Madhu Knits and Cooks

Breakfast Baked Apples -- Good for Leftover Apples, But Not Necessarily a Go-To Recipe

Fall has of course brought an abundance of apples to the local farmers markets, and I have had little success in resisting my overally tendency to overconsume.  (Just wait until the clementines really start coming in -- my apartment will undoubtedably be filled with boxes and boxes.)  Although I had hoped to make an apple tart to both use up my remaining apples as well as finally use the tart pan I bought last year, I ended up settling on a far simpler recipe from Cooks Illustrated -- breakfast baked apples.  The recipe had the benefit of including ingredients that I had easily on hand at home, and would require far less work than constructing a tart.  

I increased the baking time to fully cook all of the apples, but otherwise the recipe was pretty straightforward.  The result was definitely better when I reheated the apples later in the day because when I ate the first one out of the oven, the vanilla flavor was a bit too powerful.  Generally though, I think the baked apples were a bit "meh" and I don't know if I will actively seek out opportunities to make this recipe again.  Instead, I think it'll be a second (or maybe third) choice the next time I have some leftover apples that I need to use up.

Apple Carrot Muffins -- Perfect for Anytime of Day

I don't think I have ever consumed a carrot muffin before, so its actually a little confusing that when I noticed some leftover carrots in my fridge last week, I thought it would be a great idea to make carrot muffins.  Wherever the initial urge may have come from though, I am definitely happy I decided to start looking up carrot muffin recipes because 1) the muffins were AMAZING, and 2) I noticed that a number of popular recipes online incorporated apples into carrot muffins.  I had one remaining Empire apple on my countertop that had I not baked it into something, I probably would have just thrown it away (though I would have undoubtedly experienced a lot of associated guilt for not eating it).  

None of the carrot/apple carrot recipes online or in my cookbooks could be made with only ingredients in my kitchen, so I decided to improvise an apple carrot muffin recipe based on the great Muffin Madness base  in the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home cookbook (on google books now).  I wasn't entirely sure how the muffins would turn out because the carrot/apple mixture seemed to have a different texture than the suggested modifications contained in the original recipe, so I didn't know what proportions of carrot and apple made sense in relation to the batter base.  My worry about the edibility of these muffins continued until the muffins came out of the oven because the muffin batter was incredibly dense and seemed too dry after I stirred in all of the ingredients, and the muffins were well under-baked at the 20 minute time called for in the original recipe.  

Thankfully though I resisted the urge to throw them away and continued to bake them an additional 5 - 7 minutes.  The baked muffins really were wonderful -- lightweight, perfectly spiced, and very lightly sweetened.  They had great color with orange and light apple-colored flecks showing throughout the surface.  I couldn't really taste the carrot at all, rather just the apple (which maybe is how apple carrot muffins generally taste?).  I brought the muffins in to my Tuesday printmaking class, and they were definitely a huge hit with multiple people asking me for the recipe!  The recipe modifications follow the picture below.

Apple Carrot Muffins -- Modifications to the Moosewood Muffin Madness Recipe

• Added 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon and 1/4 tsp. ground ginger to the dry ingredients
• Added 1.5 cups grated carrot (from 3 medium peeled carrots) and 1 Empire apple, peeled, cored, and chopped into small pieces (NOT grated) to batter at the end.
• Baked for 25 - 27 minutes, until a wooden skewer came out clean.

Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins/Cupcakes -- So Great that I Made Them Twice in One Week!

Lots of rapidly aging oranges + dwindling bag of chocolate chips (due to my inability to stop eating handfuls of them as a fake dessert/snack) + hankering for real desserts = opening every cookbook in my house to find something to make use of these two ingredients!  I initially thought I would just find a recipe that could serve as a good base for the orange and the chocolate chips, but not a recipe that would actually be built around them.  

Enter the Gourmet Cookbook and its recipe for Orange Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting.  The cupcakes were incredibly easy to make, and hot out of the oven, they tasted like those delicious holiday orange flavored chocolates -- a wonderful, unexpected bonus!  I omitted the chocolate frosting -- too much additional work that would have prevented me from consuming several cupcakes once they had barely cooled from baking.  By skipping the chocolate frosting, I also convinced myself that I could call them "muffins" and therefore eat them for breakfast as well.  

A modified version of the recipe can be found online here. 

Cinnamon Rolls!

 

For some reason, making cinnamon rolls became a two-weeklong obsession for me this month.  I don't know where exactly this desire came from, but when it did come, I thought about it almost every day until I finally attempted to make them, using this Allrecipes.com recipe.  The major takeaways from this effort are:

• Homemade cinnamon rolls are definitely worth the effort -- even just the smell of them baking in the oven made my week.
• Make sure you have a lot of butter handy, and that you don't have a fear of consuming large amounts of it in one sitting.
• The leftovers still taste absolutely amazing -- which is a little dangerous because at first, I thought that this would only be an entertaining occasion recipe because this recipe makes so many servings.  Oh well, I'll just have to accept that my butter consumption is going to be higher in the future.

The more mundane details about how I altered the recipe are:  substituting whole wheat flour for 1/2 of the all-purpose flour called for, and reducing the baking time to 16 minutes.  I think that I probably should have baked them for a little bit more though because some of the rolls were a little dough-y, so perhaps I'll increase the baking time to 18 - 19 minutes next time.  Additionally, I am allergic to nuts so I did not include the pecans.

Enjoy!

 

Brunch Potato Leek Gratin

For the past few months, I've been ripping recipe pages out of Williams Sonoma catalogues (the one part of the catalogues I look forward to looking at).  I finally got an excuse to use one of the more recent catalogue recipes when I was asked to make some sort of potato dish for a holiday brunch last month.  I chose the Potato-Leek Gratin because it seemed to be less time-consuming than hash browns and other breakfast potato recipes (no overnight soaking of potatoes needed), seemed to bring an interesting twist to the standard breakfast potato side, and because I wanted to make sure that I didn't take up any stovetop space at the brunch location because I knew a lot of people were going to bring bacon, sausage, etc. to make there.  I also recently used leeks for the first time in the Butternut Squash and Leek Risotto, and really loved the flavor they brought to the dish.  

So, off I went!  It only took about 45 minutes to one hour to prepare the dish for the oven.  I altered the recipe in the following ways:  I used rosemary instead of thyme, excluded nutmeg and chives (didn't have any), and probably used slightly less than the amount of leeks called for the in the recipe (maybe 3.5 pounds of leeks, pre-cutting, which was PLENTY).  I also made the dish using a standard large fry pan and a 9 inch by 13 inch baking dish because I wasn't sure if my fry pan was oven safe.  

 

The dish turned out wonderfully -- it was incredibly tasty, even without the nutmeg and chives, and was not only perfectly bubbly right out of the oven, but the leftovers were actually pretty good when re-heated later that week as well.  It definitely was a much more interesting breakfast/brunch potato option, and I highly recommend it to any for potlucks or hosting events at home.  The one flag is that this recipe makes a LOT of servings, especially because heavy cream and potatoes can be filling, so I would assume this serves more like 16 people as a side dish, rather than the 8 - 10 the recipe recommends.  Enjoy!

Here Comes Fall! Pumpkin Bread!

I bought a can of pumpkin puree about 8 months with the hopes of making a delicious loaf of pumpkin bread.  I was inspired to make pumpkin bread by the Jones Restaurant in Philadelphia, which served slices of pumpkin bread with perhaps a cinnamon butter (unfortunately memory is not as good as it once was!) as their bread basket.  Well, like everything else related to cooking, baking and knitting in my life, it often takes me several months to several years to finally act on my intentions.  I finally did so because of the noticeable season change in the D.C. area, and my desire to finally do some simple baking after a few-week absence.  I used this recipe from AllRecipes.com, though I ended up only using cinnamon instead of the full range of spices called for because its all I had in the cabinet.  I also ended up baking both a full loaf in a traditional loaf pan, as well as a loaf in an 8x8-inch square baking pan.  Although I ended up baking the bread for less time than was called for by the recipe, unfortunately I found the result of the loaves to be a bit dry.  I will probably make it again, but use some of the substitutions (e.g., applesauce) called for by other AllRecipes.com users.  

One Egg Banana Bread -- Results of a Desperate Internet Search!

A Sunday a few weeks back, I was just ready to make banana chocolate cupcakes (with additional chocolate chips).  So ready that I took out the ripened bananas I had frozen a few weeks back, and started to let them thaw in anticipation of making the cupcakes.  However, when I returned to the kitchen to start readying the rest of the ingredients, I discovered I had only one egg instead of the two eggs called for in the recipe.  I did a quick search of the Internet to see if I could find a way to modify the recipe, but unfortunately I couldn't find anything that made sense so I readied myself to just throw away the bananas and find another time to make the cupcakes.

But then I thought about what else I could make that day, and realized that I really didn't have much to make anything work, so why not try to salvage the bananas?  I did a google search for one egg banana bread, and ended up finding this recipe:  http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001465banana_bread.php.  I decided to add in 1/4 cup of cocoa and sprinkle chocolate chips on top to meet my chocolate desires, and substitute some brown sugar for 1/2 of the white sugar in the recipe, and otherwise followed the recipe as is.  The bread did take some extra time to bake (maybe 10 minutes or so), but turned out well.  It was very moist, and the chocolate taste was perfect.  I'll be making it again, so it almost makes me look forward to more kitchen planning mishaps in the future!

Raspberry Oat Breakfast Muffins (with just a bit of chocolate chips)

Ever since I bought a bag of frozen raspberries and some old-fashioned oats, I've been really wanted to make some healthy, substantive raspberry oat breakfast muffins.  Unfortunately, finding a basic recipe that would fit what I wanted has been a little hard to come by.  After a lot of searching for a non-banana oat muffin recipe (I wanted to stay away from banana recipes because banana seems to form a key part of the batter that I don't quite know how to alter when omitting them), I finally found this very basic recipe on AllRecipes.com:  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Oatmeal-Muffins/Detail.aspx.   I made several alterations to the recipe, and have an idea about how to make them even better -- the details follow the picture below.

I made several ingredient changes to the recipe to add more flavor.  I added in 1/2 tsp. of vanilla, 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon, 1/4 cup of chocolate chips, and 1 cup of frozen raspberries.  I also substituted 3 tbs. of blue agave nectar for the white sugar called for in the recipe to try a more healthy alternative to sugar (my first time baking with agave nectar).  Finally, I also altered the recipe by baking the muffins for 15 minutes instead of the called for 20 - 25 minutes. 

Although I enjoyed the muffins when they came out of the muffin, there are definitely a few things I would change the next time I make them.  First, I would definitely add more agave nectar -- probably just another tbs. or so to add more sweetness to the muffins.  I still don't want to make the muffins too sweet, but I think adding in one more tsp. would help make them a bit more tasty.  Second, I would definitely reduce the oven temperature from the recipe's recommended 425 degrees to a more standard 350 or 375 degrees.  The batch I made using the original recipe resulted in really brown bottoms to the muffins even though I reduced the baking time, and I think its just a function of the oven temperature being much too high.  Third, I will probably also increase the amount of berries (or some other sweetening agent, perhaps raisins?) to add even more flavor into the recipe while trying to maintain the healthiness of the muffins. 

All in all though, it was a good attempt at using my frozen raspberries and oats and I look forward to many more!

Banana Oat Chocolate Chip Muffins and Philadelphia Style Vanilla Chocolate Chip Ice Cream!

Several weeks ago, I finally found the time to make two new items.   First, I had some ripebananas that I wanted to use, and instead of making the standard Moosewood Cookbook banana chocolate chip muffin recipe, I decided that I wanted to make them a bit more substantive and add some oats into them.  So I did a little google searching at work (shh!) and found this recipe from AllRecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Banana-Oat-Muffins/Detail.aspx). 

I added in maybe 3/4 cup of chocolate chips into the recipe as well, made perhaps 15 muffins instead of the 12 in the recipe (some of my silicon baking cups seem smaller than standard).  They turned out really well, but I think adding another sweetening agent would be good because without the chocolate chips, they would have been rather bland (I think some people in the comments mentioned applesauce for vegetable oil -- that might serve two purposes which would be good). 

Another accompaniment that would make them tasty is something that I actually did pair with the muffins -- homemade ice cream!

 

I recently purchased an ice cream maker -- yes, an ice cream maker.  Williams Sonoma hassome on sale for only $60 so I thought it was such a bargain, that I couldnt say no.  Its a Cuisinart 1.5 quart machine, and they added in an extra freezer bowl.  Its still on sale here:  http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/9313347/index.cfm?cm_src=rel. 

For my first homemade ice cream experience, I decided to pick a simple recipe with no cooking required.  I chose the Philadelphia Style Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Williams Sonoma:  http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/recipedetail.cfm?objectid=E2192A50%2D00D5%2D4D3D%2DBCCDF7E7E0EEFEBF.  I followed the recipe exactly, except for deciding to throw in some chocolate chips at the end of the freezing process.  It turnedout to be the best ice cream I've ever had, but I only finished about an eighth of it before having to throw it away because it had been in the freezer for too long!  Unfortunately, I think my current lifestyle is not only suboptimal for making ice cream (and really any sort of food) but also apparently for eating things I make.   In a few months, I am hoping to spend some quality time experimenting with different types of ice creams, frozen yogurt and sorbets -- just in time for a cold winter, I'm sure.  Some of the recipes I want to try are:  lavender, green tea, peach, strawberry basil, raspberry, and of course, plenty of versions of chocolate!

Andy's Papaya Shakes (Vegan and Wonderful!)

This weekend, Andy made some Papaya shakes with soy milk.  They were incredibly tasty and healthy, so I asked him to email the recipe to me for madhuknitsandcooks.com.  They are not too sweet and wonderfully creamy.  I highly recommend you try them! 

Here is the recipe, which makes 4 large servings or 8 smaller (approx. 8 oz.) servings:

• 1 ripened papaya that is skinned, pitted and cubed
• 1/2 large carton of cold vanilla soy milk (approx. 4 cups)
• 3-4 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• Ground cinnamon

Note:  If you have a standard size blender, you will probably be able to only make two shakes at a time so just halve the ingredients for each blend cycle.  These directions reflect usage of a standard size blender.

Directions:

• Place half of cubed papaya in the blender
• Cover the papaya with soy milk
• Add 1-2 tablespoons of sugar
• Add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
• Blend until there are no more papaya chunks (the mixture is smooth)
• Pour into glasses
• Add some ground cinnamon as a garnish.  Although you may think that cinnamon makes no sense at all in this recipe (as I did), just try it -- you won't regret it!
• Serve immediately