Pumpkin Bread

There I was at my desk, minding my own business when I realized that I desperately wanted pumpkin bread and the only way I'd get it (at least, if I wanted it to be any good) was probably going to be to make it.

I've made other fruit breads-- this one should be no different, right? But I always need guinea pigs, and luckily there are nearly thirty people willing to consume something I bake and give me feedback. So I found a recipe, adjusted it slightly and set out to Lucky to pick up some pumpkin puree. If I make this again, I might try roasting my own pumpkin but for this version, a can of Libby's did just fine.

Pumpkin Bread -- makes three loaves

Tools:

Can opener, measuring utensils, two large bowls, whisks, three 9 x 5 loaf pans, spoon, spatula

Ingredients:

1 29 oz (about 3 1/2 cups) can pumpkin puree, 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil, 4 cups white sugar, 6 eggs, 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 1/2 tsp ground cloves, 2 tsp vanilla, 1 heaping tbsp sour cream, 1 tbsp brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease & lighly flour your loaf pans. I like to use butter wrappers for the greasing but butter or shortening will do just fine. You can also use one of those crazy sprays if you like. Tap out excess flour over the sink for a bit less of a mess.

I used the kitchen aid for this, but you know a handheld mixer will work just fine.

Mix the pumpkin and the oil until incorporated. It will be a bit soupy. Add the vanilla and the sour cream. Add one egg at a time, mixing well. Finally add the sugar and mix on low until smooth and creamy.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. Whisk together until everything is evenly distributed. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet pumpkin mix until it's blended and smooth.

Distribute evenly between your loaf pans and sprinkle the tops with brown sugar.

Stick 'em in the oven and bake for about an hour and ten minutes, or until the top springs back when pushed lightly and a toothpick comes out clean. Check your bread after an hour-- some ovens, pans and elevations make things vary. The original recipe I found said this would be ready in 45 minutes but they must have some crazy kind of oven because it took mine about an hour and fifteen minutes in the metal pans and an hour and ten in the glass pan.

Serve as is, or you can whip up this sour cream glaze. It's a little bitter from the unsweetened chocolate, so if you like something supersweet let your pumpkin bread go naked.

Chocolate Sour Cream Glaze-ish Frosting

Tools:

metal bowl, pot, whisk, measuring utensils

Ingredients:

1 1/2 oz bittersweet baker's chocolate, 7 oz sour cream, 6 tbsp powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp - 1 tsp hot water, 1/2 tsp milk, 3 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp vanilla

Put water in the pot over medium heat. Put the metal bowl over it (look ma! a double boiler!) and melt the chocolate and butter, whisking constantly. Whisk in the vanilla and 1/2 the powdered sugar. Whisk in the sour cream. Whisk, whisk, whisk as it comes to a bubbling state, then add the rest of the sugar. Whisk, whisk, whisk. Add the milk and the water, a little at a time, until the icing thins and forms a ribbon when you lift the whisk. Whisk in two pinches of salt, remove from heat and let drizzle over your intended target.

I drizzled one loaf with the chocolate, one loaf was 1/2 chocolate and the other I left plain.

The house smelled amazing by the time it was through and my tastebuds (and craving) were satisfied. Packed it up and brought it to work, where the guinea pigs devoured two loaves. I passed the recipe on to a coworker searching out pumpkin muffins... I can't wait to hear how they turned out for her!

CrockPotChickenzzzzzzzzz

So the best part about a crockpot is that you can walk away.

The worst part about a crockpot is that you have little control over seasoning.

To me, this means crockpots are good for things that you don't really want to season too heavily while cooking: larger poultry, stews, and even soups.

To this end, I really, really enjoy cooking a whole young chicken in the crock.

Tonight's variation:

1 crock pot PLUS 1 4 lb chicken, 3 baby carrots, 1/4 of a sweet onion, 11 cloves of garlic, 1 1/2 tsp herbs de provence, 1/4 tsp summer savory, 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 1/4 tsp lemon pepper, 2 bay leaves, 1 stalk celery, 1/4 cup chicken stock, 1/2 cup chardonnay, cheesecloth

Sauce-- if desired-- 1 sauce pan, 1-2 tsp flour, 1 1/2 tbsp butters, leftover drippings/liquid from chicken

Remove giblets and any visible trimmable fat from the chicken. Rinse inside and out and pat that sucker dry.

Mix the spices together. Rub them under the chicken skin and on the chicken skin. Place the chicken into the crock.

Crush the garlic cloves, and add the bay leaves, onion, carrot and celery. Roll it up and stuff it into the bird's cavity.

Pour the wine and stock around the chicken. Cover and cook for 5 hours on high, then 1.5 hour on low. Remove skin and bones and cavity-cheese-cloth-seasoners and separate yummy chickens, or just remove meat and skim fat from liquid.

(Either way, get rid of the fat if you're making gravy.)

Once it's separated, keep it warm in the oven at about 200 degrees.

If you're a gravy fan, put the butter in a sauce pan and melt, then whisk in the flour. Keep whisking about 3-5 minutes, until cooked. Add the strained & skimmed crockjuices. Whisk. Bring to a boil, boil for about a min and the reduce heat drastically, to a simmer, and let it chill like that until it gets to the desired thickness.

I like to roast potatoes in a wine/butter/broth combo for about 40 min at 400 degrees, and then a veggie of your choice. (Tonight, broccoli: 4 tbsp water or broth added to a pan of broccoli that went into about 2 tbsp of olive oil, lightly salted, covered after adding liquid and steamed for 3-4 minutes...)

It Always Begins In Chaos: Citrus Bread + Maple Bacon Muffins

The other day my coworker pops off with, "Can you make a bacon muffin?"

That sounds like a challenge.

So, I took to the google.com and searched high and low for a recipe. I looked at a few and finally settled on one from Evil Shenanigans with a few variations.

Also, just so you know, Cori-- it's not all little cups to start!

Maple Bacon Muffins were precipitated by Citrus Cranberry Muffins, a variation on a raspberry muffin recipe I made a while back. We had some milk (read: an excess) and aside from cake, which is harder to divvy and transport, the only thing I could think of to make that would utilize the milk were these muffins. So I made 'em, and sent some off with Nate to work to give to his folks, and sent some off to the aforementioned coworker. Contemplating these muffins and my extreme affection for Peet's Citrus Bread, I thought I'd try my hand. Next time I'll go lower-and-slower with temp and time, but otherwise, this made for a great morning bread!

Maple Bacon Muffins-- yields approx 30-33 muffins

tools:

muffin tins totaling 33-- two 12's plus a 9 work well, a large bowl, a pot, measuring utensils & cups, two whisks (or one whisk you can easily rinse + dry) muffin cup liners, a medium bowl, wire rack, jelly roll/cookie sheet and an ice cream scoop (if you want to get fancy).

ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour, 2 tbsp baking powder, 2 tsp kosher salt, 8-10 slices bacon, cooked crisp & crumbled, 2 cups milk, 4 eggs, 1 cup vegetable oil, 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp maple syrup (real stuff, no fakies)

3 tsp bacon fat

If you're bacon unsure-- here's my recommend: lay the bacon out on a wire rack nestled inside of a jelly roll pan, lined with foil or parchment paper. Put it in your oven. Turn your oven to 400-- when you start to smell the bacon (or about 5-6 after you oven comes to temp) you're going to have about 3-7 minutes left-- this is all dependant on how crispy you like your bacon. I recommend crispy crispy crispy for this recipe.

Preheat your oven to 425. set out your tins and line 'em with the paper muffin cups. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. I like to use a whisk to incorporate it all together in a thorough manner. Then add the bacon:

and toss thoroughly until it's evenly distributed and sufficiently coated.

In a separate bowl, mix the milk, eggs, oil and maple syrup. Make sure they are mixed well-- again, a whisk does the job nicely here.

Make a well in your dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Fold. It will be lumpy.

Use the ice cream scoop to fill your muffin cups 1/3 full. Bake for 22-24 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for 2-5 minutes before removing from tin to a wire rack.

Best served warm-- so if it's the next day about 20 seconds in the microwave should do it.

Cranberry Citrus Bread

tools: 2 loaf pans, measuring utensils, measuring cups, 1 saucepan, 1 large bowl

ingredients:

2 cups milk 3 tbsp orange zest

1 cup butter 3 tsp vanilla extract

4 large eggs 4 cups flour

1 1/2 cups sugar 5 teaspoons flour

1 1/2 tsp salt (iodized) 3 cups (approx) of cranberries

Preheat oven to 375.

Grease loaf pans, bottom & side, with lard/shortening/butterwrappers.

Melt butter. Add orange zest. Whisk in milk and vanilla extract. Remove from heat.

When mixture is cool to the touch, whisk in the eggs.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Add the milk mixture and stir *just* until blended. Add cranberries and fold, fold, fold.

Divide evenly into two pans and bake for an hour or until the top is golden brown and a toothpick comes clean from the center.

Now, I'm not a wasteful girl (or at least, I try).

Neither is Don.

He says, squeeze those oranges & add gin!!!!!

Dinner of the Week

Nate can cook, too.

Mmmm.

When Sarah Came For Dinner

When I was in high school I was a vegetarian. It's true-- the carnivore in me subsided and I ate a lot of vegetables and Morningstar Chik Patties. This went on for quite some time, and was spurred by a bloody vein in a piece of undercooked chicken. Nate might say that's one reason I cooked chicken to death when we first started living together: a fear of bloody veins and some kind of food poisoning. I'd only been "cooking" for about the same amount of time I'd been eating meat again, and it wasn't the most successful kitchen moment in history.

All it took for the tooth to turn from omnivore? A turkey sandwich from The Sandwich Board in Alameda did the trick. After that it was downhill: burgers, tacos, enchiladas, curry chicken and endless turkey sammiches.

But Sarah, my friend from Minnesota and former co-worker, has held steady with her vegetarian diet. She came for dinner a week or so ago, and I found myself contemplating my vegetarian repetoire.

There are a lot of things that can be adapted to serve a vegetarian diet, and I'd already cooked my favorite vegetarian meal for her a month or so before. A few nights before I'd thrown together a linguini, veggie & chicken dish that turned out for the better, only I'd found myself wanting more vegetables. I resolved to recreate the serendipitous pasta dish, only sans chicken for Sarah.

Linguini Mess With Vegetables + Chicken

Tools:

Chopping knives, cutting boards, meat mallot, measuring utensils, 1 large pan for sauteeing, 1 sauce pan, 1 additional oven-safe pan for chicken (optional), whisk, spatula & tongs, pasta pot & pasta scoop or collander

Ingredients:

(Everything's approximate & to taste since I sorta threw it together)

1 cup chopped spinach 3/4 cup grape tomatoes (add more if you like 'em)

1 orange bell pepper, diced 8-10 baby carrots, thinly sliced on a diagonal

1-2 shallots, thinly sliced 3 cloves garlic, minced

1 zuchinni, diced 10 crimini mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (optional)

1 tablespoon butter for each chicken breast

olive oil

Salt & pepper to taste

Sauce: 1/2 cup white wine, 1/2 cup pasta water, 2 tbsp butter & 1/2 tbsp (tops!!!) flour

First things first, get your water going in your pot for your linguini. You don't want to have ready-to-go veggies and nothing for them to go into, ya know? So, Polly put the kettle on (or large pasta pot, in this case), and get that sucker going.

Once I've made sure the pasta is in a good place, it's veggie time.

Oil into the pan at about the same time you toss the pasta into the water. Linguini takes 8-11 minutes, roughly, depending on the tooth of your liking. I tend to toss the veggies in, give it a sec, and then start the pasta cooking.

Add those vegetables, giving a good stir with each addition. Give them a gentle salt-and-peppering.

If you're into meat like I am (and like Nate is) then you'll want to make sure you don't mix the two and contaminate the veggie dish.

Pound until even and season liberally. Then chicken meets hot pan with a bit of oil. Let it get a nice sear and then add a bit of butter in the center for some real rich flavor. Once the butter is mostly melted and running down the sides of the chicken, flip and transfer the pan to the oven to finish (about 5-7 minutes).

Meanwhile, keep stirring and rotating those veggies over medium heat.

As if there wasn't enough to do, you'll want to pull your white wine sauce together. In your saucepan, melt the butter and sprinkle in the flour, a tad bit at a time, whisking constantly for about five minutes. Whisk in the wine & pasta water plus a pinch of salt and whisk, whisk, whisk until it's mixed consistently, simmer for about a minute. By now, linguini should be ready and drained (you can always lift directly from pot into pan using a stellar pasta scoop)-- add it to the veggies and toss with the white wine sauce.

Serve, if all veggie. If adding chicken, remove from oven, let stand a few and then cut into strips and plate atop the linguini.

Top with shredded parmesan cheese regardless of meat stature.

Sarah said it smelled pretty good.

She's either a diplomat or really dug it, because she cleaned her plate just like at our first company party.

Isn't It Always a Blue Box?

Did you grow up on the blue box? I grew up on the blue box. It was always evident when the blue box was a store brand-- there's some particular sensation of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese regarding mouthfeel-- but I'm pretty certain the box is always the same: Safeway Select, Lady Lee, Sunnyside Farms... isn't it always a blue box?

Sometimes you get tired of that damn box, the cups of milk and margarine or butter, the powdered cheese... and sometimes you see things on television that make you think, why the HELL have I been cooking that from a box?

Enter Alton Brown's macaroni & cheese, baked in the oven, delicious and creamy and yummy and practically a meal unto itself.

I first came across this recipe shortly after viewing the episode it's featured in-- but it was another year or so before I actually tried it. This isn't my first outing, but the results are always the same: delectable, creamy, cheesy, and with just the right bite from the paprika and just the right note from the onions. Overall, this recipe = FTW.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Time:

45 when you have it down pat; allot 1 hr 15 when you're a first timer

Tools:

2 large pots, 1 2-quart casserole, measuring utensils, whisk, cheese grater, extra bowl, ladle

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound elbow macaroni, 3 tablespoons butter, 3 tablespons flour, 1 tablespoon powdered mustard, 3 cups milk, 1/2 cup (or so!) of sweet white onion, finely diced, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp paprika, 1 large egg, 12 ounces medium or sharp shredded cheddar cheese, 1 tsp kosher salt, fresh black pepper; topping: about a cup to a cup & a half panko bread crumbs + 2 tbsp butter

Gather your ingredients.

While I'm getting stuff together, I like to get my water to the right temperature. It's a lot easier to reduce the heat and bring it back to a boil than it is to bring it to a boil from the get go once everything is assembled.

Once you've got everything together, turn your oven to 350 and preheat. If your oven takes FOR-EV-ER like my old oven, then make sure to do this a little earlier on in the process.

Once that water comes to a boil, drop in your macaroni. The package is surely going to have instructions, but in case you bought some sort of crazy non-instruction-having macaroni, you want to cook it until it's al dente, or approximately 6-8 minutes on a rolling boil. If you'd like to salt the water, be my guest. I personally think that the salt from the cheese and butter is sufficient until everything has been combined and you have a chance to taste, but if you're a salter: salt away (cautiously...).

Now, while the macaroni is jauntily boiling away with your occasional stir, you can get some other stuff together in your other large pot! Lucky you. Macaroni awaits. Melt your butter in this pot. Whisk in the flour & mustard. No lumps!

Add the onion, milk, paprika, & bay leaf. Make sure to add that onion first-- you don't want to get splashed! Bring to a simmer and let it do it's flavor melding thing for about ten minutes. Remove the bay leaf.

By now, the oven should be ready and your house should smell kinda awesome.

Here comes the tought part: temper the egg into the mixture.

The first time I tempered an egg it was a disaster-- there's no question. The first time I did almost *everything* it was a disaster, but we'll leave that alone for now. What's really important is the key to tempering: adding the egg when it's brought to temperature and not a moment before.

There are a couple of reasons I've found this to be true: one, your egg does the binding thing better than if it's not tempered; two: if you fuck it up, you can try again and nothing's been added to your otherwise fine culinary specimen; three: it's great practice.

So use a ladle and add small amounts of your simmered mixture to the egg, half-whisking, half-folding it in until the mixture feels slightly warm, but not too hot. It takes practice. Sometimes I still can't temper an egg, which is frustrating. Other people can temper no problemo-- but I always want to rush the issue...

Anyway.

Now that the egg is all tempered and added to the mixture, stir in almost all of the cheese (about 3/4) until it's well-mixed. Season to taste with salt and pepper (don't forget: you can ALWAYS add more!) and then fold in the macaroni, a bit at a time. Once you're all foldy-foldy gooshy goop, slide it into the casserole dish and top with the remaining cheddar cheese.

Now, the topping: melt remaining butter, toss panko in butter, spread evenly across macaroni.

Throw that bad boy in the oven for 30 minutes and make sure to cool at least five minutes before serving. (Unless you like to burn tastebuds and increase general malaise because the deliciousness cannot be tasted.)

I made chicken breasts with a creamy dill sauce and spinach to go along with this, but honestly -- the mac is the star.

dill chicken:

tools: skillet big enough to fit 2 chicken breasts, knives, scissors, tongs, whisk

ingredients: 1 full chicken breast, boneless, heavy cream, butter, fresh dill, salt, pepper, garlic powder

This kinda just came together- I didn't follow a recipe.

I pounded out my chicken.

I sprinkled each side with some fresh dill, which I cut with scissors; some salt, some pepper and a tad bit of garlic powder. I put these into a hot pan with olive oil, and cooked until the juice ran clear (about 7-9 minutes).

While that was happening, I whisked some butter with a sprinkle of flour and then added a bit of heavy cream, whisking and tasting until it was a little milk and a little salty. It was probably about 1/2 cup of heavy cream and 3 tbsp butter, with just enough flour in the butter to thicken. I made it up so I didn't really measure. Then I trimmed a buncha fresh dill into the mix, and added salt and pepper to taste. It was running close to being to milky, so I added a bit more salt and that balanced things out.

For the spinach, it was a quick steam job with olive oil, water and a few red pepper flakes.

Even the cat's couldn't resist.

The next time you need a comfort food on a rainy afternoon and you're willing to invest a little bit of time, make some mac and cheese. And if you want to get really crazy with it, add bacon!!