Tag Archives: homemade

A Delicious Cracker: Homemade Matzo with Olive Oil

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Tonight is the first night of Passover, so we are baking matzo (matzoh? matzah! I can never decide which spelling to use) this morning instead of challah (hallah!).  Inspired by a sweet post on Gourmandistan, I took their advice and didn’t use their recipe, instead opting for one that Mark Bittman published in the NY Times a couple years ago.  Already untraditional in its use of olive oil and salt, I took the glad-not-to-be-actually-fleeing-Egypt spirit one step further and sprinkled the tops of some with the outstanding fennel and nigella salt from SugarPill and others with a dukkah blend from World Spice.

The result? Truly delicious crackers.

The recipe admonishes you to roll the dough paper-thin.  And when you say paper-thin, I say pasta roller.  That did actually work quite well, but I will also share that the much thicker rounds that my three-year-old rolled out by herself were equally delicious and only marginally less crispy.  So this is not a fussy dough.  Enjoy yourself.  And once you try these, you may decide to make them a year-round staple.  I am already thinking of the dips I want to serve these with after Passover is over and I can avoid the spelling conundrum by simply calling them “flatbreads.” Continue reading Homemade Matzo with Olive Oil (click for recipe)

Quinoa Chili with Red Peppers

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I ran into a neighbor the other day who was out walking with her three kids.  The youngest is a new baby, just about the same age that my new baby was when I decided that something had to give and we’d just have to eat scrambled eggs for the rest of time.  (I’d like to be able to say that I gave up on cleaning as well as cooking at that time, but, to be honest, cleaning was never really my thing.)

I offered to bring dinner by, of course.  I probably should have offered to come over and do eight loads of laundry instead, but I imagined that my casual acquaintance wouldn’t take me up on that offer.  (Or maybe I’m just telling myself that because I’d rather cook than do laundry any day.  If someone near and dear to you has a baby, though–especially a third baby–you should TOTALLY offer to do their laundry.  They need all the help they can get.)

I’m not necessarily recommending this chili as the ideal food for new parents.  It has everything some nursing moms try to avoid: spice, garlic, beans, onions.  Some might prefer a soothing lentil soup, or those quinoa cakes, or a tofu enchilada casserole.  But this chili is quick to cook and makes plenty to share.  And my neighbor was game.

It’s a recipe from the the “red” section of the Ripe cookbook (also the source of that Dal with Curried Red Onion Jam).  And when I read the headnote I knew that this recipe and I were meant to be.  Because it says that Ripe author Cheryl Sternman Rule adapted the recipe from one that she developed for Eating Well magazine way back when–and you know that she has GOT to be talking about my favorite wheat berry chili.  Except that quinoa cooks in 15 minutes instead of an hour and 15 minutes.  A brilliant idea for a busy mom on a busy day.  I kept my favorite elements of each recipe, of course, cooking the quinoa longer for more chew than crunch, happily piling in the red pepper, replacing red beans with homemade black beans, and squeezing in a few limes at the end. Continue reading Quinoa Chili with Red Peppers (click for recipe)

Bittersweet Chocolate and Dried Apricot Cookies

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There has long been a sweet little cafe in Seattle called Macrina Bakery. It has a few outposts now, and any of them are fortunate places to find yourself at lunchtime or when you need an afternoon pick-me-up.  Or for breakfast, of course.  Or whenever.  Freshly baked breads, good coffee, great pastries, a handful of equally decadent savory options to round out the offerings.  And lucky for us, they published a cookbook.

I was in search of a unique chocolate chip cookie.  Do yourself a favor and don’t waste time idly Google-ing “unique chocolate chip cookie.”  Sometimes the internet is useful, and sometimes it’s not.  I needed a cookbook.

My cookbook collection is largely geared toward the savory side of life, it turns out.  What are your favorite baking books?  I picked up one of the few I own, Leslie Mackie’s Macrina cookbook, and luckily it came through for me.

Chopped bittersweet chocolate and dried apricots certainly contribute generously to this cookie’s appeal.  But there’s another deeper, darker secret: the mere half teaspoon of finely ground espresso.  It lends a rich, difficult-to-place depth to the cookie’s flavor, firmly cementing its status as THE unique chocolate chip cookie I was looking for.

One friendly tip.  The recipe instructs you to chill the dough before baking it.  That is not the kind of thing I like to do.  If you know me, you know that I do everything at the last minute, which means that when I make cookies they are going straight into the oven because I need them to be ready ten minutes from now.  But in the spirit of experimentation, I also set aside a bit of dough and baked it the next day.  The cookies were even better.  The flavor was a bit more caramelized, deeper.  The original cookies were good.  The chilled batch was amazing.

So hey, what’s your favorite baking book?  I like easy, unfussy, not insanely decadent.  I can certainly recommend the Macrina cookbook (and not just on the strength of this recipe; I’ve made some others, and had still others made for me, all great).  I also love Rustic Fruit Desserts, by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson, and I am looking forward to pulling that one out more come summertime.

Bittersweet Chocolate and Dried Apricot Cookies: In a large bowl, combine 2 1/2 c. flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. finely ground espresso beans, 10 oz. chopped bittersweet chocolate, and 3/4 c. finely diced unsulfured dried apricots.  Cream 8 oz. (2 sticks) butter with 3/4 c. granulated sugar and 3/4 c. light brown sugar on medium speed for 5 minutes.  Add 2 eggs and 2 tsp. vanilla, scraping down the bowl as you go.  Add half of dry ingredients, mix until incorporated, then add other half and repeat.  Refrigerate the dough for one hour (or up to 4 days) if you can possibly wait.  Roll into 1″ balls, flatten slightly, and bake 8-10 minutes on parchment-lined sheets at 350, until the edges are golden brown.

Farro Bowl with Toasted Kale and Coconut and Curry-Roasted Tofu

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This is a good bowl of food.  Savory, crunchy, a little sweet from the coconut, a little spicy from the curry paste.  Whole grains, crispy-chewy kale and coconut, bouncy roasted tofu.  I used farro because I happened to come across it while I was thinking about this recipe, but brown rice would be a perfectly acceptable substitute.  And if you have ever made kale chips, you have some idea of the magic that’s going to happen here.This combination is based on the kale salad in Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day, but with a bit more kale, less oil, and with tofu added to make it a more complete meal.  It sounds a little complicated, but once the grains were cooking, the rest came together quickly.  The results were deeply flavorful.  This is one of those recipes where the final dish seems to exceed the sum of its parts. Continue reading Farro Bowl with Toasted Kale and Coconut and Curry-Roasted Tofu (click for recipe)

Baked Potato with Chili

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You know how I feel about my freezer.  I love all that good stuff in there that I made in double batches a while back so I could grab it on a busy night.  Here’s a way to give new life to that Winter Vegetarian Chili you stashed away (and stretch the frozen quart to feed a whole family).

Of course, a baked potato makes a mighty fine meal even if you don’t have chili handy (although that chili really is worth making).  And if you’re in a part of the world where the weather now makes eating chili & baked potatoes seem SO last season…well, feel free to gloat in the comments.

Continue reading Baked Potato with Chili (click for recipe)

Tempeh Tacos

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“Meatless Mondays” come and go around here without much notice, since we eat meatless meals most of the time.  But I occasionally get comments about dedicated carnivores trying to add (or grudgingly accepting) more vegetarian meals into their diets.

I acknowledge that I am supremely unqualified to comment on this topic, having eaten very little meat in the past two decades, but I imagine that it is hardy, “meaty,” vegetarian (vegan, even!) meals like this one that will appease even the most apprehensive carnivore.  Try it.  Let me know.  And then once you have eased into occasional meatless eating, you can move on to advanced vegetarian fare, like those herbed Quinoa Cakes.

Continue reading Tempeh Tacos (click for recipe)

My Favorite Recipes: March 2012

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I spent all day today wondering what on earth I could have done with my slippers.  I looked everywhere.  I kept asking if anyone had seen them.  (Nobody answered, but I assumed they thought I was just muttering to myself, which, ok, I was.)  I had to make do with a ratty old pair that I was apparently keeping just in case of an emergency like today.  Finally, late at night, J admitted to me that my 5 year old squirreled my slippers away early this morning as step one in an April Fools joke she had planned.  What?

First, should they really be teaching kids about April Fools Day in schools?  What about the unintended adverse consequences, like me having to wear different slippers today?  And second, since when can my 5 year old plan and execute devious schemes over the course of multiple days?  I clearly am going to need to up my parenting game.

I leave you with my favorite recipes from the past month and a warning to be on the watch for April foolishness.  I’m off to fill the kids’ breakfast bowls with fish sticks and broccoli.  And if you have any great ideas for April Fools tricks to play on my children, please share, as I believe I will have to be planning more elaborate ruses in future years.

How to Cook Black Beans
The Best Red Lentil Soup of 2012 (and a close runner-up for my favorite soup this month: Cauliflower and Cheddar Soup)
Challah French Toast with Vanilla and Orange Zest (perhaps made with your homemade challah?)
Quinoa Cakes with Cheese, Garlic, and Herbs
Roasted Broccoli Pizza with Feta
And last but not least, a readers’ favorite: Sweet Potato Chips

Thank you for reading and cooking along with me, and for sharing your own great tips, recipes, and humorous anecdotes.  To receive daily recipe updates, you can subscribe to this blog via RSS or email, or follow @emmycooks on Twitter (links on the sidebar).

Kale Chips

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Are kale chips so 2009?  I used to be in the kale chip vanguard, an evangelist for their crispy crunch and umami allure.  I sang their praises, shared the recipe (such as it is) with anyone who’d listen, made batch after batch.  But suddenly I keep hearing that kale chips have become as passé as the combination of sun-dried tomatoes and asparagus.  It is with great regret that I will have to give them up to keep abreast of current food trends….

Not really.  I don’t even really know what the current food trends are.  So, friends, two questions.  One, what are the current food trends?   And two, what do you put on your kale chips?

I have heard of all kinds of fabulous-sounding additions that could take your kale chip experience in many possible directions: sesame seeds, Parmesan, smoked paprika, cayenne, garlic powder, you get the idea.  But I usually just go with olive oil and salt.  I hesitate to call this a recipe because you can really do anything you want here as long as you dry out some kale in the oven until it’s crisp without burning it.  Any kind of kale.  I’ve made these chips with lacinato kale (pictured), green and purple curly kale, Red Russian–all great.  Wash and dry a bunch of kale and tear it into small or large pieces.  Rub with a little olive oil and salt and additional seasonings if desired.  Spread leaves in a single layer on two cookie sheets.  A relatively foolproof method is to bake the chips at 250 for 30-35 minutes, switching the top and bottom pans halfway through and watching closely near the end of the cooking time.  (Thanks, Bon Appetit in 2009!) Remove chips as they crisp and return the rest to the oven to finish cooking.

But IF you can’t wait half an hour for this magic, and IF you’re feeling daring and eagle-eyed, you can roast these chips at a much higher temperature (say, 450).  It goes without saying that they will cook, and burn, more quickly at a higher temperature.  On the other hand, they’ll be ready more quickly for you to gobble up like they’re going out of style.

Breakfast Tacos with Eggs, Potatoes, and Greens

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Everyone pretends it’s only the first few months of parenthood that leave you bleary-eyed and dazed from lack of sleep.  Wrong.  Most babies I know regularly wake up during the night for a long, long time.  I don’t know if it’s collective amnesia or willful deception, but nobody ever explained this to me in advance.

Last night my almost-one-year-old slept all night long for the first time in her life.  I was overjoyed, because my older girls didn’t do that until they turned two.  So it was probably a freak occurance that won’t be repeated for a year.  But still–still!–multiple consecutive hours of sleep are always a welcome gift after five years of sleep deprivation.  (I am like to think of this period of my life as the decade of babies, to be immediately followed by the decade of sleep.  Does it work that way?)

Sleep or no sleep, these tacos–just eggs atop a tangle of sauteed onions, potatoes, and greens–are a nice way to start the day. Continue reading Breakfast Tacos with Eggs, Potatoes, and Greens (click for recipe)

Sweet Potato Chips

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I occasionally see sensational headlines about how you can make potato chips in your microwave.  That is bunkum, I say.  I tried it out, just to be sure, and the results were as ridiculous as I expected.  I got cardboardy, chewy potato slices with some occasional hard spots.  My kids did eat them (I mean, I called them “chips,” so what’s not to like?), but they weren’t good.  And they took a while to make, what with having to check and remove “crisp” specimens then re-microwave the rest.  Luckily you can only make a plate at a time, so the damage was limited to half a potato.

You want chips without a deep fryer?  THIS is the recipe for you.  We do this with regular potato slices as well (I keep promising that potato chip pizza recipe), but for eating on their own these sweet potato chips are the best.  They crisp up right through, you can make two big trays at a time in the oven, and they are a sweet and salty side or snack.  Crunch, crunch, crunch. Continue reading Sweet Potato Chips (click for recipe)