Spring Salads

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Springtime. Salad. Two wonderful words.

It was actually warm, today, after the rain. I came home to windows open and fresh air in the house. What a treat! Nonna was in her room with the heat blasting and covered in her electric throw., but the rest of the house was cool and comfortable. A treat, indeed!

Since I worked until 6 - past Nonna's dinner time - Victor fed her and he made us a leisurely dinner of teriyaki chicken salads. By the time mid-March hits, I'm really starting to crave greens. We still eat pretty seasonally, and fall and winter are casseroles and soups and the like. Spring and summer are salads and seasonal fruits and vegetables.

We're also having a bit of a weight-loss challenge at work and today was the first weigh-in. I didn't gain anything over the week but lost less than a full pound. Since I didn't really pay any attention to it until 2 days ago, I'll take it as a success. But this should help me get on track.

You'll note the hard-cooked eggs on the plate. They were Victor's second attempt at cooking eggs, today. Here's his story about the first batch:

I preformed a science experiment in my kitchen this morning. It’s simple and any of you can do it.

All I did was take six raw eggs and put them in a pot of water. I placed a lid on the pot and turned the burner up to high. Now – this is the important part.

I took a one hour conference call.

Here are the facts as I documented them:

  • Eggs in boiling water will be hard in approximately 4 or 5 minutes or less.
  • Boiling water evaporates.
  • Evaporated water turns to steam
  • Everything under the lid in the pot, the eggs and steam – begin to build up pressure.
  • After about 1 hour the pressure build up is so strong the eggs explode and the lid of the pot is sent flying about 6 feet across the room.
  • Exploding eggs rise straight in the air AND at about a 45 degree angle. This allows the exploding eggs to simultaneously cover the bottom the microwave/exhaust over the stove and the counter, backsplash and upper cabinets in a lovely coating of yellow and white flecks of exploded egg matter.

I’m not sure which laws of physics I proved (or broke) but I think steam and exploding eggs might make a good rocket propellant.

I tried to take photos but it just didn’t do it justice. (It’s been one of those weeks)

The kitchen was pristine when I arrived home and the salad was perfection.

What more can I say?!?


Guinness Brownies

Guinness and Chocolate. Talk about a flavor match made in Gastronomic Heaven!

I had a recipe for a Guinness Chocolate Cake years ago that I have sadly lost, but here's something that can ease the pain a bit - Guinness Brownies!

I found a brownie recipe online quite a while ago that had potential but wasn't quite it, so I put a note in my calendar to revisit it for St Paddy's Day. I thought it would be something fun to bring into work...

It was something fun to bring into work!

Since I was baking for more than a few, I made this in an 11 x 17 half-sheet pan, but you will probably want to make it in a standard 9x13 pan...

Guinness Brownies

The Brownies

  • 6 tbsp butter
  • 8 oz semi-sweet or dark chocolate, chopped
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 12 oz bottle Guinness
  • 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Caramel Topping

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp cane syrup (or corn syrup)
  • pinch salt
  • 1 can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 cup white chocolate chips

To make brownies:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Grease 9x13 pan and set aside.

In a medium bowl, slowly melt chocolate and butter over simmering water or microwave. Blend together until smooth. Add both sugars and mix until fully incorporated. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well before adding the next.

Sift together flour, chocolate, and salt. Add in three additions alternating with the Guinness.

Stir in the chocolate chips and spread evenly into pan.

Bake 25-30 minutes or until pick comes out clean.

Let cool slightly while making topping.

To make topping:

Mix butter, brown sugar, cane/corn syrup, and salt in a small saucepan until all is melted. Stir in sweetened condensed milk and heat to just below boil. Remove from g=heat and stir in white chocolate chips until melted and everything is combined.

Pour over warm brownies and allow to set for about an hour. For best results, refrigerate overnight.

**To make in a sheet pan, follow the above instructions but spread batter into pan and bake about 15 minutes.

These really did come out good. You definitely taste the Guinness, but it's a pleasing compliment to the chocolate. I see a tradition in the making...


Beef Braised in Guinness

It's that time of year...

Corned Beef and Cabbage. You know... that not-really-from-Ireland-Irish meal that gets served with enough green beer to rival the River Shannon.

The first, last, and only time I have ever had green beer was back in the '60s when I worked at Pirros. Barry - the owner - got a keg of the stuff one St Paddy's Day. It wasn't even good beer - probably Burgie. We also dyed the pizza dough green and made green pizzas. It pretty much freaked people out. The upside was there was a bar across the street called The Leprechaun Saloon and we kept bringing over green pepperoni pizzas for the crowd and received numerous - as in numerous - shots of Jameson's in return. I think we finished off the keg with a couple of off-duty cops from Taraval Station around 3am. I may have been 18 at the time... Not my most inebriated St Paddy's Day, but in the Top 10. The most - or worst - was probably when I took an Irish coworker from Chicago - Sean Hennigan - on a pub crawl in San Francisco. The following day hangover was epic.

As kids, we always had Corned Beef and Cabbage on St Paddy's Day. Pop would head down to the Mission and get big ol' corned briskets fresh from the butcher. The kind of place where the guy would roll up his sleeve and stick his hand in the barrel and grab a good one right in front of you. He'd get them a couple of times a year, but the one on St Paddy's was always special.

As a pre-teen, I tap-danced my way up Market Street as part of the Anne Healy Irish Dancers, and for several years serenaded shoppers at Fairlane Market in a quartet with other boys from ukulele and choir. And had corned beef when I got home.

I ate Corned Beef and Cabbage off the coast of Viet Nam and in Irish bars from Boston to Buffalo, Atlanta to Portland. And I cooked more than a few, m'self.

But all that Corned Beef and Cabbage went away when I met Victor. Victor doesn't like cabbage. He has other redeeming qualities, so it's not difficult to forsake one yearly meal, but it is funny to think about how few times I've had it in the past 20 years compared to how many times I had it the previous 20.

We had five or six of my dad's cousin's over for a St Paddy'd Day dinner back around 1996 or so and we wanted to do something a bit different - and not smell up the house with cooking cabbage. I came up with this based on something I had read in a magazine.

It's been a staple every year, since, and I really don't miss the cabbage with the corned beef. If anything, I miss it in soup. I will cook a corned beef now and again, and Victor has made me Stuffed Cabbage in the past, so it's not like I'm sitting here deprived.

Yeah right. Me. Deprived. As if...

But I digress... I usually make a Barmbrack to go along with it but I have lots of yesterday's Onion and Poppy Seed bread left over... so I eschewed it this year.

 

Beef Braised in Guinness

  • 2 pounds beef steak, cut in pieces
  • 3 medium onions, sliced
  • 1 pound carrots, sliced into sticks
  • 2 pounds small red or yellow potatoes, left whole
  • all-purpose flour
  • Salt and pepper
  • Garlic powder
  • 3 tbsp butter
  • 1 tsp basil
  • 1 bottle Guinness
  • 2 tbsp honey
  • 1 cup beef broth

Cut the meat into serving sizes. Pound them to tenderize and for a uniform thickness. Peel the onions and slice. Peel the carrots and slice them into sticks. Wash the potatoes but leave them whole.

Place the flour in a dish and mix in 1 tsp of salt, pepper, and a bit of garlic powder. Heat the butter in a sautè pan, add the onions and cook until soft. Transfer them to a large, shallow, greased ovenproof dish.

Dredge the pieces of meat in the seasoned flour and brown. Remove as they are cooked and place on top of the onions in a single layer.

Add a little more butter to the pan and stir in some of the seasoned flour to make a roux. Cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly and scraping up all the browned bits then add the Guinness. Allow to boil for a minute or two, then add the basil, honey and the broth. Return to a boil and pour over the meat. Cover the dish and bake at 325° for about an hour.

Remove from oven, add potatoes and carrots, cover, and return to the oven for another hour.

A fun meal and ya won't stink up the house with the smell of cabbage! And there's time to make it tomorrow!

Beannachtam na Femle Padraig

(Happy St Patrick's Day)

 


Onion Poppy Seed Bread

It's been a week and a half since I last baked any bread. I'm slipping!

Bread is pretty much my most favorite thing to make. It just boggles the mind how many different things you can create using just a few basic ingredients. Flour, water, salt, and yeast. Switch a few things out here and there, and another gastronomic goody is born.

Besides, there's no such thing as a bad loaf of homemade bread. And it's easy.

Today's bread came straight out of my Mom's Cook Book. It came from a magazine - although I have no idea which one. As I've been going through every single recipe and getting them on their own site, the one recurring theme is where did this come from?!? Some are definitely the now-defunct San Francisco News Call Bulletin or the shadow-of-its-former-self San Francisco Examiner, but the magazines?!? She read too many of them to ever be able to pin down a source.

But source isn't as important as taste. And this is one tasty bread! It makes a large loaf, so make sure you have plenty of folks over to share it with.

Onion Poppy Seed Bread

Bread

  • 1 pkg active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 4 1/2 to 5 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup butter or margarine, me;ted
  • 1 cup warm milk
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1 egg

Filling

  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
  • 3 tbsp poppy seeds
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 egg, beaten - for glaze

In large mixer bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add 2 cups flour, melted butter, milk, sugar, salt, and 1 egg. Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. With wooden spoon, stir in enough additional flour to make a stiff dough - about 2 cups. Spoon onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turn to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place, free from draft, until double in bulk, about 1 hour.

Meanwhile, prepare filling: In small bowl, combine onion, melted butter or margarine, poppy seeds, and 1/4 teaspoon salt; set aside.

Punch dough down. On lightly floured surface, roll dough into a 20x8-inch rectangle. Cut in half from 8-inch side, forming two 20x4-inch rectangles.  Spread onion filling onto each to within 1/2 inch of edges. Pinch seams to seal forming a long rope. Repeat with remaining dough. Twist the ropes together. On lightly greased baking sheet, form dough into a ring. Cover and let rise, in warm place, free from draft, until double in bulkm about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Brush dough ring with the remaining egg. Sprinkle with additional poppy seeds and chopped onion, if desired. Bake for 40 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when tapped with fingers. Cool slightly on wire rack. Makes 1 loaf, about 28 1-inch slices. About 150 calories per slice.

I had more than one slice.

Here are a few photos of the making. I usually forget to do these. This is the two 20" by 4" pieces before folding.

 

Here we have the ring formed and getting ready for the second rise.

 

Brushed with egg and sprinkled with poppy seeds, it's ready to go into the oven.

 

And then we have the finished product.

 

This really was good. It's like a stuffed Challah bread. It's another bread I shall be making again. And again.

Here's the recipe from Mom's Cookbook!


Orange Ricotta Cookies

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I brought home lots of ricotta yesterday, just in case Victor wanted to make more Zeppoles. I'm considerate, that way.

Instead, this morning, he baked off chocolate croissants, so it was my turn with the ricotta. I thought of several ideas, but, since I'm also baking bread, today, laziness took over. Ricotta Cookies was my path of least resistance.

Ricotta cookies are like little cakes. They're soft and not too sweet - until you glaze them. Perfect for Nonna and her mid-morning and afternoon treats.

I usually make them with either lemon or orange, although I think the basic is made with vanilla. They're pretty forgiving cookies, so you can play with the flavors.

Orange Ricotta Cookies

Cookies

  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 8 oz ricotta
  • juice and zest of 1 medium orange
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • pinch salt

Glaze

  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • juice and zest of 1 medium orange

Preheat oven to 350. Butter pans or line with parchment.

Cream butter and sugar until light. Add eggs one at a time and mix well after each addition.

Add ricotta, zest, and orange juice, then add flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix well.

Use a #70 scopp - or 1 tablespoon - and portion cookies onto prepared sheetpans.

Bake about 10 minutes. Cool, then glaze.

For glaze, place juice and zest in small bowl. Stir in enough powdered sugar to make a soft glaze.

They're start-to-finish 45 minutes - perfect cookies for a lazy day.


Zeppoles

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One of the fun things about being married to an Italian is the recipes with the funny names. One of the fun things about having friends who are Italian is even more recipes with funny names - and links to websites with even more.

Our friend Judy turned us on to a site called Everybody Loves Italian and Victor has been having a blast reliving a lot of the recipes of his youth. Victor laughs and says he has the only Italian mother who didn't cook. There's a reason, though... She was number 10 of 11 kids and her older sisters did it all. The cookies and whatnot came from Aunt Tessie or Aunt Emma. You don't reinvent the wheel in an Italian family. The one who knows how to make something the best is the one who makes it. And if that something happens to be a signature dish, you really don't make it when they're around for fear of possibly showing them up. A Big Mistake.

Whether Zeppoles were in the family repertoire is questionable, but Aunt Emma, especially, used to make several different sweet and savory fritter-type items, so these could be a variation on one of her themes. Or not. it doesn't really matter, though, because he just made them and they are fantastic! They evoked a childhood memory and that's what's important. Well... that, and the fact that they're freakin' delicious. They're also easy to make, so... No excuses. Head into the kitchen and make some, now!

This recipe is adapted from Everybody Loves Italian

Zeppoles

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup flour
  • 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • dash of salt
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 cup whole milk ricotta
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • zest and juice of 1 medium lemon
  • neutral oil for frying
  • powdered sugar for dusting

Heat oil 2" deep to 375° in a pan wide enough to fry several zeppole without crowding.

Mix two eggs into mixing bowl. Add all dry ingredients and follow with ricotta, vanilla, lemon juice and zest. Quickly mix until combined. Batter will be thick.

Using a 1 tbsp scoop or spoon, carefully drop into the hot oil, being careful not to let them touch. Turn them for even browning and cook about 3 minutes or until cooked through.

Drain on paper towels.

When still warm but cool enough to handle. sieve powdered sugar over them and consume!

 

They really did come out great. Very light and airy, not very sweet, and with a nice lemon hint. We figure there are lots of things we can do with these, from cinnamon in the batter to different liqueurs.

Methinks we shall have some fun with these!

 

 


Barmbrack

We're having a bit of a green food contest at work Tuesday during our store meeting. My entry is going to be a Barmbrack.

Barmbrack is a traditional Irish spiced fruit bread.  I found this recipe years ago and made it for my father’s cousins on St Paddy’s Day when they were visiting San Francisco almost 30 years ago. That was a pretty legendary dinner with about a dozen of us eating Beef Braised in Guinness and consuming a couple  I've been making it ever since. It’s delicious sliced, toasted and buttered – or you can eat it on its own.

Traditionally, the fruit is soaked overnight in 2 cups of strong Irish tea.  Being the non-traditionalist I can sometimes be, I soak the fruit in 2 cups of Irish whisky overnight.  I’ve made it both ways and really prefer the whisky version the best!

This year, I also have Irish flour and Irish butter for the making.

Wish me luck!

Barmbrack

  • 3 ½ cups mixed dried fruit (raisins, golden raisins, sultanas, currants, candied peel)
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 2 tsp active dry yeast
  • 3 cups bread flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup butter (Kerrygold or Plugra European style butter!)
  • 1 beaten egg
  • 2 tsp mixed spices (allspice, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon…)

Soak the dried fruit in 2 cups of Irish whisky (or strong Irish Tea) overnight.

Warm the milk slightly (no more than 110°.) Stir in the teaspoon of sugar and the yeast and let proof about 10 minutes.

Mix the flour, salt and brown sugar in a large bowl. Rub in the butter or margarine. Add the yeast, the beaten egg and the spice. Drain any remaining liquid from the fruit and add the fruit to the mixture. Mix well to make a smooth dough (add more flour if the mixture is too wet).

Turn the dough onto a floured board and knead it thoroughly.  (I use my KitchenAid and mix about 6 minutes.) Place the dough in a well-greased 8”-9” springform pan, cover with a cloth, and leave in a warm place to rise for 45 – 60 minutes or until doubled in size.

Place the pan in a preheated 350° oven and bake for about 50 minutes. The loaf will be ready when it sounds hollow when you tap on it.

Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack before serving.


Bacon and Tomato Swirl Bread

03-05-15-burger

It's snowing outside, so I stayed home from work, today. I actually had every intention of going in, but when I went out at 6:30am to check things out, our driveway and street were sheets of ice, and my neighbor across the street had her car stuck in the middle of the street. A few pushes and grunts got her back into her driveway, but it set the tone for my drive down the hill to work. Down the hill. A winding, 2-lane road-hill.

At 23, I would have jumped into the car and slalomed into work. At almost 63, I'm no longer quite as reckless. The mind is willing but the recovery takes so much longer...

So... with a free day off and nowhere to go, I decided it was time for some baking. I'm still working on getting my mom's cook books together and one of the recipes I have rediscovered is for a Bacon and Tomato Swirl bread. It's another one that is extremely easy and totally rocks. The recipe makes 2 loaves or 12 buns. Or, in my case, one loaf and 6 buns.

Bacon and Tomato. In bread. I mean, really. How could one resist? Did I mention it was an easy dough to make?

Naturally, I had all the ingredients necessary, so I set to work.

I didn't think to take pictures of the making of the bread and rolls, but suffice to say that it's pretty effortless.

The rolls came out great, albeit a bit irregularly shaped.

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But boy-oh-boy were they good!

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Really light with lots and lots of flavor. I see more of these in our future. They held together perfectly and would definitely lend themselves to any number of fillings.

I haven't sliced into the loaf, yet. I'm saving it for dinner...

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As is typical of me, I more-or-less followed the recipe. The key to this one is watching how much flour goes in - and that is going to be determined by the amount of bacon fat and liquid in your tomatoes. I used just under 4 cups of flour and had a relatively soft dough.

And since I made buns, I decided that I needed to grill hamburgers for lunch.

Damn the snow!

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The grill is covered.

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Cold, but covered. We do grill year-round, especially during snow-storms. It's kinda a rule.

The burgers were excellent. I loaded mine up with sprouts. Victor and Nonna won't touch them, but I love 'em.

As for the bread... the recipe calls for "1 can (1 pound) tomatoes." I used a 14 1/2 oz can of diced tomatoes in juice. Worked just fine.

bacon-and-tomato-swirl

 


Cake a l’Orange

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Looks are ofttimes deceiving... Take that gorgeous slice of cake right there. One could look at it and imagine the beautiful cake it came from.

Or... one could imagine the mess I made when I flipped it out of its pan.

One could also imagine the words that came out of my mouth when I flipped it out of its pan and it went sliding across the island in a pile of crumbs. But that would not be a good thing, because they were not very nice words.

I baked a cake my mom made now and again - an orange cake with an orange and Cointreau glaze. Very simple and really really tasty. It's baked in a tube pan and calls for a glaze to be poured on while it's warm. I wanted to glaze it on its plate, so I took it out of the pan but it still had the bottom and the tube attached. Like an idiot, I tried flipping it, it slipped, and it went sailing. Did I mention bad words? When Nonna was retelling the story to Victor, she said "And he wouldn't tell me the words he said."

They were not nice words.

But the cake came out, in spite of my stupidity.

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I semi-placed it back together and glued it with the glaze.

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Parts of it were a little worse for wear, but, hell... It's cake. It's all edible even if it's not that pretty.

Cake a l'Orange

  • 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 2 sticks butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 3 eggs, separated
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 tbsp grated orange rind
  • 1/4 cup orange juice
  • 1/3 cup Cointreau or Grand Marnier

Preheat oven to 350°.

Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.

Beat butter, 1 cup sugar,, and egg yolks in a large bowl until; light and fluffy.

Add orange rind and mix.

Add flour mixture alternately with sour cream starting and ending with flour.

Beat egg whites in small bowl until stiff but not dry. Fold into batter and spoon into a greased 9" tube pan.

Bake about 50 minutes or until pick comes out clean.

For Glaze:

Combine orange juice and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in small saucepan and heat until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and add 1/3 cup Cointreau. Slowly pour over warm cake and let soak in.

Cool completely.

It really is good.