zest.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg, melted butter, milk, and orange juice. Add to the dry ingredients and stir until evenly mixed. Fold in the cranberries (and nuts) until just mixed. Don’t overmix!

Spoon the batter into each muffin cup, filling it level with the rim. Bake until golden, about 20 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Unmold and enjoy!

Makes about 12 muffins.

Hurricane Cookies

My favorite cookies have tons of stuff in them.  So when we made them in the midst of Hurricane Sandy, we decided they should be hurricane cookies…because nothing brings rubble like a hurricane.

A few of my favorite things: chocolate, walnuts, and dried cranberries.

This recipe originated in Cook’s Illustrated Magazine but of course it includes some editing.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 14  Tbsp (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp table salt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts (toast them if you can; it makes all the difference)
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preparation:

Move oven racks to middle positions. Preheat oven to 375 F. Line two flat baking sheets with parchment paper. Stir flour, oats, and baking soda together in medium bowl (or the large measuring cup you used to measure them, if you’re lazy like me).

Heat 10 Tbsp butter in skillet until melted.  I always attempt to brown the butter and then I get wimpy because I think that it’s burning. Remove from heat and transfer butter to large heatproof bowl. Stir in remaining butter until completely melted.

Add both sugars, salt, and vanilla to bowl and whisk until fully incorporated. Add egg and yolk and whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining. Let stand  minutes, then whist 30 seconds. Repeat resting and whisking twice more (4 times total) until mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny. Don’t skip this step! It allows the sugar time to dissolve in the melted butter mixture. Dissolved sugar caramelizes at a lower temperature than undissolved sugar, so that when the cookies bake the sugars caramelize. This makes your cookies extra delicious…and who doesn’t like caramelized sugar?

Use a rubber spatula to stir the flour mixture into the butter/sugar/egg mixture.  Only mix until just combined, but make sure not to miss any pockets of flour. Stir in chocolate chips, nuts, and cranberries.

I didn’t have any chocolate chips so I chopped up a baking bar. What’s up, 65% cacao?

Drop dough onto cookie sheets, and bake until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, 8-10 minutes.  Edges should set but centers should be soft. Let cookies cool on the sheets for 2 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

(everything but the kitchen sink) Vegetable Soup

It’s starting to get cold in Boston, so today was the day to break out the slow cooker.  I found a vegetable soup recipe but I decided to use all the dib dabs in my cabinet.

The great thing about slow cookers is that they’re easy.  The great thing about vegetable soup is that you can put almost anything in it. Put them together and you have lazy winter weekend cooking.

Necessary Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 carrots
• 2 stalks celery
• 1 box vegetable broth (I use low sodium)
• 1 box quinoa
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• salt/pepper to taste

Optional Ingredients:

• Green beans
• Bell peppers
• Black beans
• Garbanzo beans
• zucchini
• yellow squash
• potatoes

Preparation:

1. Start by dicing all your vegetables. 1/4 inch is a good estimate.
2. Mince or press garlic. Add to medium size skillet with diced onion and olive oil. Cook over medium low heat until fragrant (2 min ish).

1. Add carrots and celery. Stir and cook all for about 10 minutes, or until onions have begun to soften and become translucent.
2. Pull out your trusty slow cooker.  If you don’t have one, you can also use a large pot and simmer on the stove. I like equipment.
3. Add vegetable broth, diced tomatoes, and herbs to pot.  If using dried beans, add them now. I presoaked my beans in hot water for about an hour, but figured that simmering them in the slow cooker would take care of the rest.
4. Add carrot/celery/onion mixture to pot.  Turn on and leave for two hours, or until beans and carrots are both soft.
5. Add potatoes if using.
6. Cook your quinoa according to the directions on the box.  Add the rinsed quinoa to boiling water, turn stove to simmer and leave for 10 minutes.
7. Once potatoes are nearly soft, add your fast cooking vegetables, like green beans and peppers.
8. Add quinoa, leave soup to simmer until all vegetable are tender.

I like to add some kale or spinach to my soup just before serving – it makes the greens soften without overcooking them, and helps cool down hot soup!