With our split pea soup dinner the other night, we surely didn’t NEED more carbs. But actually split pea soup is fairly low on the carb scale, believe it or not. And these biscuits were downright tasty – with a bit of minced-up ham (which could be eliminated if you didn’t have any) and some crumbles of goat cheese mixed through it. As with most quick breads, the least amount of stirring or kneading you can do will provide the lightest and flakiest texture. These are no exception. You can see a little blip of goat cheese in the closest biscuit on the lower right edge.

Obviously, this is a good choice if you happen to have a leftover ham (I did), some goat cheese (yes, I had that too), and some cornmeal (yup, that always lives in my pantry). These aren’t overly cornmeal-y, if there is such a word, but you definitely do get the granular kind of crunch of cornmeal with every bite. And a great accompaniment to a bowl of hot soup.

A year ago: Steak & Mushroom Soup
Two years ago: White Lady (a tasty alcoholic drink)

Is there some salivating going on looking at that photo of Irish Soda Bread? Should be. Especially if you were here on my end of the camera and you could smell the fresh-out-of-the-oven aroma of this bread. There surely are lots of ISB recipes out there. I even have one here on my blog. But it wasn’t as good as this one -  THIS recipe from Ina Garten. And it’s not all that different (it is made with buttermilk just like the other one) except that it contains some grated orange zest and a bit more butter. Orange zest is non-traditional, but Ina was kind of cute and cheeky when I watched her make this a week or so ago on her show when she said she likes orange zest, and so what if it’s non-traditional. It tastes good, and that’s all that’s necessary to make the addition! You can see a little bit of the orange in the bread if you look closely.

It’s very easy to make. Really it is. Almost no handling at all. Ina recommended mixing it up in a stand mixer, although surely it could be done by hand, even. Once all the ingredients are added the wet dough is rolled out onto a floured board and you literally knead it about 4-5 times adding a bit more flour if needed (mine didn’t except to keep it from sticking to the countertop), shape it into a round (I did an oblong kind of shape – this isn’t an exact thing) and into a 375 oven it goes for 45-55 minutes. I took it out at 45 and it was plum-perfect! Not only did we eat it with our ham dinner, but we had some with an elegant cheese course which was served afterwards.

Ina mentioned how fabulous this bread is as morning toast. We did have one small end leftover from our Sunday dinner and we had it for breakfast. Oh my yes. Loved it.

A year ago: About my Kindle
Two years ago: Coriander Lime Shrimp (oh yes, delish)

As part of the lore of baking, I had always heard or read that once you combine the baking leavening agent (baking powder or baking soda) with any wet ingredients, you’ve got to bake it right away. Because the leavening will do its thing and die otherwise. Well, there’s something wrong with that reasoning, because this recipe, for a make-ahead coffee cake – WITH both baking powder and baking soda contained in it, can sit overnight in the refrigerator and in the morning it bakes and rises just fine. How come? I don’t know. Maybe somebody with more of a cooking chemistry background can answer the question!

Over the years that my DH has been in his men’s Bible study group, whenever it’s his turn to host, I scramble to find something that will work. Usually I have to bake something the day before and Dave reheats it in the oven for a short time in the morning, or I’ve gotten up at some really unreasonable hour in order to prepare and bake something so it’s ready to serve by 6:45 am. But neither option has been ideal. So when I saw this recipe online recently I knew I’d make this the next time Dave hosts the group.

This makes two 9-inch (round or 8-inch square ones) pans of coffeecake. You can halve it, as I did, but the other option is to freeze one of them in batter form (up to a month) and just add 10 minutes to the baking time when you bake it from a frozen state. I mean, is that easy, or what?

Leave it to the folks at Cook’s Illustrated (aka America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Country) to develop a make-ahead bakery item that works. I subscribe to an email from Cook’s Illustrated (although I don’t pay for an online subscription, just the magazine) and it was sent out with one of them, and the recipe was available then. Not now. I printed it out back then, but did find it online at another site also. But, back to how the make-ahead part works. I pulled out my favorite reference book On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee. It says that using cream of tartar releases 2/3 of its leavening power within 2 minutes of mixing. But if the acid (whatever it is in the batter that provides acid – like buttermilk, yogurt, brown sugar, molasses, fruit juices, vinegar and even chocolate) is not very soluble (so that would likely be yogurt, brown sugar, molasses – not the more liquid of the acids), then it can be held for awhile and only when it’s baked does the leavening begin to work.  Baking powder, on the other hand, is called “double-acting” because it does have some part of it that activates when you mix the batter together, but the other part doesn’t release until it’s in the oven. The book also says that in the restaurant business there is a type of baking powder that contains slow-release acids just so the leavening action doesn’t dissipate while the batter sits, before it’s baked. I’ll have to look at Surfas, the mostly pro cookware and foodstuffs store in Los Angeles, to see if they carry such a thing. Probably in 10 pound boxes. Uhm, no thank you.

So, back to this coffee cake. It was simple enough to prepare, really. I made half a recipe because my freezer is full to the brim. I found the batter to be stiffer than expected, so had a hard time spreading it. In the picture at left – the dough layer in the left-hand photo – you can see where I had to use my fingers to kind of spread it out. On the right side shows the nut streusel on the top. I ended up using my finger to kind of chop off  little globs of batter all over. Then I dampened my fingers with water and spread it out (the water helps the batter from sticking to your fingers). Then you spread the non-nut streusel in the middle. Then the other half of the batter goes on top. I did the same thing with dampened fingers to spread it out. Then the nut enhanced streusel goes on the top and it’s refrigerated. My DH got up at 5:30 so he could bake this. He just had to take the foil cover off the top of the cake pan and pop it in the oven for 45 minutes. It does need to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving. One interesting note about the streusel – the recipe has you make the sugar-flour-cinnamon combo and divide it in half. Half of it gets nuts, which goes on the top only. The info says that in their testing of this recipe they found that the steam the nuts produced in the oven made the batter/dough around them soggy. Interesting, I thought.

And the taste – really good! There are crusty parts on it (from the streusel), which made for good taste contrast. Next time I think I’ll add some cocoa powder in with the streusel – just because I like it. The cinnamon was subtle and I think it could be pumped up a bit. The cake rose perfectly in the oven – amazing! It didn’t look like it was in any way stunted because of overnight refrigeration. Yes, I’d make this again if only because of the ease of it!

A year ago: Leek & Turnip Puree
Two years ago: Shiitake-Crusted Chicken

Aren’t these cute? I bought a new silicone pan the other day – I probably should have placed something in the picture so you could see the relative size of these little guys. They’re small – about 1-inch square. A little bigger than bite-sized. These are lemon and ginger mini-muffins. With a tart lemon glaze on top. The recipe is from an old Bon Appetit, but is credited to the Baldpate Inn in Estes Park, Colorado. I made a couple of changes to the recipe – I added some minced crystallized ginger to the batter and I added the lemon glaze on top. An easy recipe, really. A mixer is not needed, as everything is stirred up by  hand. They’re good. Maybe not sensational, but tasty. My only caution is to not overwork the batter – you know how muffin batters are – they don’t like to be over-handled. Just mix it up until the streaks of flour have disappeared. You can make these in regular muffin tins (in a paper liner) too – that’s how the original recipe makes them.

A year ago: Turkey Meatballs
Two years ago: Gingerbread Pudding Cake

Sorry this photo isn’t better – I’d intended to take more photos – I just plain forgot – and when I remembered, these muffins were all gone – but at least I’d taken this one picture, a real close-up using a new lens. Do notice the little dots of moisture here and there in the muffin  . . .

Nearly every Christmas my cousin Gary from northern California comes to visit. He’s a single guy. Very tech oriented (he’s a retired programmer from Hewlett-Packard), and helps me with lots of little things – giving me instruction about html (the stuff that runs how this website looks) and tweaking my computers. Would you believe I have four computers – five if you count my iphone. (And my DH, Dave, has a computer, but he rarely uses it.) I own two desktops at home, an old laptop (that’s going to be retired soon) and a new netbook I use when I travel. Gary’s a member of Mensa, and in his spare time he tutors high school kids in the programming of robots (for an annual international competition). And he always offers to help me cook too. I’d had several recipes I’d wanted to try but I wasn’t up to it because of my upper respiratory infection. We ate out more than usual during his visit.

Anyway, Gary is wheat intolerant, so when he visits I try to make new things for him to try. This time he took home about four recipes – two he asked for, and two I decided he should try. I did do a bit of cooking on days when I felt good enough, and I made these muffins for him to have with his breakfast. Generally we make a trip to Whole Foods so he can buy some GF crackers and bread. But he ate all of these muffins first and liked them. The recipe came from over at Kalyn’s Kitchen blog. Kalyn adapted the recipe from a GF cookbook called The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana Anderson. Kalyn is a South Beach Diet fan, so no refined sugars, etc.

If you like light, fluffy, traditional muffins made with flour, these might not satisfy you. These are made with almond flour. Not almond MEAL (which I do buy at Trader Joe’s and use for other things), but blanched almond FLOUR, which is a finer milled product – looks and feels a bit more like flour. But of course, it isn’t. The fat content of these muffins is high – but it comes from the natural oils in the nuts (the almond meal and the minced pecans), not from added fat (although there is one T. of oil in it – for six muffins!). So, if you want to tame down carbs, or have a wheat intolerance, give these a try.

A year ago: Pumpkin Cornbread Muffins (also GF, made when my cousin was visiting in 2008)
Two years ago: Roast Lemon Chicken

This is not a new recipe. I posted it here on my blog in 2007, because it’s a family favorite. Or maybe I should just say it’s one of my all-time favorites. You need to like chocolate (the dark spots you see above), walnuts (the brownish bits) and maraschino cherries (they’re not citron, but the bottled red dye maraschino cherries). I took a whole series of photos as I was making it this year, just because I could, and because I had time to fiddle with my tripod and the remote control for my DSLR camera.

With the exception of wrapping gifts, I’m pretty-much ready for Christmas. I have a few more gifts to buy, but it won’t take long to do that part. So now I can sit back and enjoy the rest of the month.

Here’s how you make Bishop’s Bread:

First you start with the add-ins: chocolate chips, walnuts (and I added a few pecans because I didn’t quite have 6 cups of walnuts in my freezer), and maraschino cherries. I wore plastic gloves to handle the cherries, although I buy them at Smart & Final and they’re already halved. How convenient! These go into a mammoth bowl (I made a 3x recipe) and are mixed around.

Then you add in the dry ingredients (well, not the sugar, as it goes in with the eggs). I mixed up all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt. I sifted that mixture over the bowl and used my gloved hand to mix up everything gently, but well. You particularly want flour on the cherries because they’re a wet ingredient and you don’t want the baked batter around the cherries to get soggy.

Then you add in the eggs and sugar, which have been mixed well. I did it in my stand mixer, but you could do it by hand with a whisk just as easily. I use a big spatula to stir the mixture up at this point. You don’t want any visible white flour spots. As hard as I try, I sometimes get some of those anyway. It won’t hurt the flavor – it just doesn’t look all that pretty. You can see a couple of little white spots in the picture below.

The batter is very thick. It’s hard to get it into the pans. I used purchased paper pans and spooned it into each pan to just under the height of the pans. Level them as best you can.

After 40 minutes these were done (baked at 325°). I set them on the grill/grates on my cooktop to cool. Then I cut one of them to make sure they turned out correctly – quality control, you know. <big grin>

Does that look yummy, or what? It’s so pretty. Extra flavorful. Easy to make, although you must concoct three different mixtures – the cake batter, the pumpkin and dried cranberry middle and the nut streusel for the top. They’re layered in a springform pan and that’s all there is to it.

Reading Canela y Comino’s blog, she raved – with lots of superlatives – in the write-up about this coffeecake. Since pumpkin in just about anything is “my cup of tea,” there was no question I’d be making it. My DH was having his Bible study guys here, so it was a perfect occasion to make it. Festive for the holidays.

The cake batter is a normal type – this one contains buttermilk (I used whole-milk yogurt because that’s what I had on hand). The recipe calls for pumpkin pie spice. I don’t keep that combo in my spice pantry, so just added my own mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves, in descending quantities. If you make your own as I did, do note that there is pumpkin pie spice in both the cake batter and the streusel.

The pumpkin was Libby’s canned. And I used walnuts in the streusel, just because I didn’t have any pecans on hand.  I didn’t take photos of all the different processes (but if you go to Gretchen’s blog, she has photos of every step). The pumpkin layer, although not all that much quantity, really (it starts with a cup of canned pumpkin), does give you almost a pumpkin-pie type consistency. But it’s thin as you can see in the photo above and right. You place half the cake batter on the bottom, the pumpkin in the middle, blobs of the cake batter on top of that (which must be carefully spread out to the edges) then the nut streusel generously sprinkled on top. The recipe indicated the cake should be baked for about 60-65 minutes. I did 60, poked my cake tester in it in several places. What I didn’t do was poke the tester right in the center. Once the cake cooled, I discovered it was still doughy in the middle, so it likely should have baked another 10 minutes. The other option would be to bake this in a bundt pan for about 50-55 minutes (my guess on time).

So, if you’ve still got some pumpkin lurking in your pantry, this is a winner. Try it! Gretchen says the recipe came from a cookbook (magazine maybe?), Holiday Baking, 2009.

A year ago: Panettone bread
Two years ago: Salmon with Maple Syrup and Thyme

We don’t eat a lot of bread at our house – generally a half a slice each for breakfast. Once in awhile we’ll have a sandwich, but believe it or not, most bread gets moldy before we use it up. We freeze bread some, but I’m never very happy with it after it’s been in the freezer for more than 4-5 days. I wrap it in foil, then in a freezer plastic bag and still the edges seem to dry out. A few months ago we had just started using what we could, stored at room temp and throwing it out once it got moldy. But I was tired of the grainy, seedy bread we’d been having.

Since it’s Fall, I dug out my tried and true pumpkin yeast bread recipe and one day when I was home, and I made bread. Normally when you think of pumpkin bread, you likely think of a sweet quick bread. This is not that kind. This is a perfect sandwich or toasting bread. It’s NOT sweet, although it does have a little bit of sugar in it. It’s a soft bread – I use 3/4 white bread flour and 1/4 whole wheat flour. Our normal half-slice portion at breakfast has been upped to a whole slice each. It’s so nice with a little bit of butter. Here you can see the loaves just out of the oven.

If you’ve not been reading my blog for a long time, you may not know that I used to bake a whole lot of bread. When I was a young mom, trying to make some money, for a lunch out, for a babysitter now and then. I had a very small but thriving business, of sorts, baking bread once a week that I sold to friends and family. I was a stay-at-home mom, and enjoyed the process of making bread. I had a menu of about 10 varieties I made, including Stollen at Christmastime. And this bread wasn’t on the menu because I hadn’t discovered it yet.

Years later, when I was working full-time, I invested in one of the first bread machines, and we enjoyed loaf after loaf when our kids were teenagers. This recipe is one that I adapted from one of the bread machine cookbooks. But I’ve found that it works best to make it by hand. Well, you can mix it in the machine for the first round, but let it rise in bread pans for the second rising. It will become a beautiful tall loaf, worthy of the finest toasters or turkey sandwiches. This time I kneaded it in the Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook, and did the 2nd time by hand, kneading in the raisins and nuts as I worked.

This isn’t a new recipe to my blog – I posted it first a year ago. Although I’ve been making this bread a couple times a year for about 25 years. It’s absolutely the BEST with Thanksgiving turkey leftovers in a sandwich. Don’t be intimidated by making yeast bread – as long as you have a few hours when you can tend to the bread a couple of times, this is a pretty foolproof recipe. I’ve never had it fail. If you want, add different fruit (dried apricots, craisins) or nuts (pecans). Or eliminate one or the other if you don’t have them on hand.
Click here to get to the recipe.

I’ve submitted this recipe to Yeastspotting.

A year ago: Pear Crisp (ooh, was that ever good!)
Two years ago: Twice Baked Cauliflower Take Two

Well now. You haven’t seen very many pizza or focaccia recipes on my blog. Why? Because I don’t make them all that much as we try to limit those kinds of carbs. There is one pizza post I did about two years ago (that’s the last time I made it!) – the Chicken, Red Onion, Kalamata Olive and Pesto Pizza – and when I make pizza, that’s about the ONLY one I prepare. But when I had this focaccia a week or so ago, served with the Italian Sausage & Tomato Soup that was so off-the-charts good, I knew I wanted to make this at home. I may have used just a bit more cheese, but with that one exception, I made it exactly as Phillis made it. It’s so perfect to pair with the soup – any soup just about – but it was particularly good with the Italian flavors of the sausage and tomato soup.

It would really help if you live in Trader Joe’s country, though, since you buy the raw pizza dough there AND the artichoke-lemon pesto from there too. I didn’t even look at what’s contained in the pesto, but I suppose you could try to make your own with some canned, chopped artichoke hearts, some olive oil and lemon juice, maybe lemon zest. It’s kind of thick and goopy, not thin.

Anyway, you pat out the pizza dough first. I learned a really important cooking tip about this – pizza dough is ever so much easier to handle if you pat and spread it out on a Silpat. Wow, what a difference from working at it on a countertop. I put the Silpat right in my big rimmed baking sheet, plopped the dough on it, sat down in front of the TV and worked away at it for about 4-5 minutes maybe, and it was done.

You spread the artichoke pesto mixture on top, then add all the Mozzarella. I used whole milk Mozzarella because that’s what I had in my refrigerator. Certainly makes for a more tasty cheese. Then you add thinly sliced rounds of zucchini and red onion to the top, some grated Parmesan (I used Pecorino, actually), and a bit of dried oregano that I scrunched up between my palms before sprinkling it evenly on the top. I’m sure I used more than 1/2 teaspoon, though. It gets baked at a high temp – 450 – and you want to serve it right out of the oven so the cheese is bubbling hot.

To American tastes, there may not be much difference between focaccia and pizza. But going back in Italian history, focaccia is more like a snack, a bread snack. Often Italians serve it plain, with a dimpled top, sometimes with a light slick of olive oil pooling in the dimples. I well remember walking along a little side street in an Italian beach city, peering in a bakery side window with trays and trays of focaccia just baked. The baker was brushing olive oil all over the dimpled top surface. Oh the aroma was heavenly. But that was really plain – it was just bread, salt and olive oil. No cheese or herbs even. Here we often add toppings to focaccia, so it differs very little from pizza – which I consider more of an entree rather than a snack. So there’s your culinary lesson of the day!

A year ago: Wednesday Breakfast Scones
Two years ago: Almond Cranberry Cookies

With blueberries in season, I’m trying to find ways to use them. They’re so inexpensive right now. Even if I freeze them, I should buy more! For my DH’s men’s Bible study group this week I made these old-time favorites. But it’s been years since I made them the last time, I think. The original recipe came from an ad for Libby’s pumpkin. Decades ago. It’s not on Libby’s recipe website, although I found it on several other blogs.

The only change I’ve made to this was substituting unsalted butter instead of shortening. That’s it. Otherwise, the recipe below is true to the original.

The batter is a simple and ordinary batter – except for the addition of pumpkin, of course. It uses brown sugar for sweetening it, which always gives baked goods a deeper flavor. And the only spices used are cinnamon and allspice. The blueberries are tossed with a tablespoon of flour to help keep them intact. The muffins are very moist – so you either need to use the paper liners, or use a silicone pan (like the one above) which makes for an easy removal.

A year ago: Peach Pudding Cake
Two years ago: Artichoke Bruschetta