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Apr 29

42 Comments

No Kid Hungry Bake Sale And Divine Fair Trade Chocolate

Divine Chocolate

Divine Chocolate

Lets face it, as food bloggers a good part of our day is spent thinking about food, I constantly think about what new recipe can I conjure up with the beautiful and seemingly unlimited supply of food available to us. How is it then in this vast country with so much food, how is it that children can go to bed with an empty stomach?  It’s a very sad thought and because of this  I am participating with other food bloggers in a Bake Sale this weekend to benefit “No Kid Hungry“, 100% of the proceeds go to this amazing charity. In America, one of the wealthiest countries in the world 1 in 5 children go to bed hungry, thats a staggering statistic and this has to end. Local food bloggers are all donating baked goods and we are selling them here in Brooklyn at “The Flea” in an effort to raise money and awareness.

Divine Chocolate is one of the sponsers, click on the link to find out more about this wonderful company. They are the only fair trade cocoa company owned by it’s farmers. What a wonderful concept, the farmers/owners share in the company profits. You might ask why the photo of that luscious chocolate, well the good people from Divine have generously donated some chocolate to a handfull of bloggers that we will use in making our goodies for the bake sale and one of the lucky bloggers is moi!!!  I am very excited, because not only is this chocolate delicious, and the baked goods are going to help a very worthy cause but I am so happy to use chocolate that comes from a company that is owned by the farmers themselves. It’s a win win as far as I am concerned.

Back to the bake sale, visit the website to find out more information and what you can do to help. You can make a donation, there are raffles with fantastic prizes and this is something you can feel good about. We all love our children and knowing that we are doing something to help is the best feeling in the world. If you don’t live in NYC, no problem, enter the raffle or make a donation. Think about it, ending childhood hunger in the USA is within our reach and a donation no matter how small brings us one step closer.

I will be posting photo’s of the items I am making and also of the bake sale itself this weekend. We will also be able to meet some of the farmers from Ghana who offer their support for this very worthy cause. More to come….

Preview of the baked goods!

Double Chocolate Espresso Cookies

Double Chocolate Espresso Cookies

Photo taken by Whole Foods

Photo taken by Whole Foods

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Apr 18

73 Comments

Chive And Cheddar Buttermilk Waffles And White Gravy

Chive and cheddar buttermilk waffles

Chive and cheddar buttermilk waffles and gravy

This is an old recipe I created for my recipe collection on Food52. It’s sort of Southern, primarily because of the white gravy. Now you may think that waffles are only meant to be eaten with syrup or fruit but they are delicious as a savory dish, I thought this would be nice also for Spring since I use spring onions and chives. It’s delicious with pork chops, topped with a poached egg or eaten alone. I added cheese to the waffle batter along with buttermilk making them tangy. If you have never had white gravy before you are in for a treat, it’s delicious. My Mom always made white gravy with pork chops or chicken fried steak or chicken. This is my take on biscuits and gravy. Diet food, definitely not but nice for a splurge.

Serves 4-6

Gravy:

  • 6 spring onions chopped using the white and light green
  • 6-8 slices thick cut bacon cut into bite size pieces
  • 1/4 cup + 2 tbs flour
  • 2 1/2 cups milk
  • OPTIONAL: 1/2 tsp chopped rosemary (I like it if I am serving pork chops)
  1. Fry the bacon bits in saute pan until browned, remove from pan and save the fat you will use that for the gravy. Turn flame to med/low and add the spring onion (and optional rosemary) and saute until the onions are soft and translucent then add the flour, whisk until it’s combined with the fat and let cook for 2 minutes stirring constantly. Whisk in the milk and add the bacon let cook until it thickens, add salt and pepper. Pour over the waffles and garnish with chives.

Waffles:

  • 2 large eggs separated
  • 1 3/4 -2 cup buttermilk (start with 1 3/4 cup if you need more add if too thick)
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter
  • 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
  • 3 tablespoons chopped chives
  • 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup cake flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  1. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, beat together the egg yolks, buttermilk and melted butter add the cheddar cheese and chives and stir to combine. In another bowl whisk together the dry ingredients. Whip the egg whites until they form a peak, don’t overbeat but they should be quite stiff. Combine the wet and dry ingredients just until almost smooth, now fold in the egg whites. Heat waffle iron, spray with cooking spray or brush with oil or butter and cook the waffles according to the directions for your waffle maker.

Apr 12

53 Comments

Favorite Cookbooks

This morning I saw Chef Mimi’s post on her favorite cookbooks, and I thought wow, what are my favorites. I have hundreds of cookbooks but what are the books I use all the time and go back to constantly. It’s tough to narrow them down but here are my favorites, what are yours? You can see I like to bake, the majority are all baking books. I tend to wing it on savory recipes for the most part. This is a lot of fun and feel free to join in and blog about your most used cookbooks.

Baking with Julia

Baking with Julia

I use this book so often I have a second book I bought for when this copy becomes unusable due to overuse. It contains some of Julia’s greatest recipes for baked goods and it’s written by the great Dorie Greenspan.

Julia's Kitchen Wisdom

Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom

I love this book it contains Julia’s master recipes for both savory and sweet items. From stock to mayonaise to pie dough. I couldn’t live without it.

Food52 Volume II

Food52 Volume II

This book is fantastic, it contains some of the best recipes from the food52 community and is a book I use all the time.

Baking in America

Baking in America

Greg Patents wonderful book is an historical guide to baking, this book contains recipes new and old and is easy to follow, impeccably written and the recipes are foolproof.

Mini Treats And Hand Held Sweets

Mini Treats And Hand Held Sweets

This is one of my new favorite books, the recipes are amazing, Abby Dodge is a goddess in the kitchen and who doesn’t love bite size treats.

James McNair's Cakes

James McNair’s Cakes

I use this book all the time. It has some of the best recipes in it, this book is amazing, My favorites are Mr. McNair’s angel food cake, chiffon cake, whipped cream icing, upside down cake I could go on and on, I love this book.

Apr 10

28 Comments

DÉLICES FONDANTS AU NUTELLA // NUTELLA BITES

I want to introduce you to this wonderful blog, Weights And Measures, I fell in love with the beautiful photography and wonderful recipes. It is in French but if you need a translation Mrs. DeYarmond aka Sarah is more than happy to translate a recipe. I saw these wonderful Nutella Bites and felt I MUST share this with you. I know you will love her blog as much as I do, the recipes are impeccable and so delicious. I am a big fan of anything chocolate and when you throw Nutella in the mix I am in heaven.

DSC_0584Si vous n’aimez ni le chocolat, ni le Nutella, alors cet article ce blog n’est pas pour vous.
Cette recette de petits gâteaux au Nutella, je l’avais griffonné un jour rapidement et c’est dernièrement que j’ai voulu les réaliser {edit : j’ai pu retrouvé l’auteur initiale de cette recette, c’est la talentueuse Sandra Avital, vous trouverez son article ici}. En même temps, pas de grands risques à prendre (sauf peut être de devenir accros et d’en vouloir encore et encore !). J’ai donc trouvé la recette parfaite, sachant qu’à la maison, on est des grands amateurs de pâte à tartiner mangée à la cuillère !

DSC_0560Ces gâteaux au Nutella sont indécemment chocolatés ! Ils restent bien coulants à l’intérieur et gardent le goût intense de la pâte à tartiner. On a la sensation de croquer dans de la pâte à tartiner légèrement biscuitée. Un délice ! Les petits noisettes…

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Apr 8

52 Comments

Brown Rice Breakfast Risotto With Walnut Topping

Brown Rice Risotto

Brown Rice Risotto

The latest Whole Foods Recipe Contest is all about breakfast and whole grains. The weather is starting to get warmer but decided to create a warming healthful breakfast for the last vestiges of cool weather. This is not a quick on the go sort of breakfast (unless you make it the night before), it takes a good 30-40 minutes to cook but when dealing with whole grains you expect to take a little longer to prepare. I used short grain brown rice, milk (almond milk works great also), dates to sweeten and topped with some maple sweetened toasted walnuts. I love risotto and breakfast risotto is wonderful, You can easily make this the night before (thats what do) and either serve cold or heat it. No added sugar, whole grain brown rice is a healthful way to start your day!
Serves: 2
2/1/2-3 cups milk or almond milk
1/2 cup brown arborio or short grain rice
3-4 medjool dates pitted and chopped The dates really sweeten this use less for lightly sweetened risotto.
2 tbs butter (One tbs to saute dates and the other tbs when risotto is finished)
pinch of salt
Garnish
1/2 cup walnuts
2 tbs maple syrup
Add milk to medium saucepan and bring to simmer on med/low heat or heat in microwave for 2-3 minutes to get it hot. Place butter  in saute pan, add chopped dates and cook until softened, add rice and saute until rice is coated with the butter approximately 3 minutes.
Slowly add the milk a cup at a time to the rice, stirring until milk is absorbed and adding more until all of it is used. Add the remaining tbs of butter. Rice will be toothsome, total cooking time is about 30-40 minutes  NOTE: I didn’t add any additional sweeteners, the dates did the job for me, add a little sweetener of your choice if you like. I always have extra liquid ready when making risotto, the whole grain brown rice takes longer to cook and may need more liquid, I needed the full 2 1/2 cups of milk.
While risotto is cooking, pre heat your oven to 350, line small sheet pan with parchment, place walnuts and maple syrup in a small bowl and toss to combine, spread on sheet pan and toast in the oven for 10 minutes or just until you can smell the nuts. Remove from oven and give a rough chop.
To serve: Spoon risotto into bowl, sprinkle some of the nuts on top, add fresh fruit also, I like blueberries.

Apr 2

68 Comments

Pizza In A Snap!!

Pizza

Pizza

I felt like pizza today, was really busy and didn’t have time to run to the store for ingredients so decided to use what I had on hand. I made my go to quick pizza dough early this morning, let it rise in the refrigerator, I had some beautiful fresh spinach, a little ricotta that needed to be used, parmigiano and pecorino romano cheese and thats all I needed. The pizza dough is so simple to make, it literally takes 5 minutes, its no knead dough. I sauteed the spinach in garlic, olive oil and red pepper flakes, sprinkled on a little sea salt and black pepper, topped the dough with the spinach, some ricotta and grated parm and romano cheese. To gild the lilly I poached an egg and put it on top. Voila, dinner in a snap!!

Quick Pizza Dough

2 1/2 cups flour

2 1/4 tsp instant yeast

1 tsp salt

1 cup warm water (about 110 degrees)

2 tbs olive oil

Mix all ingredients, place in oiled zip lock bag and place in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or longer. If you don’t want to use the refrigerator method just place in oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel and let rise for 1 hour in a warm place.

Before making your pizza remove dough from the refrigerator and let come to room temperature. Pre heat your oven to 500 degrees, oil your pizza pan or heat your stone. Take the dough out of the bag or bowl, dust with a little flour and work the dough for a minute or two until its smooth. Stretch onto your  pizza pan or peel. Brush with olive oil, add your toppings, in my case it was sauteed spinach, ricotta and the grated cheese. Bake until browned and bubbly.

Apr 1

15 Comments

This is hilarious, happy April Fools Day!