Tag Archives: children

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

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End of the weekend.  A sweet one, full of friends, that left the kitchen a disaster.  Everyone’s gone, kids are sleeping, we’re talking in the kitchen.  I’m eating sweet potato fries.  Cold.  Off a cookie sheet.

Casually at first–there are only a few left, it seems easier than putting them away.  I absent-mindedly take another, wonder if we could just clean up next weekend instead. (Is that soon?)  Then I give the tray my full attention to peel up the last sticky, crispy, sugary bits of sweet potato.  No wonder my kids love these.

If your kids don’t get to them first, you’ll be glad to have these roasted sweet potato fries alongside a burger or sandwich of any sort, for an afternoon snack, or topping an untraditional soba or sushi rice bowl.  Or maybe, like me, you’ll find yourself eating them cold from the pan as dessert.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries: Cut sweet potatoes into batons of any size.  Place on a baking sheet and toss with olive oil and salt.  Roast at 450, checking every 10 minutes and turning them as they start to brown.  Remove when edges are crisp; smaller fries may be done before larger ones.  Total baking time depends on how thickly the sweet potatoes are cut.  Serve with ketchup, or maybe a garlicky aioli.

My Favorite Recipes: February 2012

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It was difficult to choose my favorite recipes from this month! My top five recipes below were all new to me this month, so they are ones that I am newly excited about. But I also cooked several of my old standbys, so make sure you scroll back through this month’s posts to find your own new favorites.Favorite Recipes Collage Feb 2012

Celebrate Spring with A Canning Jar Coddled Egg
Smoky Cauliflower Frittata (or, even simpler: Roasted Cauliflower)
Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad with Lemon, Pecorino and Red Onion
Pasta with Garlic, Anchovies, Chili and Breadcrumbs
Quick Whole Wheat Spice Bread with Brown Sugar, Orange Zest and Walnuts
And last but not least, a readers’ favorite: Eat Your Greens: Easy Handmade Spinach Pasta

Thank you for reading and cooking along with me!  And welcome to the many new readers who have joined us this month.  To receive daily recipe updates, you can subscribe to this blog via RSS or email, or follow @emmycooks on Twitter (links on the sidebar).  And special thanks to The Kitchen’s Garden Project and Cook Every Day for your recognition of emmycooks this month.

And finally, hey, maybe a recipe index would be helpful around here.  If you have created one and have any tips for me, will you please leave me a note in the comments?  Thank you!

Earl Grey Chocolate Cake

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Shutterbean recently posted this Real Simple recipe for an Earl Grey Chocolate Cake.  And I was torn.  Chocolate and Earl Grey?  Yes.  Dreamy combination.  But Real Simple?  Not for me.  I sometimes want to buy it off a magazine rack, sure, because who wouldn’t want to “Organize Your Whole Life in 15 Minutes” or learn “25 Fast Healthy Breakfast Ideas You’ve Never Thought Of Before”?  But those are false promises, or at most two-page spreads, and when I have actually purchased the magazine I have come away with the feeling that it was really just trying to sell me cleaning products all along.  And I don’t really like to clean.

Luckily, I didn’t let my issues outweigh my love of cake.  Because this is a good one.  I love a chocolatey chocolate cake, which this is not.  (For a moist, delicious, super chocolatey cake, bake these Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes as a cake instead.)  This Earl Grey Chocolate Cake has a lighter chocolate flavor, which is a good thing (weird! I know!), because it allows the tea to come through.  The Earl Grey flavor is subtle, but definitely noticeable.  Intriguing.

The bundt pan that I dug out of the back of my cupboard gave the cake an irresistable chewy-crisp edge.  If you’re a middle-of-the-brownie-pan kind of person instead, don’t worry, all but a few millimeters of the cake is fine-crumbed and moist.  (But oh!  Those few millimeters!  If you are an edge-of-the-brownie-pan kind of person, you will love that edge.)  The bundt pan also made J refer to me (fondly, I think) as a Midwestern housewife.  If you live in the Midwest, do you make a lot of bundt cakes?  I think that is a lifestyle I could definitely embrace.Real Simple Earl Grey Chocolate Cake

I enjoyed making Earl Grey Chocolate Cake in part because you mix everything in one bowl, so it required relatively little cleanup (see above re whether I like to clean).  Boil a cup of water and infuse it for 3-5 minutes with 6 Earl Grey tea bags or 2 Tbsp. loose Earl Grey tea, then set the tea aside.  Spray a bundt or tube pan and set it aside.  Melt and cool 4 oz. semisweet chocolate.*  In your mixing bowl, cream 1/2 c. softened butter with 1 3/4 c. sugar, then mix in 3 eggs. Mix in the melted chocolate.  Continue to mix while adding 2 c. all-purpose flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/2 c. plain yogurt and that strong cup of Earl Grey tea.  Scoop the cake batter into your pan.  Bake 45-50 minutes at 350 or until a skewer comes out with a few crumbs (rather than raw cake batter) attached.  Let the cake cool for 5 minutes, then turn out of the pan.  Cool, then dust with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

*The original recipe called for 4 oz. unsweetened chocolate and 2 c. sugar, but I didn’t have unsweetened chocolate.  Make it easy, use what you have on hand.

Quick Whole Wheat Spice Bread with Brown Sugar, Orange Zest and Walnuts

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This afternoon, as my five year old drifted off to napland, she  opened her eyes to dreamily ask, “Mommy, after my nap, can I have TWO MORE PIECES of that bread you made, with butter?”  I smiled and nodded, and she was fast asleep.  Inspiring that kind of delight is the best reward a cook can hope for, in my book.

It’s lucky that this recipe makes two loaves of bread, because my family started  hovering around the cooling rack the moment the bread came out of the oven.  The source of this recipe, Cheryl Sternman Rule (writer of this lovely blog), calls it “Toasting Bread.”  She advises you to cool the bread completely before slicing,  toasting, and spreading it with honey butter.  I am here to tell you that the “letting it cool” part will be very difficult.  We could not withstand the siren scent and ate most of the first loaf warm, slathered in salted butter.  It was heavenly.  Lest it appear that I am contradicting Ms. Rule, however, I should add that the loaf we could bear to let cool was indeed delicious toasted.Quick Whole Wheat Spice Bread with Brown Sugar, Orange Zest and Walnuts: Grease two loaf pans well with softened butter.  Whisk an a egg in large bowl, then whisk in 3 Tbs. honey, 1 c. dark brown sugar and 1 1/2 c. milk.  Zest two oranges directly into the bowl.  Trade your whisk for a wooden spoon or spatula and stir in the dry ingredients: 2 c. whole wheat flour, 2 c. all-purpose flour, 3/4 tsp. ground cloves, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 4 tsp. baking powder.  Mix well, then add 1 c. chopped walnuts and mix again.  Divide batter between your two prepared pans.  Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick tester comes out clean.  Remove from pans and cool on a rack.  Hover over the bread, inhaling deeply, resisting as long as you like, then serve toasted (or still warm) with butter.

 

A Child’s Sugar Cookie

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Valentines Day didn’t go exactly as planned this year.  So we put off making our usual heart-shaped cookies until everyone was well enough to be allowed back into the kitchen.  It’s never the wrong day to celebrate with pink heart cookies, I say.

I love this recipe for two reasons.  First, the dough is extremely easy to work with.  Kids can roll it, cut it, move the cookies, re-roll the scraps, and start again.  It isn’t fussy at all.  Second, the recipe came to me from my mom’s good friend, who got it from her “Mumsy” decades ago, and you know those recipes are always the best.  The recipe came labeled: “A Child’s Cookie: stands up to rough handling by kids.”  And indeed it does.

Sugar Cookies: Cream 1/2 c. butter with 1 c. sugar.  Stir in 2 beaten eggs and 1 tsp. vanilla.  Add 2 1/2 c. flour mixed with 2 tsp. baking powder and mix well.  Chill dough in refrigerator for 1 hour or up to several days.  Roll out to 1/8-1/4″ thick, using a little more flour if the dough is sticky (thicker cookies will be softer, thinner will be crisper).  Cut out shapes and bake at 350 on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Baking time will vary according to thickness, but start checking them after 6 minutes and remove from oven before they start to brown.  Cool on a wire rack.  We decorated ours with colored sugar and sprinkles before baking, but of course you can frost these and decorate them once they’re baked.   Or leave them plain–you can never go wrong turning plain thin cookies into Nutella Sandwich Cookies.

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins

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Today was baking day.  Bread, cookies, granola, muffins, maybe a cake.  I had the best of intentions.  Butter softening on the counter.  Oats and nuts down from the shelves.  Sugar, honey.  All the ingredients.  And then, as it sometimes does, the day got away from me.  So that was fun too.

But I did make these muffins.  They use 100% whole wheat flour but somehow aren’t heavy.  They’re moist and a little sweet, and you can make them sweeter with a pecan streusel topping.  We always go that route when we have them as a breakfast treat.  Or you can make the muffins plain, as I do when I make them for my kids’ lunchboxes, usually in a mini muffin tin.  Kids dig little things.  And it’s cute to watch the baby enthusiastically eat a whole–if tiny–muffin.

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins require three bowls if you’re making the streusel topping, which I highly recommend.  Make the topping first: mash together or pulse in a food processor 1/2 c brown sugar, 2 tsp. flour, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 3 Tb. butter, and 2/3 c. chopped pecans.  Pop the topping into the freezer while you’re preparing the batter (and if you have leftover topping, you can keep it in the freezer for next time).   Mix wet ingredients in one bowl: 2 beaten eggs, 1 1/3 c. buttermilk, 1/3 c. canola oil, 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla.  Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl: 2 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, 2 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 c. (or up to 3/4 c.) brown sugar.  Using a rubber spatula, fold wet and dry ingredients together with 1 c. peeled and finely diced apple.  Don’t stir too much, just until it’s all combined.  Scoop into buttered or lined muffin tins, filling nearly to the top, then pat streusel on top if you are using it.  Bake at 375 in the upper 1/3 of the oven for about 10 mins for mini muffins or 20-25 mins for the larger size.

This recipe is from my all-time favorite cookbook, Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  My copy is falling apart, pages are abandoning the binding, it’s oil-stained and thickened by pages that have soaked up sauces, dressings, soup splatters, and my notes in the margins.  What do your favorite cookbooks look like?  And what are they?

DIY Baby Food: Make Real Food for Someone You Love

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If you don’t have a baby of your own, don’t go anywhere.  This applies to you too. Because who doesn’t love to eat baby food sometimes?  I’m KIDDING.  But if you know someone with a baby, and want to do something nice for them, you could ask if they would like the gift of homemade baby food.  Parents are always busy and anyone who offers to lend a hand is doing a public service.  It takes a village, people.

I have always been confused about why people who care what they feed themselves buy jarred food for their babies.   Even if the label says organic happy super-healthy baby food, I can’t help but imagine that the fruits and vegetables that go into the puree are not the gorgeous specimens that would otherwise be gleaming in the produce aisle.  But maybe I’m just suspicious like that.  Plus, buying baby food is expensive and making it is cheap and easy.

Here’s the big recipe for DIY Baby Food: peel and steam or roast an organic fruit or vegetable.  Puree or mash it (older babies can eat chunkier foods).  Freeze solid in ice cube trays, then pop them out into a freezer bag for storage.

Some easy classics: carrots, peas, apples, pears, winter squash, peaches.  Find something that’s seasonal and delicious.  Babies learn to love real food through these early experiences.

Today my own baby enjoyed sharing bites of tofu and egg out of my spicy bowl of pad thai, so I am thinking the days of smushed-up baby food are close to over around here.  But if I can help out a friend, you can bet I’ll be making it again soon.

A Healthy Indulgence: Whole Grain Banana Cardamom Muffins (with optional chocolate, of course)

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I’ve been keeping a close eye on the banana situation recently.  We like bananas in our family, I usually keep the fruit bowl stocked with them, but, you know, sometimes there is disequalibrium between supply and demand.  And for those times there is banana bread.

After the first brown spots appeared on the bananas on my counter, I began to get hopeful.  I flipped through a few of my cookbooks, contemplating my banana bread options.  I saw a recipe for a banana cardamom cake and got excited.  Days went by.  The bananas were definitely going to be mine to bake with.  Really, it was time.  Seriously.

Then today this recipe popped up on my screen, and I was ready.  (Isn’t that a nice blog?  Go ahead, go click through to her website, check out that recipe, and vote for her for a Bloggie for Best Canadian Blog.  I’ll wait.)  You back?  So you saw why I didn’t just make that recipe: the coconut.  I know I’m in the minority here, but coconut isn’t my favorite.  What IS my favorite, you ask?  Chocolate, of course.  So I knew it was time for a recipe mashup.  One other consideration was that I wanted to make these healthy enough for my kids’ school lunches, which meant that starting with a stick of butter was out.

I went halfsies on this recipe and made some some of the muffins with cocoa and chocolate chips and the rest without.  You’ll like them either way.  Banana Cardamom Muffins start with 2-3 mashed bananas, of course, preferably sorry browning specimens that have been rejected by your family.  Mix the mashed bananas with 3/4 c. buttermilk, 1/2 c. brown sugar, an egg, and 2 Tb. melted butter.  Stir 1 c. oats into the wet ingredients.  In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour, 1 tsp. ground cardamom, and 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda.  (If you are making the chocolate version, now add 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder and a handful of chocolate chips to the dry ingredients and 1 tsp. vanilla to the wet ingredients.)  Mix the wet ingredients into the dry just to combine and scoop the batter into lined muffin tins.  Bake at 350 for 20-23 minutes, checking every minute after 20 minutes to avoid overbaking.

Jewel Tone Winter Pasta

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I have mentioned before that orange vegetables have favored status with the children in our household.  Which is why, when I have a butternut squash around, my first thought about dinner is usually that I should dice it up and roast it.  My oldest calls the carmelized bites “squash candy,” which isn’t at all wrong (although I don’t go this far).

I, however, am not picky about the color of my food, so long as my plate contains an array of stunning hues.  Ok, so I am picky.  It’s worth it.  Beautiful tastes better.

Luckily, we eat a lot of vegetables, and vegetables are gorgeous.  This pasta has a combination of veggies that I love for their jewel tones almost as much as I love them for their flavor together: butternut squash, kale, red onion, and mushrooms.

I am not an evangelist on this point, but I think this combination is worth trying with whole wheat pasta.  At this time of year especially, I like the robust savor of whole wheat noodles underlying the sweetness of caramelized winter vegetables.  But hey, if that’s not your thing, go ahead and use whatever you’ve got on your shelf.

Jewel Tone Winter Pasta begins with the roasting of a peeled, diced butternut squash tossed with a spoonful of olive oil and a few good pinches of salt.  Roast it at 450 and stir every 10 minutes or so until the cubes start to candy at the edges (about 40 minutes for 1/2″ cubes).  Meanwhile, heat a pot of water to boil pasta.  While it’s heating, find a pan large enough to hold the finished dish and saute a sliced red onion in olive oil on high heat with a pinch of salt until it begins to really brown.  Add a pile of sliced mushrooms and continue cooking until the liquid evaporates and they shine like gold.  Now toss in a big pinch of salt and a shredded head of washed kale, with a few additional spoonfuls of water if necessary to deglaze the pan, and cook until the kale is tender but not mushy.  (Take the pan off the heat if your pasta and squash aren’t ready yet.)  When your squash is nearing perfection, cook whole wheat spaghetti (or your noodles of choice) in salted water for 1 minute less than usual and then drain, reserving a cup of cooking water–the pasta will finish cooking in your pan.  Put your pan back on the heat and combine everything: sauteed veggies, roasted squash, noodles, a splash of olive oil and some good grindings of pepper.  Taste for salt and serve with more pepper at the table, and a little bit of cheese if you’re so inclined.  I love this dish with blue cheese, but fresh goat cheese or grated parmesan would be perfectly acceptable alternatives.

We served this pasta with a spinach salad with fresh pears, dried cherries, sunflower seeds and Creamy Pear Vinaigrette, but it would also be delicious with this lemony Romaine salad with homemade croutons.

This Weekend, Make Sweet Potato Pancakes for Someone You Love

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It’s never the wrong time to make sweet potato pancakes for someone you love.  So make them this weekend.  Or you could file these pancakes away for Valentines Day.  Or, better yet, make them the next three weekends in a row to perfect your technique, THEN make them for Valentines Day.  If you’re cutesy like that, you can shape your pancakes into a heart using a cookie cutter or pancake mold, or you can use a squeeze bottle of batter to bake a heart-outline shape.  If you’re not cutesy like that, these are still great pancakes to make for the ones you love because they’re healthy for the ol’ ticker, full of beta carotene and whole grain goodness.  And they have “sweet” in the name.

Anyway, my kids found MY heart-shaped pancake mold (where did THAT come from?) in a bag of Valentine-making supplies a few days ago.  They have been requesting heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast every morning since.  But anyone who knows me knows that I don’t roll that way.  Instead, like this writer, I stay up way too late and come morning it’s all I can do to roll out of bed in time to (drink a pot of coffee and) get the kids out the door.  So the idea of pancakes on a weekday, unless J makes them during his cheery morning revelries with the children, is a no-go.

Enter Breakfast For Dinner.  I told you how we mostly just ate scrambled eggs for a while there, so pancakes for dinner shouldn’t be such a big deal, but the kiddos were gleeful.  That’s always nice.

To make these Sweet Potato Pancakes, first peel, dice, steam and then mash or puree one large sweet potato.  That sounds like a big deal, but it’s not.  Just get it started while you mix the rest of your ingredients.  In a large bowl, mix 1 c. all-purpose flour, 1 c. whole wheat flour (pastry if you have it), 4 tsp. baking powder, 1 ½ tsp. cinnamon and a big pinch of salt.  In a separate bowl, whisk 2 eggs with 2 c. milk, 4 tsp. canola oil, 2 Tbsp. brown sugar and 1 tsp. of vanilla.  Whisk in that sweet potato puree, then mix into your dry ingredients until blended.  Bake on a buttered griddle for a buttery crispy crust.

Serve with your favorite pancake fixings.  Mine–with these pancakes, at least–are vanilla yogurt, toasted pecans and a drizzle of maple syrup.  Yours?

p.s.  Did you know you can replace the butter/oil in lots of baked goods with sweet potato puree?

p.p.s. Save some pancake batter in the fridge.  You might want to make these again for dinner.