Oven Fries

When I used to work those long Mondays teaching music, I'd come home exhausted and grateful to Martin for making dinner. It didn't matter that every single week was the same - hamburgers, corn on the cob, and frozen french fries. Because I didn't have to lift a finger to help with the cooking, every item on that menu tasted as good as if we'd been dining at a five star restaurant.

That said, frozen french fries do have their limitations. I keep a bag in my freezer because Martin likes them and they do make a quick side to hamburgers or steak. Tonight, however, I used the Smitten Kitchen recipe for baked french fries, coming away with a familiar re-awareness of how equally easy it can be to make something fresh, as opposed to opting for the supposed convenience of frozen, or canned, or pre-prepared.

This recipe couldn't get any easier, especially with the handy potato cutter I've had forever. This is one of those kitchen gadgets that might not be necessary (knifes do the same cutting trick) but sure is fun to use. Brian went through a phase of loving to watch raw potatoes be shoved through those uniform french fry openings and automatically split into perfect french fry rods. I'm still in that phase!

Oven Fries
Inspired by Michael Chiarello’s technique - via Smitten Kitchen

This works with either the classic Russet/Idaho potatoes used for traditional french fries, or with golden potatoes, such as Yukon Golds.
Yield: fries for 4 people

Ingredients:
4 medium Yukon Gold or 3 smallish Russet potatoes (I find these to be equivalent in size, although the specific size isn’t terribly important)
3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
Fine sea salt

Directions:
Heat oven to 450 degrees F.

Peel your potatoes if you wish; scrub them well if you do not. (I peeled mine.) Cut potatoes into just-shy-of 1/2-inch batons. Place in a large pot and cover with an inch or two of water. Set heat to high and set timer for 10 minutes. If potatoes come to a boil in this time, reduce the heat to medium. Otherwise, when timer rings, whether or not the potatoes have boiled, test one. You’re looking for a very “al dente” potato — one that is too firm to eat enjoyable, but has no crunch left. A good sign that they’re not too cooked is when you roughly tumble them into a colander, only one or two break.

Meanwhile, coat a large baking sheet with 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil and place it in the oven for a few minutes, so the oil gets very hot and rolls easily around the pan.

Drain your potatoes and immediately spread them on oiled baking sheet in one layer. Drizzle with last tablespoon of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and roast for 20 minutes, until golden underneath. Toss potatoes around to encourage them to color evenly and return them to the oven for another 5 minutes. Repeat this 1 or 2 more times (for me, 30 minutes total roasting time is the sweet spot), until your “fries” are deeply golden, brown at the edges and impossible not to eat.

Season with more salt while they’re hot, pile them on a platter and dig in.

Two Cheese Ebelskiver Puffs with Marinara

An ebelskiver pan is just the kind of fou-fou kitchen tool that I can never be sure if I brought along to Missouri until drawers and cabinets are scoured to see if it shows up. Remember, my moving mind-set was "only the essential goes on the moving van"...but what did I consider essential???? That's been a continuing discovery process; figuring out what I have here and what I don't. Fortunately, a clearly essential ebelskiver pan made it to the midwest.

In anticipation of gals showing up for Reading and Rambling Club last night, it seemed like a good idea to try out a new ebelskiver recipe.  Sure, I'd finally cleaned up all the mess from chowder and pot pie makings but why not start on Round Three of Cooking Chaos? And maybe even leave time to get dressed before the first guest showed up. 

This is the first time I've tried a savory ebelskiver. Because there are steps that have to be executed fairly quickly once the fire goes on under those cute little wells in the pan, I studied that recipe like a surgeon preparing for a heart lung transplant. Each of my ingredients stood measured and ready by the stove. Not remembering what worked best in the past, I had two different turning implements carefully poised for quick retrieval. You can buy fancy schmantzy tools just for turning ebelskivers but I haven't succumbed to that lure YET, as I find spoons or wood skewers work well to quickly flip the balls of dough after they've had time to cook on one side. 

It's true that my finished products never look quite as perfect as what you see in recipe books. What happens in my kitchen is a kind of progression. The first few flips are clumsy, producing a definitely misshapen formation that looks closer to a partially deflated football than the perfect round orb I'm supposed to be turning out. As I get a few flips behind me, the rhythm settles in and my puffs look closer to round.

One of my many less than wonderful personality traits is that I'm too much a critic and perfectionist, as far as my own efforts go. How is it that with other people I can be generous of spirit...yet when it comes to me, I can't forgive myself for any kind of perceived weakness or flaw? Oh hey, are you thinking you stumbled into my therapy session? I'm bringing up this tendency to be hard on myself because I almost didn't serve the ebelskivers last night. Some seemed a little more browned and mottled than the picture. And then there were those weird footbally ones! That's just appearance - what if they didn't taste any good????

Fortunately, I managed to quiet all the naysaying in my head and offer ebelskivers and marinara sauce to the Monday night gals. None had heard of an ebelskiver before and all were intrigued to learn a little about this new funny looking little appetizer. Funny looking and less than perfect as they may have been, the girls couldn't dip those ebelskivers into the marinara sauce quickly enough. Julie went so far as to declare them to be a new form of crack. Take that, Critical Barbara!

Two Cheese Ebelskiver Puffs with Marinara

Ingredients:

1 cup (4 oz) cake flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs, separated

1 cup (8 fluid oz) whole milk

3 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

1/2 cup (2 oz) freshly grated parmesan cheese

2  1/2 Tbs. chopped fresh basil

3  1/2 Tbs. finely diced fresh mozzarella

1 cup (8 fluid oz) marinara sauce  (RECIPE BELOW - You could also buy marinara sauce but this recipe was so easy, why would you?)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a small bowl, lightly whisk the egg yolk, then whisk in the milk and 2 tablespoons of the melted butter. Add the yolk mixture to the flour mixture and, using a wooden spoon, stir until well blended. The batter will be lumpy.

In a clean bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry peaks form. Fold about 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it, then fold in the rest with 1/4 cup of the parmesan and the basil just until no white streaks remain. 

Brush wells of the pan with remaining melted butter and place over medium heat. (On my stove it was closer to low heat than medium). When butter starts to bubble, working quickly, sprinkle a heaping 1/2 tsp of the remaining parmesan into each well. (Yea, like you have time to measure this out! I just threw a bit into each well, without measuring). Add about 1 tablespoon of the batter into each well, then carefully add 1/2 teaspoon mozzarella to the center of each pancake. (haha..I love that it says carefully along with "YOU BETTER GET ALL THIS DONE WITHIN ABOUT A 2 SECOND TIME FRAME!" I doubt I was very "careful" as I, again, pretty much threw a bit of the mozzarella over the batter.) Top with another 1 tablespoon of the batter. 

Cook until the bottoms of the pancake are slightly browned and crisp, about 3-5 minutes. How do you know if they are browning on the bottom? At this point, you can use your skewer to delicately pull back a corner of the ball and see what's happening on the underside. When you see browning, turn the pancakes and cook until lightly browned on the second side, about 3 minutes longer. 

Transfer pancakes to a platter to keep them warm in the 200 degree oven while you repeat with 2 more batches. Serve with marinara. 

Marinara Sauce for Ebelskivers

Ingredients:

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

pinch red pepper flakes

1 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 can (15 oz) crushed Italian tomatoes

salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions:

In large frying pan over medium heat, saute the garlic in the olive oil, until fragrant, about 1 minute. 

Stir in the red pepper flakes, basil, oregano, and tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and simmer until thickened, about 20 minutes. Season to taste. 

Corn Chowder with Potatoes and Sausage

Dreary February is a  soup kind of month. I've had a rather perfect day today that has included being in pajamas all day (though I suppose I'll need to put on some kind of clothes before the Reading and Rambling Ladies show up tonight) and cooking up this recipe. As if that doesn't scream cozy, I decided on pot pie for dinner this evening. One pot simmered with soup goodness while another held pot pie guts. By lunchtime, I was able to ladle up a big bowl of the chowder and now, as dinner hour approaches, I'll pop my little pies into the oven for a quick winter meal.

The soup went together easily. Having had my first serving, I'm giving it a thumbs up though I might try a future variation without the meat. What I kept finding myself savoring in every bite of today's portion was the taste of corn and potatoes in that smooth, creamy base. Is it possible to feel like something as fundamental as the sausage might be expendable?

And one last note: You have to be a professional photographer or darned close to get a really good picture of soup. Otherwise, the world gets treated to an image of something very unappetizing. Like snot. Or worse...

Corn Chowder with Sausage and Potatoes

Ingredients:
1 lb. bulk Italian sausage or country style sausage
1 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2  1/2 cups chicken broth
2 cups diced gold or red skinned potatoes
2 cups frozen corn kernels
1 small can (8 oz) cream style corn (I just used the 15 oz size)
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
dash hot sauce
2 cups half and half or whole milk
1 Tablespoon butter
1/2 tsp. salt, or to taste

Directions:
In a large Dutch oven or sauce pan over medium heat, brown the sausage with the onion until sausage is no longer pink and onion is slightly browned and tender.

Stir in the flour until blended into the mixture. Add the chicken broth and stir to blend. Add the diced potatoes, corn, and cream style corn, pepper, and hot sauce.  Bring to a simmer and continue cooking for five minutes, stirring frequently.

Cover and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender.

Add the half and half (or milk) and stir in butter

Taste and add salt as needed.

Man In The Moon Cookies

When your kids are little they eat pretty much anything you put in front of them. Mine all had their own picky peculiarities in terms of what they loved and what they didn't but, overall, they accepted whatever was put on their plate.

One of the first kid requested recipes I ever made for Brian was Man In The Moon cookies. Who knows how they got their name? I actually tried researching this online but couldn't come up with any kind of answer. Maybe the chocolate chips look like craters?

Brian's first tasted these in his preschool class at Penasquitos Lutheran. Once introduced, my preschooler couldn't wait to make his Mom crank out a batch or twenty. You know what I still remember about making those cookies for Brian? How surprised he was that his Mom could create something he'd experienced at school and loved. I got to be the maker of magic just by shaping balls of cookie dough into Men in The Moon.

This is another of those recipes that eventually wound up at the back of my recipe box.. until this week. I couldn't even remember what the cookies looked or tasted like until I whipped up a batch to share with Awana kids.

The dough is shiny and greasy. With the liberal amount of oil called for in the recipe, I almost wondered if my slick little dough blobs would keep their shape during the baking process. They did. For very little effort, I was rewarded with rich, chocolatey cookies that taste great dipped in milk. A cookie Brian would probably still approve of.

Man In The Moon Cookies

Ingredients:
1 chocolate cake mix
2 eggs
2/3 cup oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:
Mix all ingredients. Drop by small spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

Pumpkin Pudding Dip

A lot of pies I can take or leave: even the typical fruit varieties don't do much for me, unless they have a big scoop of ice-cream on the side. I do, however, truly love pumpkin pies though I only make them for the holidays. Thanksgiving dessert becomes my favorite breakfast treat, with a piece of pumpkin pie every morning until there is no more.

After telling me about this recipe for a few weeks, Millie brought her take on pumpkin pies for our meeting Monday night. One bite was all it took for me to fall in love! No need to wait for Thanksgiving to roll around again - I can have these little mini pies any time I want. 

I suppose you could assemble the "pies" ahead of time but Millie brought hers as a dip, with graham crackers and pumpkin snaps placed nearby. Homemade whipped cream would be lovely but there was something kind of fun about making a pretty little squirt dollop of the canned kind of whipped cream to cover the pumpkin dip. Cookie, dip, and dollop together create a twee little pie that in addition to being adorable tastes just like a perfect bite of pumpkin pie. 

Pumpkin Pudding Dip

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plus 2 Tbs. water

1 pkg. sugar free vanilla pudding

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp pumpkin spice

1/2 tsp. finely grated orange peel (optional)

Directions:

In a medium bowl, blend water and pudding mix until smooth.

Add remaining ingredients. Mix on low speed until smooth.

Serve with whipped cream and graham crackers or ginger or pumpkin snaps (available at Sprouts)

Saltine Toffee

I seem to be on a kick of digging out recipes I haven't made in decades and cooking them up. Monday night, I wanted a quick finger food for the Reading and Rambling group. Usually I'll check Pinterest for inspiration but, this time, something made me go through my own Longaberger recipe box. That's when I noticed the Saltine Toffee card former neighbor Trish Arthur gave me way back in the mid 80's. After tasting hers at some neighborhood gathering back when all our kids were little, I remember making my own batches for a period of time. You know how that is - you find a recipe, you keep making it, and then the phase passes and you move on to some other go-to favorite.

Obviously, making this toffee is quick and easy. While it takes little effort, the results do taste like a poor man's version of toffee. Like eating a heath bar with a cracker base.

Gianne liked this tasty recipe so much that I ended up giving her what we didn't eat Monday night. Young, sweet thing that she is, she'd never heard of saltine toffee. Maybe now it'll be her chosen recipe to make over and over... until she doesn't.

Saltine Toffee

Ingredients:
Approximately 40 saltine crackers
2 sticks (1 cup) butter
1 cup light brown sugar
8 oz semisweet chocolate chips
Finely chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Line a jelly roll pan with aluminum foil. Spray lightly with nonstick spray (I didn't do this) and arrange the saltines salt side down in a single layer.
In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar and boil til it turns a caramel color, a few minutes. (It will begin to pull away from the sides a bit) Remove from heat and pour over the crackers, covering them evenly.
Put the jelly roll pan into the oven and bake for 3-5 minutes, or until just bubbly, watching carefully. Remove from oven and pour chocolate chips over the crackers. (I used an entire bag of the chocolate chips). As the chips melt, spread them over the crackers with a knife.
Transfer the pan to the freezer for about 15 - 20 minutes, or until completely cold. Break the toffee into pieces. Store in an airtight container.

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette

When Martin leaves town, I’m faced with an existential crisis. Do I use my time alone as a reprieve from all cooking duties, glibly enjoying cereal for dinner every night...or do I indulge in my own tastes and cook up foods I like, without having to feel guilty that they’re not what my husband would want to eat? I’ve gone both ways in the past but, for this last consulting trip, I went the cooking route. A big butternut squash purchased at the local farmer’s market was calling my name, begging me to cook up something good to eat. 

As with the scones, this recipe comes via Emily. Not that she made it up (why does anyone ever need to create recipes as long as Deb and Smitten Kitchen are around?) but just that it’s something she made in the past and I liked enough to remember and want to recreate. Martin was barely up in the air and flying over our house (literally. we are on a pretty direct flight line to to the local airport) before I started preparing a butternut squash and caramelized onion galette. 

Before I start ranting, let me stress that the galette turned out great. Or to put it another way, the end result was more than worth whatever hassle went into the preparation. Hassle? What could possibly be so difficult about cutting up some veggies, slapping them on dough, and cooking up autumn yummyness? 

For all that Deb forgets to mention this on her Smitten Kitchen site, I’m here to proclaim that peeling and slicing a butternut squash isn’t any quick and easy job! Somewhere in the midst of a massive squash mess and sore arm, I began wondering if it was really worth my time to make this dish. And yes, as a matter of fact, I WAS carrying on an imaginary conversation with Deb wherein I proceeded to chide her for not clearly warning cooks about what they were getting into when they applied peeler and knife to a very large, unyielding, and hard as a rock object. My hands hurt and it felt like I’d never get to the end of scraping that squash into submission. A quick very compliant bowl of cereal was suddenly looking good. 

It was messier and harder than I’d hoped but for every day that I took out a piece of that galette and warmed it for lunch and/or dinner, I knew my efforts were being well rewarded. I love the mixture of butternut squash and onions. But you know what I especially couldn’t wait to get another taste of throughout the week? That incredibly flaky crust. It may look rustic in pictures, but truth is the pastry itself tastes light, buttery, and just plain delicious. I’ll make this dish again and, next time, I might not even have to rant at the imaginary Deb watching me wrestle with a vegetable. 

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette

For the pastry:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into

pieces

1/4 cup sour cream

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup ice water

For the filling:

1 small butternut squash (about one pound)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 to 2 tablespoons butter (if you have only non-stick, the smaller amount will do)

1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced in half-moons

1 teaspoon salt

Pinch of sugar

1/4 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste

3/4 cup fontina cheese (about 2 1/2 ounces), grated or cut into small bits

1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage leaves

1.Make pastry: In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Place the butter in another bowl. Place both bowls in the freezer for 1 hour. Remove the bowls from the freezer and make a well in the center of the flour. Add the butter to the well and, using a pastry blender, cut it in until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Make another well in the center. In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, lemon juice and water and add half of this mixture to the well. With your fingertips, mix in the liquid until large lumps form. Remove the large lumps and repeat with the remaining liquid and flour-butter mixture. Pat the lumps into a ball; do not overwork the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

2.Prepare squash: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Peel squash, then halve and scoop out seeds. Cut into a 1/2-inch dice. Toss pieces with olive oil and a half-teaspoon of the salt and roast on foil lined (for neatness sake) sheet for 30 minutes or until pieces are tender, turning it midway if your oven bakes unevenly. Set aside to cool slightly.

3.Caramelize onions: While squash is roasting, melt butter in a heavy skillet and cook onion over low heat with the remaining half-teaspoon of salt and pinch of sugar, stirring occasionally, until soft and lightly golden brown, about 20 minutes. Stir in cayenne.

4.Raise the oven temperature to 400 degrees. Mix squash, caramelized onions, cheese and herbs together in a bowl.

5.Assemble galette: On a floured work surface, roll the dough out into a 12-inch round. Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet. Spread squash, onions, cheese and herb mixture over the dough, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border. Fold the border over the squash, onion and cheese mixture, pleating the edge to make it fit. The center will be open.

6.Bake until golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from the oven, let stand for 5 minutes, then slide the galette onto a serving plate. Cut into wedges and serve hot, warm or at room temperature. Serves 6.