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.

Apple Cheddar Scones

You know how you can sometimes lust after a food for days before finally getting to the point where you have to meet that desire, no matter the cost? It seems that I’ve been craving cheddar apple scones for the past WAY more than a week. And now that the weather has turned very fall-like it suddenly seemed imperative that I have one of the scones I remember as being absolutely delicious.

Years ago, I went to New Haven in the dead of winter. As much as a San Diegan can think they’ve packed for cold weather, more than a few minutes out into the biting, stinging freeze that marks a New England winter will painfully point out how lacking our coats and wraps really are. I loved seeing all the snow during the visit but, oh! that cold. Even with scarves, mittens, wool socks, and long underwear, I still shivered my way through the vacation. Sometime during those frigid days, Emily offered up a batch of Smitten Kitchen apple cheddar scones and, with that first warm and moist bite of those scones, I fell in love. Have I been craving another batch since that time so long ago? Pretty much.

I made these scones a week ago and froze most of them. Today,  when I woke up to fog and enough fall foliage to delight my senses, it seemed like a perfect time to take out one of the frozen scones and eat it, along with pumpkin spiced coffee. Yes, the coffee was in a fall themed mug. And, yes, I was wearing socks with pumpkins on them. And wrapped in a blanket printed with autumn leaves. (I'm more than a little bit into this whole fall that's really fall phenomenon.)

In addition to sharing this recipe with me, Emily also taught me the careful art of freezing foods for future consumption. I know - you’re wondering how an old lady such as myself missed out on the basic skill of freezing foods. It’s not that I’ve never wrapped all manner of foods in foil and thrown them into my freezer to be forgotten until the mystery packages wound up being too freezer-burned to use. In watching Emily’s very deliberate preparation of foods for freezing, I finally realized the correct way to preserve tasty foods for another time. This is a most important skill in my world as careful freezing allows me to make things Martin doesn’t like but I do, without ending up wasting what I can’t eat before the delicacy goes bad. Happy hubby, happy me.

When I took my scones out of the oven, I wondered if they were overdone.  Too many recent visits to tea rooms made visions of perfect pale scones come to mind. It’s doubtful that I have any pictorial records of Emily’s scones but, mercifully, a quick look at Smitten Kitchen’s site, showed the same amount of rustic darker color I was seeing with my batch of scones.

Even if they’d been completely off in appearance, one bite into the apple cheddar goodness of one of these scones is enough to warm the soul and bring the taste of fall. I’m enjoying slathering mine with some homemade apple butter I recently bought at a farmer’s market type venue. Something about the sharpness of cheddar mixed with a cinnamony sweetness in the apple butter spread works perfectly together.

Apple and Cheddar Scones
Recipe Courtesy of Smitten Kitchen

Makes 6 generous scones

2 firm tart apples (1 pound or 2 454 grams)
1 1/2 cups (6.75 ounces or 195 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar plus 1 1/2 tablespoons for sprinkling (total of 2.2 ounces or 63 grams)
1/2 tablespoon (7 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (3 grams) plus additional for egg wash
6 tablespoons (3 ounces or 85 grams)unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes plus additional for baking sheet if not lining it with parchment
1/2 cup (2.25 ounces or 65 grams) sharp cheddar, shredded (white is recommended, I assume for aesthetics)
1/4 cup (2 ounces) heavy cream
2 large eggs

Position a rack at the center of oven and preheat oven to 375 °F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

Peel and core apples, then cut them into one-sixteenths. (I assumed this meant chunks, not slivers.) Placed them in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake them until they take on a little color and feel dry to the touch, about 20 minutes. They will be about half-baked. Let them cool completely. (You can speed this up in the fridge, as I did.) Leave oven on.

Sift or whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Set aside. Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, along with cooled apple chunks, cheese, cream and one egg. Sprinkle flour mixture over the top and mix on low speed until the dough just comes together. Do not overmix.

[Don’t have a stand or hand mixer? I’d rub the cold butter into the flour mixture with my fingertips or with a pastry blender, hand-chop the apples coarsely and mix the rest together with a wooden spoon until combined. It might feel awkward, but it should all come together. Again, don’t overmix it though it will be harder to do this by hand.]

Generously flour your counter top and place the scone dough on top of it. Sprinkle with flour. Use a rolling pin to gently roll (or use your hands to pat) the dough into a 1 1/4-inch thick, 6-inch circle. Cut circle into 6 wedges. Transfer them to a baking sheet that has either been buttered or lined with a fresh sheet of parchment paper. Leave at least 2 inches between each scone.

Beat remaining egg in a small bowl with a pinch of salt. Brush the scones with egg wash and sprinkle them with remaining tablespoon of sugar. Bake until firm and golden, about 30 minutes. With a spatula, lift them to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Before you eat one, make sure you realize how addictive they might be. Once you’ve got that down, go for it anyway.

Do ahead: Scones are best the day they are baked. However, they can be made ahead of time and stored unbaked in the freezer until you need them. Simply brush them with the egg wash and sprinkle them with sugar, and bake them still frozen for just a couple extra minutes. This way they are always freshly baked when you want them.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

If this was the kind of blog that people actually followed I suppose I’d be in trouble for all these months of not writing up any new recipes. It’s certainly not that I haven’t been cooking during this time frame and not even that I’ve not made anything new. For the most part, however, my meals have tended to be the tried and true recipes that I know Martin will eat. Perhaps my life has had so many new challenges since we moved to the midwest that I’ve just not been as anxious to get creative in the kitchen. I absolutely love my kitchen in Parkville and look forward to making lots of new and old seasonal favorites as we move into autumn and winter, so maybe the coming months bring the promise of a whole slew of new recipes. 

As I get used to life here in the San Diego condo, I’m actually cooking more than I thought I would. Before beginning this stint of second home living, I pictured lots of evenings out and/or simple Trader Joe prepared meals. Neither of those predictions have been borne out. While my kitchen here isn’t as big or well laid out as in Missouri, it’s certainly functional enough to cook in. The two kitchens present an interesting contrast. Whereas the Missouri kitchen is made up of dark granite counter tops and deep wood cabinetry, this kitchen is a white-on-cream kind of light and airy. I love the way the sun comes into the room on bright mornings. Other than the back patio, this might be my favorite place to sit and look out over the houses and hills outside my window.  

What do I cook here? Tacos, hamburgers, BBQ ribs, lasagna, spaghetti, paninis, breakfast for dinner, and chicken are the staples. I’ve made many of the tried and true recipes Martin likes, from chicken pot pie to steak, and what we haven’t eaten in one meal has been carefully wrapped and frozen for future consumption.  Last night, however, I did break away from the usual menus to try Cindy’s recipe (or maybe it is actually Cali’s via Cindy?) for sweet and sour chicken. When we go to Chinese restaurants Martin will often order orange chicken so I figured this was a dish he might eat. 

I thought of Cindy while I was preparing the chicken. Specifically, I remembered that she’d made this same recipe for her family. I found myself making a huge mess while I was dipping the chicken pieces in egg and corn starch and, as I watched gloppy messes forming on my hands and the counters, I wondered if Master Chef Cindy had encountered the same problem. I had memories of being in my kitchen on Riverhead once when Virginia was watching the two of us make some kind of recipe. I was probably my usual sloppy self while Cindy tidily cleaned as she went, leaving no trail of cooking clutter behind. Virginia was dutifully impressed. 

Back to this recipe...after getting the coating on each piece, I put all the chicken bites in the skillet together and then had a bit of trouble separating them for turning when they began sticking together via that same gloppy batter messing up my counters. In some cases, the chicken would separate from it’s coating as I tried to turn the pieces. I began to wonder if the final result of my cooking efforts was going to be a big disappointing batch of cooked but naked chicken pieces. 

The directions also mentioned turning the chicken every fifteen minutes during the baking time, in order to ensure full coating of the sweet and sour sauce. I tried this technique at the first fifteen minute interval but found that it took too long to turn all those pieces. My baster went to the Parkville kitchen but, if it had been here in San Diego, I think that might’ve been an easier method of drawing up the sauce and basting it over the chicken pieces. 

Even with all my worries during the prep period, this recipe turned out great. It's a funny thing about making something you normally only order in a restaurant. The point of home cooking is that it should NOT taste like what you go out and eat, right? Instead, each bite should sing out the superiority of home-made goodness, cooked with love over your own kitchen stove. And yet, sometimes the very mark of excellence seems to be in how much you can make your efforts taste like what you'd get if you weren't indulging in all that home-baked goodness. That's how it is with this recipe. Instead of boasting how much better this version turned out, I proudly proclaim that my sweet and sour chicken tasted just like what you'd get in a restaurant! Martin loved  the recipe enough that I’ll definitely go through the mess of making this sweet and sour chicken again. And I’ll add a baster to the never-ending list of things I need to complete my condo kitchen. 

Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

Ingredients:

3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

salt and pepper to taste

1 1/2 cups cornstarch

3 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup canola oil

1 cup granulated sugar

4 tablespoons ketchup

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce

1 tablespoon garlic salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces and season with salt and pepper. 

2. In separate bowls, place cornstarch and slightly beaten eggs. Dip chicken into cornstarch then coat in egg mixture

3. Heat canola oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and cook chicken until browned. Place the chicken in a 9x13 greased baking dish. 

4. In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine sugar, ketchup, apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, soy sauce and garlic salt. Pour over the chicken and bake for 1 hour. 

5. I stirred the chicken every 15 minutes so that it coated the pieces in the sauce. (This is the part where I'd use a baster instead.)

Potato Soup

I've decided Wednesday evenings are going to be a time to make the foods I like since Martin will be golfing with his weekly men's group that night. Or I'll just eat cereal because, if you’re not going to cook, is there anything better than a bowl of cereal for dinner? Definitely not on the PH approved list of evening fare but most certainly one of my favorite silly indulgences.  Whether future Wednesdays find me cooking or spooning up Cheerios, I did spend this Wednesday night making my mom's potato soup. No one made this dish better than Mom. In typical fashion, she barely had a recipe, preferring to do her usual routine of winging ingredients and amounts, depending on her mood and what was available in the kitchen. Since I don’t have her exact version I decided the one in a “Best of the Best West Virginia” cookbook would be a close enough facsimile. A way to feel connected to both my mom and my much-loved birth state, all at once.

The whole time this soup was being prepared, I could hardly wait to be done and sitting down to eat that simple dinner fare. For each step of the process, I’d find myself looking at my soup in the making and wondering if it would bring back memories of Mom’s fabulous version. Wednesday was one of those wistful “homesick” days and I think a part of me was longing to have any kind of connection with the comfort of familiarity.

Not that I made what should have been a fairly simple process of preparing the soup easy! In fact, before getting to the stage of sitting down to the table with my fiestaware bowl full of dinner, there would be a few mishaps worthy of slapstick comedy.

One of the design components of my kitchen that I love is the abundance of work space on the island counter, coupled with an ideal placement of trash receptacles in one of the “drawers” below. I consider myself a messy cook but, with this perfect location of trash cans, I notice it’s a whole lot easier to clean as I go. Maybe I was getting too prideful of my newly acquired efficient tidiness while cooking and needed to be brought back to the humble reality of who I am as a cook. If that’s the case, I’d say I got a good dose of humble (potato) soup...all over the counters and the floor. Not once but twice! The first mishap came when I was trying to strain potato water out of my huge, heavy pot. Of course, I knew to use a pot holder on the hot handle but, without thinking, I put my other hand on the small loop on the other side of the pot. Imagine how quickly that big ole’ pot came crashing down out of my hands onto the granite counter! Soup broth and potato, onion, and bacon bits everywhere! Then, in my frantic haste to get the pot onto a trivet (because everyone knows you can’t put hot stuff on granite...unlike my San Diego quartz countertops which could withstand any kind of extreme temperatures), I somehow managed to lose hold on the pan again! Funston figured she’d died and gone to heaven as potato laden manna rained down from on high. It wasn’t pretty. The mess I managed to create took quite a few minutes and more than a few paper towels to finally sop up but, eventually, I was able to complete the soup recipe, with one suddenly fatter and hopeful dog right by my side, no doubt wondering when the third course would be falling on her head.

So was this soup worth the mess I created? Yes. For each of the two big bowls I ate in that one sitting, I could taste the past and memories of how much I loved my mom’s recipe. Mine came out a bit thicker...(two bouts of losing liquid via spillage might have something to do with that difference) but, taste-wise, this soup delivered exactly what I craved on a chilly evening calling out for the enveloping comfort of something familiar.

Potato Soup
from "Best of the Best from West Virginia" cookbook

Ingredients:
Soup -
3-4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 tsp salt
2  16 oz cans chicken broth
1 onion, chopped
3-4 strips bacon, fried, drained and crumbled
Thin White Sauce (recipe below)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 stick butter

White Sauce -
1 tbs. butter
1 tbs. flour
1 cup milk (you can use evaporated milk here)

Directions:
Soup-
In a pot of water to cover (and spill, if you happen to be really klutzy!) add potatoes and salt. Cook until tender. Drain all but 3/4 cup. Add chicken broth, chopped onion, and bacon bits. Cook for 1/2 hour, boiling. Add white sauce and salt and pepper, to taste. Boil for an additional half hour. Add butter. Serve hot.

White Sauce-
Heat 1 tbs. butter until melted. Add 1 tbs. flour. Stir in 1 cup milk. Heat and stir until thickened and smooth.

Butterscotch Pudding

(I decided no picture at all was just too severe so you're getting a shot of the Pioneer Woman's version of butterscotch pudding.) 

I am on a search for a butterscotch pudding that will fill the void of not being able to drop in at Claire's On Cedros for their creamy to perfection version of this treat. Oddly enough, I wasn't even a big fan of butterscotch until I took my first bite of Claire's pudding. Words can't begin to describe the subtle, smooth, and absolutely sublime taste of each delicious mouthful of that pudding!

Needless to say, it's going to be a little difficult to run by Solana Beach every time I get a craving for butterscotch pudding. Nothing to do but work on finding a suitable replacement for those times when the world stops spinning on its axis until my pudding craving has been satisfied.

With this blog entry, I'm submitting two different recipes and no pictures! Don't ask me why I failed to get documenting photos of either version - maybe I was still too much into unpacking, or maybe the camera hadn't been located yet (haha..made that one up! Like I would ever not have at least one camera within my immediate vicinity), or maybe the finished products just didn't look like anything I'd want to look at later????

I first made Deb's Smitten Kitchen version. It went together pretty easily and tasted fine, though I thought it leaned a bit more toward the vanilla taste, rather than butterscotch. I will admit, however, that I might not be judging Deb's pudding fairly as I had to substitute lighter brown sugar, since I didn't have any of the dark on hand when the absolute need to make pudding hit late enough one evening to negate going to the store. The consistency was just as smooth and creamy as what I'd buy at Claire's so I'm tempted to try this one again, using the recommended dark brown sugar to see if that elusive west coast butterscotch flavor can be replicated.

The Pioneer Woman version didn't have quite the same subtle depth of flavor but, rather, boldly boasted of a strong butterscotch influence. That should be a good thing, right? Where the flavor excelled, I thought the texture seemed almost more like a flan than pudding. Not that I don't like flan, just that I needed my pudding to be more richly pudding-y. If I wanted flan, I'd have looked up a recipe for it!

So, here are the two recipes. Again, both were good and, for the Smitten Kitchen one, I'll definitely do a second attempt.  Or maybe I'll just write to Claire's on Cedros and beg them for their signature recipe!

Pioneer Woman Butterscotch Pudding

Ingredients
1-1/2 cup Brown Sugar, Light Or Dark Is Fine
1/4 cup Cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon Salt
3 cups Whole Milk
4 whole Large Egg Yolks (discard Or Save Whites For Another Use)
2 Tablespoons Butter
Unsweetened Whipped Cream

Preparation Instructions
Gently whisk together the brown sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a medium nonstick pan.
In a separate pitcher or bowl, whisk together the milk and egg yolks. Pour it into the pan with the brown sugar mixture and stir to combine.
Turn on the heat to medium and cook, stirring gently, until the mixture just starts to bubble up/get very thick. (This can take a good 10 minutes or so.) When it reaches pudding consistency, stir in the butter until melted, then remove it from the heat and spoon it into bowls, glasses (be careful; mixture is hot), demitasse cups, etc. Chill the pudding for at least 1 hour or until very cold.
Top with unsweetened whipped cream and serve!

Smitten Kitchen Butterscotch Pudding

Cook time: 10 minutes plus 1 to 2 hours to set in the fridge
Yield: 6 1/2-cup servings or 8 petite ones

Ingredients
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
Several pinches of sea salt (I use a scant 1/2 teaspoon of flaky Maldon salt)
1/4 cup cornstarch
3 cups whole milk (you can make this pudding even more rich by swapping 1/2 cup of the milk with heavy cream)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar and reduce heat to medium-low. Let it heat and bubble for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Don’t let it smoke or burn, which brown sugar is always very eager to do. Reduce heat to low. Add salt and cornstarch, stirring until combined — it’s going to look like a thick paste. Switch to a whisk and add the milk in a thin drizzle, whisking the whole time, so that no lumps form. Once all of the milk is added, you can switch back to a spoon. Cook over low to medium-low, stirring frequently, until the mixture comes to a gentle simmer. Let it simmer for a full minute, stirring, it should clearly thicken at this stage, although it will finish thickening in the fridge. Off the heat, stir in the vanilla extract. Divide into glasses or pudding cups and let chill in fridge for 1 to 2 hours, until set.

Gingerbread Biscotti

I'm not a natural cook who can just whip up marvelous creations, no recipe needed. For me, it's all about finding a dish that looks good, executing the steps given to bring it about, and then seeing if I like what comes out. Someone else has figured out the "magic" of how to go from a random series of ingredients to the creation of something people will actually want to eat.

Sometimes, however, cooking can still feel a little like magic, even when I'm only following what someone else figured out. This biscotti recipe comes under that heading of "whoa! did I just make something that came out looking and tasting like that??" I think I secretly harbored doubts that such an ordinary list of cooking components could actually wind up as biscotti just like what you'd buy in a bakery. Except better, of course, because it came right from your own kitchen!

I loved this recipe so much that I ended up making two batches. One for me and one to give out in gift bags. My sweet and sassy neighbor is battling cancer, with chemo treatments that leave her nauseous and zapped. Who better to receive a baggie full of biscotti and tea bags? And the gal who has been so helpful since we moved in, making sure I was OK on a daily basis during the weeks while Martin was gone - shouldn't she also get a bag?

The ginger taste is subtle, yet definite, if you can understand that seeming paradox. Mornings are made better with a few of these biscotti to dip into your choice of tea or coffee. Deb, from the Smitten Kitchen site, also says they taste fabulous with hot chocolate but that's something I've yet to try. Maybe today....right now.


Gingerbread Biscotti
from Smitten Ktichen

Yield: 30 to 34
Time: About 1 1/2 hours

Ingredients:
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus extra for flouring hands
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
A few grinds of black pepper
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups toasted, chopped nuts or white or dark chocolate chunks (optional, I kept mine plain)
1 large egg white

Cinnamon-sugar (optional)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Heat oven to 350°F (175°C). Line one large or two small baking sheets (if yours are small you’ll probably prefer using two, as the logs will spread a lot) with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat. In a large bowl, stir together dry ingredients — 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour, baking powder, spices, pepper and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together sugars, butter, 2 large eggs and vanilla. Add wet ingredients along with any optional additions (nuts or chocolate) to dry mixture and stir to combine. It’s going to seem a bit soft and sticky; it’s a-okay.

Divide dough in half. Using floured hands, transfer first half to the prepared baking sheet(s) and form it into a slightly flatted log about 11 inches (28 cm) by 2 1/2 (6 1/2 cm) inches, going down one side of a baking sheet intended for two logs, or the center of a baking sheet intended for one log. Repeat with second half of dough. Whisk egg white in a small bowl until a little foamy and loose. Brush over top and sides of each log.

Bake logs until golden brown all over, about 25 minutes. Transfer tray to cooling rack; let cool about 25 minutes, until lukewarm. Gently transfer each log to a cutting board. Using a sharp serrated knife and gently sawing motion, cut logs on the diagonal into 1/2-inch wide slices. If using cinnamon-sugar, stir the two together and dip both cut sides in the mixture.
Arrange slices, a cut side down, on baking sheet(s). Bake for another 10 to 12 minutes, until golden underneath. Turn each biscotti over and bake for a final 6 to 8 minutes, until lightly bronzed all over. Let cool on rack.

Do ahead: Baked biscotti should keep in airtight containers at room temperature for weeks.

Blueberry Croissant Puff

One day recently, after I'd been on a pinning spree at the Pinterest site, I got a text from my cousin Becky letting me know that one of the dishes I'd selected is a tried and true recipe among the St. Albans Becketts. Aunt Janet had particularly loved the dish and often requested it for breakfast. (Presumably to accompany her other morning favorite - cheetos!) Anything with the Janet seal of approval definitely goes on my "got to try" baking list. So I did.

I made this for breakfast one morning when Brian was here, having helped Martin drive back to the area after a trip to take care of family business in California. Both the menfolk approved. As for me - I could've probably eaten the whole pan-full on my own. Since, I was able to restrain my gluttonous tendencies, I found out that you can reheat this dish the next day and it will still taste almost as perfect as when it is fresh out of the oven.

Blueberry Croissant Puff
from The-girl-who-ate-everything.com

Ingredients
3 large croissants, cut up (about 5 to 5 1/2 cups)
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (I used fresh. You don't move to the midwest to buy frozen fruit!)
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup milk

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place croissant pieces in a 9 inch square pan. Sprinkle with blueberries. (Note: I used up all my blueberries in this dish and it probably came to about 1 1/2 cups.)
Beat cream cheese, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a medium bowl with the electric mixer, until well blended. Gradually add milk, beating well after each addition. Pour evenly over croissant pieces. Let stand 20 minutes.
Bake at 350 for 35 to 40 minutes or until set in the center and golden brown. You may want to cover it with foil for the last 10 minutes if the tops are getting too browned.
Serve warm sprinkled with powdered sugar.