recipe update, cardamom biscuits

The other morning it was shaping up to be one of those days, when you need a yummy snack, some peace and quiet, and a break from all the anxiety. So I dredged up the cookbook my mom made me of family and favorite recipes (color-coded, with photographs, notes and illustrations) and whipped up some of my Tante Gretchen's delicious biscuits. I just made them with milk, instead of cream, and tried out powdered sugar to see what it would do. They were SO YUMMY with Bon Maman cherry preserves, a cup of milky coffee, and one of Katie Fforde's sweet little British novels (my light-summer-read-guilty-pleasure for years). 

I'm finishing this post and then making them again (just a half recipe or I will eat them all) to snack on while I watch an afternoon movie - it is too too hot and humid to do anything but sit in the cool.

Gretchen's Rich Cream Biscuits, with cardamom-sugar tops

2 C flour

2 tblspoons sugar (I used powdered last time - yummy)

1 stick butter

4 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

2/3 c milk or heavy whipping cream

Mix dry, then wet ingredients together, cutting the butter in before the cream until the mixture is pebbly. Knead for 10-15 seconds, roll out 3/4 inch thick dough. Cut into small circles (I use thin drinking glass) and bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes.

Topping: two tablespoons coarse sugar, 1/2 tsp cardamom. Sprinkle generously on top before baking.

To see some of this summer's chalkboard art that I did working for Blackberry, click here. 

recipe update

Happy March! This is a good month because it is my birthday, and my brother's birthday, and spring break all together. I thought I would finally get around to posting this scone recipe that I have made four-or five times this February (I actually think it is the only thing I have baked all semester). I used my go-to basic scone formula with a twist to have . . .

Torunn's Apple Pie Scones

2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cardamon
1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup milk (I use almond milk)
1 egg

1 green apple (this is the March-y part)


Preheat oven to 375 F. Mix the dry ingredients, mix in the butter, add wet ingredients and fold over until it all comes together. Peel and chop the apple into 1/2-inch pieces, mix into dough. I usually make these about 2-3 inch drop scones (makes 8) but they are also good in a round so you can slice them into triangles. Sprinkle tops generally with cinnamon and sugar, bake for 12-14 minutes or until the bottoms are golden.

Serve with ice cream and apple sauce for dessert, but good luck getting them anywhere except for directly from the cookie tray to your mouth.

I almost never say this, but these are good with whole wheat flour, or 1/2 flour 1/2 oats too.

On one other note, it has been snowing for a week now. Highlight of my morning: my french professor breezed out the doors where I work, stopped still and gasped at the snow and cold "Ooooh la la la."

recipe update: thanksgiving

I know that there has been a lot of recipe updating in the past week or two, but here is another one! I went with Sylvi to pick up our CSA box yesterday and we found that since there is not delivery Thanksgiving day, we got an extra large box plus a GIANT and I mean truly GIANT squash. It is larger than a toddler. And the box itself contained cranberries, celeric, lettuce, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, sugar pumpkins and apples.

So baked a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for a few of the guys down the hall and my roommates last night. And randomly, I didn't even have to go to the grocery store! There were three of us vegetarians, so I did the whole thing vegetarian, and it was deliciouso. Our topic of conversation was an article by Anne Lamott on gratitude (you can read the whole thing here)

One of my best friends was a Catholic girl. Her boisterous family bowed its collective head and said, "Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. …" I was so hungry for these words; it was like a cool breeze, a polite thank-you note to God, the silky magnetic energy of gratitude. I still love that line.

This is what I made:

cranberry sauce (3 cups of cranberry, 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp lemon zest. bring to a boil, simmer for 20 minutes, chill)
stuffing (I used vegetable broth and a loaf of staling french bread that has been in my freezer)
mashed potatoes with grated parmesan
roasted sweet potatoes, onions and butternut squash 
steamed broccoli
gravy (i found a vegetarian recipe here. it was actually quite good and really easy).
streusel apple pie

I am still not sure what got into me yesterday afternoon, but I brought home all those veggies, made a crust and put the pie in the oven, and then just kept adding things to the menu (I realized last minute that gravy was crucial). Six of us crammed around our little dining table and finished everything except for one piece of pie, which is in my lunchbox at work today!

P.S. This is my 500th post!

recipe update: vegetable edition

On a meal-time note: As it is already well into November and most of what I have been eating is going out of season, I was delighted when my pal Sylvi asked if I would like to split a Community Sustainable Agriculture box (I am 78% sure that is what CSA stands for) for six weeks in November-December. Obviously, I said absolutely, as it means we get to go every week and pick up a milk-crate sized parcel of locally grown organic produce to split. My haul this week:

one ginormous acorn squash (any suggestion as to what to do with it?)
two large red apples
a bunch of mustard-leaf lettuce
a bunch of regular red lettuce
three parsnips
a bunch of red and green kale

This is lovely because it means I get to creatively build my dinners (my lunches are pretty much nonexistent and breakfast is always eggs on toast or jammy yogurt) around whatever comes in the box. And I don't have much experience cooking Autumnul/Winter vegetables yet.

This recipe is what I am trying out tonight from Food & Wine: Kale with Garlic and Oven-Roasted Parsnips.*

If you have any favorites of your own with any of the above vegetables, or squash or potatoes or kale or salads, email them to me and I will try them out!

*The wonderful thing about the internet is being able to type in a handful of ingredients and come up with delicious recipes when you don't know what to cook!

recipe update

This is not a specific recipe, but I am co-hosting an Autumnal Celebration tomorrow afternoon and thought I would give a little outline in case anyone else wants to! My friend Kristine and I invited about fifteen people, and are doing:

bobbing for apples
an Autumnul craft (I am collecting acorns and leaves and buttons and twine and feathers)

swedish apple pie
pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie
a spice cake
toasted pumpkin seeds
carrot and beet salad with pecans

But this week has been crazy and phewf! I still need to go to the grocery store, start baking, collect colorful leaves (and dry them - it is raining) make a garland decoration and find a vacuum.

recipe update: breakfast

Thus far this year I have been fairly successful at both going to bed early (ie before midnight, often before eleven) and getting up at a reasonable hour. I like to have a whole hour of time in the morning before I leave to walk or bicycle to class so I can make a yummy breakfast, linger over coffee in my slippers, peer out the window at our tree,* flop on the couch and sigh loudly, then get dressed, make my bed, listen to some Sufjan Stevens or Chuck Wagon Gang, brush my teeth, decide whether or not to wear makeup, change my outfit, cram my books in a backpack or bag, and fly out the door.

Breakfast, as it turns out, has been a wonderful success for me the last few weeks! I haven't really eaten breakfast regularly for two years, but decided that could change now that I have a kitchen and a regular sleep schedule. Discipline, I think they call this. 

So. Some days I have fresh scones, some days sliced hardboiled eggs with salt and pepper on wheat toast, other days tea and marmalade toast. But most of the time I make yogurt creations with the delicious, always-on-sale bizarro brand of Middle Eastern plain yogurt I buy at the Village Marketplace up President St. in Wheaton.  It is thick enough to be Greek-yogurt like but sooooo much cheaper. I buy about two containers a week, and use it with honey as ice cream on top of desserts I make, or as an afternoon snack, or as a thickener in curry, and especially for breakfast. In Oxford every morning with breakfast there was Greek yogurt with a choice of fruit syrups to put on top, like jams essentially, and I have carried over that tradition to my apartment, using Bon Maman jams (also always on sale at the Village Marketplace - I have 6 jars in my pantry). Then I peer in the cupboard to see what else looks good...

Here are a few of my favorite combinations, served on top of a bowl of plain yogurt:

Apricot preserves & toasted caramelized pecans

Blueberry jam & sliced plums

Peach jam & plain-oat granola

honey & strawberries & toasted almonds

sticky-pecan muffins

 The other day I got a copy of Elizabeth Alston's Muffins: Sixty Sweet and Savory Recipes ... From Old Favorites to New for a quarter (I recognized it - I think my mom may have a copy at home). I have made my mother's French breakfast puffs twice now, and thought I could deviate a little in my muffin-making run. So, since today was the first truly chilly day of September and Autumn is almost upon us, I made cinnamon-oat Sticky Pecan Muffins. They were delicious! Like pecan rolls but healthier and easier to make.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup oat bran or whole oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping: 1/4 c butter, 1/4 c brown sugar, 1/2 c pecan pieces.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly butter one muffin tin (recipe makes a dozen muffins).

Mix dry ingredients except for the brown sugar in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together brown sugar and eggs, then add milk, butter, and vanilla. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Place an additional:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
in a bowl and melt in the microwave for about 45 seconds, or until the butter is melted. Mix with a fork, and distribute the mixture evenly amongst the muffin cups. Sprinkle a few pecan pieces in each cup, and then pour the muffin batter on top, until all of the cups are about 2/3 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden around the edges and firm on top.

recipe update

I have been experimenting a lot with cooking Thai food and other curries, and after a little bit of trial and error (I made a peanut sauce with fresh banana peppers last week that was so spicy my fingernails and ears burned), I struck gold last night with an improvised panang curry sauce (red curry and coconut milk) and bean threads. This is an easy dinner, the bean threads only take about a minute in boiling water to cook and the only prep is chopping vegetables, but is soooooo delicious. When I was slurping up the long thin noodles with the friend I invited for dinner, I kept thinking that this was like eating Mac 'n' cheese - creamy, savory, noodl-y comfort. But it is much healthier! And not really anything like Mac 'n' Cheese. You'll know what I mean if you try it out . . .

Torunn's Thai Mac 'n' Cheese

2 bunches of Bean Thread noodles (they come in a packet of four)
one orange bell pepper, sliced into thin strips
one garlic clove, finely chopped
1/3 cup of onion, chopped lengthwise into long thin slices
two large carrots, peeled
one can of coconut milk
4 tablespoons Red Curry sauce
one lime
 finely chopped peanuts

Put a teaspoon of olive oil and two tablespoons of water in a large skillet over medium heat. Chop carrots lengthwise in half, and then into thirds, so the pieces are about as long as your thumb and about a half inch wide. Put carrots in skillet, cover, and simmer for two minutes.

Put the bean threads into a large heat-resistant bowl. Bring a kettle of water to a rolling boil, and pour over noodles until they are completely covered. To prevent noodles from all sticking together, give them a quick stir after you pour the water over.

Add the onion and garlic to the pan, stir and simmer until the onions are just turning golden. Throw in bell pepper, simmer for one minute. Using a large wooden spoon and fork, take the bean threads out of the water, let drip for a moment over the bowl, and place them in the skillet with the vegetables. Pour half of the can of coconut milk (or a little more) into the pan, and add 4-6 tablespoons of Red Curry Sauce (Trader Joe's has a good version) and squeeze half a lime's worth of juice on top. Stir together until everything is combined, and the sauce is a light golden-orange color. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring it to bubbling, turn off the heat, and serve with a sprinkling of peanuts on top and a lime wedge.

baking day

Thursday afternoons are baking days for me this fall. I have classes from 8:30-4:15 all week, and then nothing except for work at the Tickets and Information office on Fridays, so Thursday afternoon is my celebration of another week of classes gone by.

Today I made brown-sugar cranberry scones with lemon zest, another variation on my favorite scone recipe. They were soooooooooo delicious, especially with a little bit of butter and Bon Maman cherry jam on top, accompanied by iced coffee and almond milk.

The downside is that our oven being on heats up the entire apartment to about 90 degrees.

Still, sitting down at my own kitchen table to eat perfect baked goods . . . well worth the inferno.

Torunn's Favorite Brown-Sugar Scones:

2c flour

1/4c brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1/4c butter

3/4 milk (or cream if you are feeling sumptuous)

1 egg

1 tbsp baking powder

1 cup of either:       plus:

blueberries              some grated lemon zest

dried cranberries    lemon zest

chocolate chips      shredded coconut     

(1tsp) nutmeg         orange zest

mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, add cold butter to the bowl and work with clean hands until the butter is in pea-sized crumbles. mix the egg into the milk with a whisk, pour into dry ingredients, add your flavoring ingredients or extras, and mix with a fork until all the flour is combined.

plop dough onto a buttered and lightly floured cookie sheet (so the scones pop off easily) and press into a large circle, about an inch thick. sprinkle a little brown sugar on top. bake at 375F for about 20 minutes, or until risen and lightly golden brown.