Brown Rice Crispy Bars w/ Fruit and Nuts

I'm ashamed to admit it, but a decent percentage of my meals/snacks come in bar form. I stock up on Luna Bars and other packaged carb bars like it's going out of style. I'm just happy that bar-food (not to be confused with the other type of bar food, as in the kind that goes with happy hour) has improved since those original protein bars that were approximately the consistency of cardboard and glue. At least they're better than a candy bar for a late afternoon snack before my run.

But over the last couple of months I've been trying to make my own bars, to varying degrees of success. Granola bars were not my friend. (They went from bar to crumble in about 2 seconds.) These brown rice crispy bars are very friendly on the other hand. They come together quickly, require no baking, and are done in less than an hour.

And even though they're healthy (well other than those marshmallows, but something has to hold all those nutrients together), they're still amazingly chewy, with a little sweet/tart kick from the dried berries, and a good crunch from the almonds. No one will even realize the rice is brown, the sugar is reduced, and the fat is the healthy kind. Trust me. I've eaten them for dessert, snacks, and breakfast. But mostly I pack them up and bring them to share with my running group.



Brown Rice Crispy Bars w/ Fruit and Nuts
Adapted from Alton Brown, Food Network

Brown puffed rice is not the same as brown crispy rice. I've made these with both, but if you do use brown crispy rice, the measurements will be off. I remedied this by adding the crispy rice to the marshmallow mixture slowly until it felt like the marshmallow goop couldn't absorb any more crispy rice. You also probably don't need to toast the crispy rice, although I'm dubious of the need to toast the puffed rice too.

Ingredients:
3 oz. (6 cups) puffed brown rice
3 oz. (3/4 cup) almonds, toasted and chopped
4 oz. (1 cup) dried fruit (I prefer half cherries, half cranberries)
7 oz. (4 cups) mini marshmallows
3 tbs. flax seed oil, plus more for pan
1 tbs. honey

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
-Line a 13X9X2 in. pan with foil, and lightly coat with oil.
-Spread the brown puffed rice on a sheet pan and toast for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.
-Combine the rice, almonds, and dried fruit in a large bowl.
-In a metal mixing bowl over a pot of gently simmering water, combine the marshmallows, flax seed oil, and honey. Be patient. You don't want the flax seed oil to get too hot or it will taste terrible. So keep stirring, keep the heat low, and don't try to do this in a pan directly on the burner.
-When the marshmallow is thoroughly melted and the oil is well mixed in, add the rice mixture and store to coat evenly.
-Coat the back of a spatula or a wooden spoon with oil and use that to press the mixture into the foil-lined pan evenly.
-Let cool completely before cutting into bars. Store in an airtight container for 1 to 2 days. (After that the flax seed oil can make the bars taste bad.)

Noodle Pudding

I have been a very bad blogger lately. I apologize. But of course, I'm always ready with an excuse. I'm working on a BIG, food-related project that resulted in my hands looking like this:



If you can't tell the palms are dyed red. Not a good look on me...or anyone really. I'll post the project this weekend. (Hopefully.) But if you're curious, it involves baking, layers, and obviously a lot of food coloring.

Another reason for my lack of blogging is that several of my recent dinners turned out to be better in theory than in reality. Such as the chicken stroganoff I made to use these egg noodles with in the first place. But it was pretty horrible, so I decided to repurpose the egg noodles. This is a great recipe for an cooked, leftover pasta that uses things you probably have on hand already. It's not a very fancy dessert, but it doesn't have too much sugar in it (and I used skim milk and low-fat sour cream) so it can be a pretty good treat for the middle of the week.

This recipe is really flexible. I reduced the amount of milk in the original recipe to add the sour cream, but you can use two cups of milk and no sour cream. You can use raisins instead of dried cranberries, or any other dry fruit, or no fruit at all. But that would probably taste pretty boring. You can change the spices. Next time I think I'll try adding some cardamom and white raisins.

Now I'm going to go make some chicken soup and watch reruns, because I've come down with a nasty little cold.

Noodle Pudding
Adapted from The Minimalist column in the NYT, written by Mark Bittman (I know I need to start reading other people's recipes)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tbs. unsalted butter
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup low-fat sour cream
1/2 of a 1 lb. box/bag of pasta or noodles, cooked (about 4 cups)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
2 eggs

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
-In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, warm the milk, butter, sugar and spices. When the butter is melted, remove from the heat, and whisk in the sour cream. Let cool.
-While the milk heats, butter a small baking dish. Put the noodles into the baking dish with the dried cranberries. Toss the noodles and the cranberries to combine.
-When the milk mixture is cool, whisk in the eggs.
-Pour the milk mixture over the noodles.
-Bake for 45 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Holiday Packages + Dark Chocolate Fudge

Last night I had a marathon baking/making night. I was in the kitchen for seven hours. I was determined to finish the rest of the goodies for my first round of holiday packages so that I could send them out. Did this happen? No. I still have two cookies to make. But I did leave the easy ones for last.

But just in case you're curious about what is going in the packages (at least the first round)...

Holiday Packages:
Candied Pecans + Almonds
Dark Chocolate Almond Fudge
Gingerbread Stars
Vanilla + Peppermint Marshmallows
Hot Coco Mix
Pecan Biscotti
Sesame Seed Cookies

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not actually making the hot coco mix, although I might put it in some sort of pretty packaging. I did make the marshmallows though, and o what an experience that was, but I will save the story for another post. Stay tuned for the rest of the recipes and some packaging tips.

For now, here is a ridiculously easy recipe for dark chocolate and almond fudge from Katie over at Good Things Catered. This wins the award for the easiest treat in the package. It is very, very rich but not too sweet. I'm not a huge fan of fudge usually, but this tastes a little bit more like a chocolate bar to me. Why make it if it tastes like a dark chocolate with almond bar you can buy at the store? Because I can put in holiday packages if I make it. Also, did I mention how ridiculously easy this is? (Especially in retrospect, now that I've made marshmallows.)

Dark Chocolate Almond Fudge
From Good Things Catered

Ingredients:
3 cups high quality dark chocolate, chopped (I used half Scharffen Berger 70%, half Ghirardelli 60%)
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup almonds, coarsely chopped (next time I will increase this to about 1 1/2 cups)

EDIT NOTE: Add 3/4 cup of dried cranberries (when you add the almonds) for a sweet and tangy addition to this fudge that is highly recommended.

Directions:
-Line an 8X8 or similar sized pan with aluminum foil and coat with non stick cooking spray.
-Combine dark chocolate and condensed milk in a double boiler over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. (You can use a metal or plastic bowl placed on top of a sauce pan. Put about an inch or two of water in the saucepan, but it should not be high enough to touch the bottom of the bowl.)
-When it is melted and smooth, remove from the heat and stir in salt, vanilla, and almonds.
-Pour the chocolate into the prepared pan, smooth the top, and put it in the fridge for about 2 hours or over night.
-To slice: Remove from the fridge, remove from the pan, pull off the foil, and slice into pieces using a sharp, straight edged knife.
-Store at room temperature, covered.

Cran-Apple Pie...Better Than Raisin

It's really all in the title, everything you need to know.

This is my replacement for that goofy raisin pie on my original Thanksgiving menu that turned out to be such a dud. But this pie wasn't just better than the raisin pie, it was really great, in my humble opinion. I love the slight sweetness and the tangy tartness in this pie. I like apple pie by itself, but the addition of the fresh cranberries made this a much more interesting dessert with a more complex flavor. I did use the pie crust recipe from the raisin pie though, and it was nice and flaky.

I have been using fresh cranberries so much lately, I don't know what I'm going to do when they disappear from the markets. I think I might have to stock up on them and freeze them to make them last longer!

Cran-Apple Pie
Makes 1 standard pie

Ingredients:
2 1⁄2 cups flour
1⁄2 tsp. salt
2 tbs. sugar+ extra for the top
1⁄2 lb. chilled butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup ice cold water
4 cups tart apples, cored and sliced (about 5 medium apples)
1 cup fresh cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbs. orange juice
2 tbs. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 egg white

Directions:
-Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. Cut the chilled butter into very small pieces and add to flour mixture. Cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender or two knives until the butter is in pieces the size of peas. Add ice-cold water to the mixture a few tablespoons at a time until the dough comes together. Form the dough into two balls, wrap in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for at least two hours.
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
-Combine apples, cranberries, sugar, orange juice, cornstarch cinnamon and nutmeg, and toss until combined.
-Roll out each piece of dough separately. (This is easier between two pieces of parchment paper.)
-Place the first piece of dough in the pie dish, pour in the fillings. Cover the top of the pie with the second piece of dough and seal the edges. Cut four vent holes in the top of the pie. Place the pie on a cookie sheet to catch any overflow from the pie.
-Brush the top 0f the pie with the egg white and then sprinkle with sugar.
-Bake for 45 minutes. Cover the crust with foil if it starts to get too dark.

NOTE:For a larger, deep dish pie multiply the recipe by 1.5 and bake covered with foil for 30 minutes, then uncovered for 30 minutes more.

A Thanksgiving Miracle, Accomplished

I'm happy to report that we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My family, good friends, and good food. There was a lot of laughing and good times, I am so thankful that my family and my best friends could be here. I love cooking, but more than that, I love sharing what I make with the people I love, so thank you Mom, Dad, Maxx, Jake, Donald, Nic, Carrie, Alec, Taylor, and Chris! And a BIG thank you to Poppop, who sent down pumpkin pie, cookies, and banana bread so my life would be a little easier.

I am thankful that we were blessed and able to enjoy this holiday during these tough economic times, because as Mom said last night, "By next year we might all be eating pigeon."
Even if we are, I will still be thankful for the family and friends. Besides, they make delicious pigeon in Egypt, I bet I can find a recipe for it...

Where to start with the food? I guess the logical place to start would be the turkey. I made a 13 lb. cider-brined turkey and two 4lb. turkey roulades. An unscientific poll came up 50-50 over the favorite. As final judge and arbiter, I'm giving the first-place, blue ribbon turkey prize to the cider-brined whole turkey (which I don't have a picture of yet, but I will get one up as soon as I get reports from my unofficial photogs for the evening). It was very moist and flavorful because of the brine, and it was considerably easier--just plop it in the bag with the brine for 24 hours, take it out, stick some oranges and herbs in the cavity, and roast.

The turkey roulade, on the other hand, required de-boning (ok, the butcher actually did that part for me, but I had to ask, twice!), pounding flat with a rolling pin, filling with stuffing and rolling up and tying with little pieces of string. In fairness though, the turkey roulade was delicious also, and it was quite a few peoples favorite, including Nic's. So it will be awarded a second-place ribbon and a permanent page protector in my recipe binder. (Where do recipes who do not earn a page protector go, you might ask. They get stuffed in the side pockets, become splattered with food, crumbled, and sometimes lost or forgotten. A sad fate.)

I know no one even wants to think about making turkey the Friday after Thanksgiving, but for the sake of preserving history, and my recipes in case I ever lose that binder, I'm going to post both recipes today. Feel free to ignore for the next 364 days, unless you are a turkey for Christmas person. In which case, this might be useful sooner.

Cider-Brined Turkey
Ingredients:
Brine
9 cups cider (You can use water if you don't have cider.)
1 cup kosher salt
1 tbs. black peppercorns
1 tbs. all spice
6 cloves
2 bay leaves
7 cups of ice

Aromatics
1 orange, quartered
1 onion, quartered
bunch of sage
bunch of rosemary
salt/pepper
olive oil
butter

Directions:
-Boil cider and the rest of the brine ingredients, except ice, for 5 minutes.
-Remove from heat and add ice.
-Remove neck and other innards, rinse turkey, and place turkey, breast side down, in large plastic bag (a trash bag works, but double bag to be safe).
-The brine should be cool from the ice. Pour brine over turkey. Cinch bag with rubber band and place in the fridge for 24 hours.
24 hours later...
-Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
-Remove turkey from brine and rinse. Place on a roasting rack, tuck the wings underneath the body. Stuff herbs in the bottom of the cavity, then fill with oranges and onion.
-Run your hand between the skin and the breast meat of the turkey. Stuff two small pads of butter between the skin and breast on each side. Now tie together the turkey legs with kitchen twine.
-Brush the outside of the turkey with olive oil and sprinkle with salt (just a little!) and pepper.
-Roast for 20-30 minutes in 500 degree oven, until the turkey is nicely browned. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue to roast until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast registers 165-170 degrees. Don't wait for the little pop-up to pop if you have one. The turkey will already be a little overcooked usually if you wait for that.
-Remove the turkey from the roasting pan and tent with foil. Let rest at least 30 minutes so the juices redistribute before you carve it.
-In the meantime, tip the roasting pan and skim some of the fat off the pan drippings. Stradle the roasting pan over two burners on medium heat. Add about 1 cup dry red wine (or white wine, or turkey stock, or vermouth...) to the pan drippings and reduce by half. Strain the pan drippings and reserve juices to serve with turkey or to add to gravy base.

Notes:
-The turkey has to be defrosted before you brine it, or the brine won't really have the same effect.
-After you put the brine in the bag, try to pull the bag snug around the bird so that the brine is in contact with at least most of the bird. This is why you put it in breast side down, so you are at least sure the white meat, which tends to be what gets dry, is totally covered by the brine. (Credit where credit is due, the upside-down brining technique was Nic's idea.)

Turkey Roulade w/ Cranberry Stuffing
Adapted (i.e. simplified) from Gourmet
Ingredients:
Stuffing
2 cups diced baguette
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 tsp. finely chopped garlic
2 tsp. finely chopped fresh sage
1 1/2 tsp. salt (I didn't measure this)
3/4 teaspoon black pepper (I didn't measure this either)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 large egg
1/4 cup whole milk

Turkey and Sauce
1 (4 1/2- to 5-lb) boneless turkey breast half with skin
1/2 cup medium-dry Sherry
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1 cup apple cider

Directions:
Stuffing
-Preheat oven to 350°F.
-Toast bread cubes on a baking sheet until dry and just beginning to brown around edges, 12 to 15 minutes.
-Put cranberries and water in a small heavy saucepan over low heat and simmer uncovered until cranberries are rehydrated and all the water is absorbed, about 8-10 minutes. Remove from heat. (Drain any water that doesn't absorb.)
-Cook celery, onion, garlic, and sage, in 2 tbs. butter in a skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat to let cool.
-Whisk together egg and milk in a large bowl, then add bread cubes, cranberries, and onion mixture, and season with salt and pepper. Let the bread absorb all of the liquid and let stuffing cool.

Turkey
-Arrange turkey, skin side up, on a work surface with narrower, pointed end nearest you. Determine which long side of the breast is thickest, then, starting from that side and holding knife parallel to work surface, cut breast horizontally almost in half, stopping 1 inch from other side. Open breast like a book and put between 2 sheets of plastic wrap
-Pound turkey to 1-inch thickness with flat side of a meat pounder or with a rolling pin.
-Spread stuffing evenly over turkey, leaving a 1-inch border on all sides. Start rolling the turkey from the skin-less half toward the half with the skin, so that the skin ends up on the outside of the roll.

-Arrange rolled turkey breast seam side down, then tie crosswise at 1-inch intervals with string.
-In a heavy skillet, sear the roulade, seam side down first. Brown all sides of the roulade. If your skillet is oven safe and has high sides you can put it directly into the oven. Otherwise transfer the roulade to a roasting pan.

Pan sauce
-Combine sherry, soy sauce, cloves, bay leaf and apple cider.
-Pour this over the roulade, then cover the roulade with foil.
-Roast in 350 degree oven until the internal temperature reaches 170 degrees, about one hour.
-When the turkey is cooked, remove from roasting pan and tent with foil. Let the meat rest at least 20 minutes so the juices redistribute.
-In the meantime, stradle the roasting pan over two burners and reduce by half. Pour through a strainer and reserve the juices to serve with the roulade.

Notes:
-You could brine the turkey breasts, using the cider-brine from the whole turkey, before assembling the roulade. This is what I will do next time to get the best of both. Although, as Mom said, this might make this recipe dangerously good.
-You can toast the bread cubes and flatten out the turkey breasts the night before.
-I did 1.5X the stuffing recipe for two turkey breasts that totaled about 6.5 lbs. This was the perfect amount for that much turkey. Then I made an additional 6X the recipe for a side, but I reduced the cranberries, using only 2 cups for the total 12 cups of bread cubes. That was plenty of cranberries in a side-dish stuffing.

Cranberry-Orange Bread for Bribery

Monday night, after my lovely book club trailed out the door and after I cleaned up, I remembered that I had promised to bake something for my office as a Thanksgiving treat. It was 10 p.m. and I had had some red wine, but I was determined not to disappoint. I have this theory that bringing snacks to work gives me a smidgen of extra job security. I'm not delusional. I still work really hard to do a good job. But I figure if times get tight, and they have to lay someone off, and they are choosing between me and someone else, and we both do the same work equally as well... then I'll have the edge. Because I bake bread. With this in mind I pulled my gigantic, five-pound bag of cranberries (I love Costco) out of the fridge at 10:15 p.m.

By 11:15 I had one normal size loaf and four mini-loaves of cranberry-orange bread. My pre-work taste test the next morning was a thumbs up. Cranberry and orange zest might be my new favorite flavor combination for the holidays, which is good news because I have a lot of cranberries left. (The scones from earlier this week were also this flavor.) The bread was deliciously tart, and the overall texture was very light for quick bread, which can sometimes get a little cakey. I was impressed with how good this tasted considering the relatively small amount of butter and sugar. Nic found it to be a little bit too tart, so I might consider adding few tablespoons of sugar to the cranberries before I mix them into the dough next time. If you don't like tart, you should definitely do this. If you are big fan of tart cranberries (like me), you can probably leave the recipe as is.


Cranberry-Orange Bread
Adapted from Good Things Catered
Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour*
1/2 cup granulated sugar (+ 2-3 tbs. for sweeter, less tart bread)
1 tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbs. grated orange zest
2/3 cup orange juice
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 tbs. unsalted butter, melted
1 1/4 cup fresh cranberries, coursely chopped

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
-Sift together flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
-Use a vegetable peeler to remove the zest from an orange, then finely chop the zest. Add zest to the flour mixture.
-In a small bowl, combine orange juice, eggs, and butter.
-If adding sugar to the cranberries, combine 2 to 3 tbs. sugar with chopped cranberries in a small bowl.
-Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
-Fold in cranberries.
-Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. (Mini loaves take 35-40 minutes.)

*You can use 2 cups of all purpose flour if you prefer, but I find that half and half does not compromise the flavor or texture too much.

Note: I asked Katie, from Good Things Catered, if letting the bread chill on the counter wrapped up in plastic wrap, changed the flavor, since her original recipe called for doing this. She said: "If you wait a day or two [to eat the bread] the flavors meld and the bread ends up tasting a *bit* sweeter because of it. But not by much. It is fresh cranberry, so you could add some more sugar if you like." Thanks Katie! (P.S. Not only do we share a name, but she is also part Lebanese on her dad's side. Crazy, right?)

Best Scones in the World, in My Opinion

If you ever bake one thing I post on this blog, make it these scones. These are the single most worthy use of flour, butter, and sugar I have ever offered up here. These scones are the perfect combination of tart and sweet and they are SO light and moist, especially for scones which tend to be a little on the dry side. You don't even need clotted cream or jam or butter or whatever else it is you normally put on your scones if you eat these when they are fresh out of the oven. I made one batch (which only yielded about 8 scones), and then decided I better make another, they are that good.

I made these this weekend and flash freezed them on the baking sheet (before baking), then put them in ziploc bags to store in the freezer until Friday morning. I actually picked this recipe because there was a note that said you could bake the scones right out of the freezer, which sounded like about the right amount of work for the Friday morning after Thanksgiving.

Then I spent the rest of my Sunday in the kitchen making turkey stock and snacks for book club tomorrow. (Why host one dinner a week when you can host two?) Neither the stock nor the snacks were as inspiring as the scones, although I did remember why I hate making mini-anything--it is 20X more work than making the normal size. Pumpkin pie from a can? Easy. Mini-pumpkin pies from a can? %$*&$%#

Back to the scones. Make them. Technically you can substitute dried cranberries, but I really don't think they would be the same. Also the original recipe called for lemon zest, but by batch number two all my lemons were bald already, so I used orange zest and it worked just as well.



Cranberry Scones
From SmittenKitchen, which adapted from Gourmet
Yield 8 scones
Ingredients:
2 tbs. lemon or orange zest (from about 2 large lemons; or 1 navel orange)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar plus 3 tbs. additional if using fresh cranberries
1 tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 stick (6 tbs.) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 1/4 cups fresh cranberries, chopped coarse (approx. in quarters)
... or 1 1/4 cups dried cranberries (but it won't be as good!)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup heavy cream

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees if baking immediately.
-Peel the lemons or orange with a vegetable peeler, then finely, finely chop the zest.
-Combines the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles a course meal. The easiest way to do this, without a food processor which would really be the easiest way, is to dice the butter very small and make sure each piece is separated before you add them into the flour. The flour will keep them from sticking back together so shake the bowl before adding in more pieces. Then use two knifes to cut the butter pieces even finer.
-In a small bowl combine the chopped cranberries and the sugar, then fold these into the flour mixture. (Don't add sugar if you use dry cranberries, just fold them directly into the flour.)
-In another small bowl beat the eggs and the cream.
-Mix the liquid mixture into the dry mixture, just until combined.
-On a lightly flour surface, dump the dough out and press it into a 1 inch thick circle with your hands. Using the top of a glass that has been dusted with flour, or a circular cookie/biscuit cutter, cut out scones and place them on a baking sheet that has been lined with parchment paper. Gather the scraps and reform into 1 inch thick circle as needed until all the scones are formed.
-If baking immediately, bake in 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until a pale golden color.
-If freezing, place baking sheet in the freezer for at least one hour or until the scones are hard and frozen. Place the scones in a freezer bag until ready to bake. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until a pale golden color.
-Serve as soon as they are cool enough to handle.

EDIT NOTE 11/28: Baking these straight from the freezer didn't work that well. I would defrost them on the cookie sheet the night before. Otherwise the outside is browned before the inside is cooked.

Irish Soda Bread w/ Dried Cranberries

Sometimes, in over ambitious moments, I buy ingredients because I plan to make something. Like when I bought buttermilk to make a pumpkin butterscotch layer cake on a Friday night to bring to a friend's house Saturday morning. (Never happened.) Then I have a quart of buttermilk sitting in the fridge giving me the evil eye every time I open the door. I can hear it saying, "I'm going to go bad and smell awful and make you feel guilty for wasting me." Drives me nuts. And it's not like you can just throw some buttermilk on your cereal in the morning.

Then I saw this recipe that called for buttermilk on blog I like to read, herbivoracious, and it had about 15 less steps than the pumpkin butterscotch layer cake, and I don't even want to guess how many less calories. So last night when I got an unexpected reprieve from cooking dinner, I decided to make this so my oven didn't get lonely. It seriously took me about 10 minutes, start to finish, including washing the bowl, and there is only one bowl to wash. I really don't know why I ever made bread with yeast. This is just as good and there is no rising and kneading (well there's a little kneading, but nothing intense.) And there is no chance the bread will rise too much, overflow the bowl and make a mess. Not that I ever do that.

The bread was delicious for breakfast this morning with a little bit of butter. It's not a sweet bread but a nice hearty bread with a little tangy sweetness around the edges because of the cranberries. It is little bit denser than yeast bread, but not that much denser. (And if you live around here, where you can't buy decent bread even if your life depends on it, then it is probably lighter than some of the bread you've eaten.) A much better way to make buttermilk into breakfast than pouring it on your cereal. I will definitely be making this again, maybe with something else folded in instead of cranberries or maybe plain.

Irish Soda Bread w/ Dried Cranberries
Adapted from herbivoracious, which adapted from Saveur magazine. Go ahead adapt your own.

Ingredients:
2 cups pastry flour*
2 cups whole wheat flour
4 tbs. sugar (use 2 tbs. for a plain loaf)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
4 tbs. butter, cool
1 cup dried cranberries
1 egg, beaten
2 cups buttermilk

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
-Sift together flours, sugar, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl.
-Cut in butter using two knifes until the butter is in very small little chunks (smaller than a pea).
-Mix in the egg and buttermilk with a spoon. A loose dough should form. It should be sticky but able to hold the shape of a ball.
-Add the dried cranberries and knead them into the dough. You can do this in the bowl.
-Grease a cookie sheet and place the ball of dough on the center.** Cut an X in the top with a sharp knife.
-Bake for 40 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow. (Internal temperature should be 180 degrees, if you have a meat thermometer you can use).

*herbivoracious notes that the pastry flour will make a more tender bread, but you can basically use 4 cups of any flour. I trusted him on this and used the pastry flour, and my bread was very tender indeed.

**The loaf pictured is half of this recipe. You can make it all as one loaf or you can divide it in half and make two smaller loaves. When making smaller loaves, it takes slightly less time to cook, 30-35 minutes.

Ready to Race w/ My "Power" Muffins

I am gearing up to run the Baltimore half marathon this Saturday. I'm not packed, and I haven't checked the weather yet, but I did bake these awesome "power" muffins to munch on. (For good luck, I baked them after a run while I was still in my running clothes. I don't necessarily recommend that if you plan on sharing these with others.)

And if you don't run, these muffins are a pretty healthy alternative to the store bought variety anyway. No butter, no shortening, minimal sugar, and whole wheat flour. Plus fruits and vegetables.

Edit: My friend pointed out that I didn't mention if they actually taste good. Well of course they taste good! I wouldn't post something if it tasted horrible. But for more detail: they aren't really sweet because of the minimal sugar, but they are yummy, especially with the added texture and sweetness of the fruit. They taste healthy, but not in a bad way, in a way that makes you feel like you just cheated the system because you ate something that tastes good and is good for you. They aren't as cakey crumbly as store bought muffins, but they are moist. And they leave you feeling full for a pretty long time.

I will begrudingly consume gu packets and sports drinks, and maybe even a straight salt packet, while I'm actually running Saturday, because muffins are a little too hard to eat on the run, but for some pre-race carbo-loading I'll be going with my muffins. I found the basic recipe on my favorite non-food related Web site, Runnersworld.com, in an article called Stud Muffins, and used it to create two different muffins: blueberry and carrot-craisin. I bought flax seeds with the intention of using them when I made these to make them even more healthy, but I totally forgot about them. Next time.



Power Muffins
Adapted from Runnersworld.com

Ingredients:
2 cups whole-grain flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup skim milk
1/2 cup applesauce
For Blueberries Muffins, add:
1 cup frozen blueberries
2 tsp. vanilla

For Carrot-Craisin Muffins, add:
1 cup shredded carrot
3/4 cup chopped craisins

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease a muffin pan with cooking spray or fill with paper muffin cups.
-Mix the first five dry ingredients in a large bowl. Beat the eggs and mix in the milk and applesauce in a separate bowl.
-Add wet ingredients to the dry mix. Stir until combined, then fold in fruit.
-Spoon into muffin tin. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until muffin tops are golden brown.


Aziza.

Let the baking begin: Cran-Almond Bready Bars

As you can see, I baked something. That might seem like a "so what?" but I hinted at my Achilles heel in the potato soup entry. I hate to admit it, but I don't really bake. I have "successfully" baked two things in my life: pumpkin cheesecake (and I almost smoked us out of the apartment on that one, but it was delicious) and chocolate-raspberry cheesecake bars. They were great and I enjoyed them both thoroughly, but the key was they did not involve the normal baking ingredients, you know flour, baking soda, baking powder, etc.

My main deterrent from baking was that I was always afraid to bake because I didn't want to screw it up. When you cook, you can throw in what you want, and as long as the ingredients 1)taste good together and 2)are in somewhat reasonable proportion to each other, you end up with something edible and hopefully amazing. Baking is just more finicky. I was the little girl who wore overalls, and baking seemed to belong in the domain of the little girls who wore flowered dresses and patent leather shoes, if you know what I mean.

I learned most of what you need to know about the basics of cooking from my Mom, Mommom, and Grandmom Julie, when I was growing up. Armed with that knowledge, I feel confident experimenting with my cooking. But baking? Well, none of the aforementioned cooking mentors really baked all that much. I give my Mom credit, she made birthday cakes, but I remember her painstaking decorations on top more than the cake inside (she's an artist). And once a year, around Easter, my mom made sweet bread in the shape of a bunny (again sculpture emphasized more than baking), and Grandmom Julie made the infamous cheese bread. But once or twice a year does not a baker make.

My secondary baking deterrent was that I would rather eat a bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy for dessert than a cookie. I like sweets, I really do, but I prefer my highly-fattening carbs savory most of the time.

But now that I have a blog and my own kitchen, I felt like I needed to conquer my fear of baking. Sometimes things will turn out, sometimes they won't. (When they don't, obviously I will not post them, except for maybe to lament my failure, but with a clear disclaimer NOT to try this at home.) And I do have at least a few baking genes in me. My Poppop is a great baker; he was a baker in the Navy during WWII. And since he has entrusted me with the family cannoli recipe, which will make an appearance here around Christmas, the least I can do is try to become half the baker he is.

And maybe it was beginner's luck, but my first effort turned out awesome. Cran-Almond Bready Bars. Moist, crumbly, lots of texture from the cranberries and the chopped almonds, and a tangy, sweet, smooth touch of cream cheese icing. Why not call them cake bars? Because I was trying to make cranberry almond bread, and then realized I didn't have a bread pan... because I don't bake, or rather I didn't bake. So when in a pinch, make due with what you have. I had a baking dish, hence the bars. And once they were in bar form, I figured some icing wouldn't hurt. So obviously, if you do have a bread pan you can try this recipe in that, which is what I will do next time I make it.

As an aside: this is an original recipe, but I looked around online for awhile to figure out the right proportions of flour to sugar to wet ingredients and so on. Not that I'm claiming this is rocket science or a break through in baked goods, but I'm not plagiarizing. (I'm a journalist for goodness sake!)


Ingredients:
For the cake bars
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground all spice
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1 cup chopped cranberries
1/2 cup chopped almonds
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup apple sauce

For the cream cheese icing
8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8X11 baking dish.
-Add together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, all spice and cloves in large mixing bowl. Mix in cranberries and almonds.
-In a separate bowl mix egg, oil and apple sauce.
-Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.
-Pour mixture into baking dish and bake on 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
-Cool in baking dish for ten minutes, then remove to wire rack to continue cooling.
-Whip together cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar and vanilla until it is light and fluffy.
-Ice and slice!

*NOTE: These received a warm welcome at the office. Success!