The Friday Poem: The Weight of a Book
January 28, 2022 at 6:00 am (Poetry)
Tags: books, communication, poetry
The Friday Poem: A Child Inside
January 21, 2022 at 6:00 am (Poetry, Uncategorized)
Tags: Mr. Rogers, poetry
The Monthly Recipe: Toasted Oat PB & Cocoa No-bake Cookies
January 21, 2022 at 5:01 am (Recipes)
Tags: cookies, gluten free, refined sugar free
I’ve been wanting to try a classic no bake cookie recipe with maple syrup instead of sugar using oats that had been toasted in order to partially cook them. (Okay, so technically the oats are baked, but the cookies themselves are not.) I started by doing some research into pre-existing recipes. The main problem I had was – there were so many of them! And they were all a little bit different. Various recipes changed the ratios on the sugar, cocoa, and peanut butter, not to mention wildly different amounts and kinds of milk and butter or oil. Which way to jump?
I decided to start with a basic recipe that went high on the cocoa powder and peanut butter and sub in the maple syrup. I went with the recipe from Simple Joy. (Original recipe at https://www.simplejoy.com/chocolate-peanut-butter-no-bake-cookies/ ) I did cut the recipe in half and toasted the oats ahead. They turned out good – fudgy and rich with tons of peanut butter and chocolate flavor. The consistency was the only problem, they aren’t going to be able to sit out. These need to be stored in the fridge.
In putting the maple syrup in, I did a little research on making fudge with maple syrup too, and decided to cook the maple syrup a little longer to get a temperature that should set up better. The maple fudge recipes from Canada called for bringing the maple syrup to 236 to 240 degrees. I only went to 223 and didn’t cool it before I beat the air in. However, I did add cold peanut butter from the fridge which cooled it considerably.
I may play with this recipe some more in the future, but here’s what I came up with.
Toasted Oat PB & Cocoa No-bake Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups quick cooking oats
- 1 cup maple syrup
- ¼ cup whole milk
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- ½ cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 375.
- Spread the oats on a large, clean cooking tin with an edge.
- Bake for seven to nine minutes, stirring after every 3 minutes, until the oats brown.
- Set them aside to cool.
- In a medium pot, stir together the maple syrup, butter, and milk.
- Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring gently but continuously.
- Boil at a full rolling boil for approximately 3 minutes, stirring lazily.
- Remove from heat and stir in the peanut butter and vanilla.
- Stir, stir, stir until it turns nice and glossy.
- Now stir in the oats.
- I used a medium cookie scoop to drop these onto parchment paper and they sat right where I put them, no running away.
- Cool at least 30 minutes.
- I cut the parchment paper into squares around the fudgy cookies and stored them in the fridge. This made 18 large no-bakes.
The Sunday Recipe: Pumpkin and Maple Bread Pudding
December 19, 2021 at 6:00 am (Recipes)
This has become a family tradition. It’s adapted from Flavor Mosaic at https://flavormosaic.com/pumpkin-praline-bread-pudding/. I changed the type of bread, spice blend, substituted maple syrup for sugar, used unsalted butter, and halved the sauce. (Also using maple syrup in the sauce.) Our local grocery sells 1 ½ pound sourdough loafs so we always get to enjoy sourdough toast that weekend as well.
Pumpkin Bread Pudding
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 pound of sourdough bread
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup half & half
- 1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree
- 1and 1/3 cups maple syrup
- 4 large Eggs
- 2 tablespoons extra light tasting olive oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ginger
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/16 teaspoon (or a large pinch) of ground cloves
Sauce
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 4 ounces pecan halves, toasted THEN chopped
Instructions
- Butter a 9 x 13 baking dish with the one tablespoon of unsalted butter.
- Dice the bread into approximately 1 inch cubes.
- In a large bowl, whisk the eggs.
- Add the maple syrup, heavy cream, half& half, and pumpkin, stirring between each addition.
- Now add the melted butter in a thin stream, whisking all the while.
- Stir in the vanilla and spices.
- Slowly pour the batter over the bread pieces in the baking dish.
- Press bread down with a spoon to cover all the bread pieces.
- Refrigerate at least one hour but preferably several hours, even overnight.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for about 1 hour.
- While the bread pudding is baking, toast the pecans gently and chop.
- Then make the praline sauce.
- In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stir together the butter, heavy cream, and maple syrup; bring to a low boil.
- Reduce heat to low and simmer until the sauce thickens, about 5 minutes.
- Sprinkle pecans over bread pudding then drizzle with sauce.
- Serve warm or cold.
- Whipping cream is a nice addition.
The Sunday Recipe: Great-Grandma’s Soft Buttermilk Molasses Cookies
December 12, 2021 at 6:00 am (Recipes)
Tags: big soft cookies, Christmas cookies, ginger, gingerbread men, molasses
This is an old recipe handed down from my great-great grandmother and adjusted many times over the years. The version I was originally given by my mother had the cloves and allspice crossed out and the baking soda reduced. I stick to ginger and cinnamon, but I did try using the full amount of baking soda recently and regretted it. I think it tastes better with a little less. It’s a very friendly dough that can be scooped and dropped or add a little more flour, roll out, and cut beautiful cookies for decorating.
I highly recommend letting a stand mixer do the work for these cookies, but don’t double the batch. Your mixer can’t handle it, trust me. 😉 My daughter likes to use a basting brush to sweep away any excess flour before baking to make the cookies picture perfect.
Great-Grandma’s Soft Buttermilk Molasses Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup molasses
- 1 cup of buttermilk (full fat preferred)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 3 teaspoons cinnamon
- 3 teaspoons ginger
- 5 and 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Directions
- Cream the butter and sugar together.
- Mix in the molasses.
- Blend in the buttermilk.
- Mix together the flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger.
- Stir into the liquid ingredients.
- Chill for a half hour or longer.
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Prepare a pan with parchment paper or non-stick cooking spray.
- Scoop out with a cookie scoop and drop onto a dish of granulated sugar then pick up with the back of a spoon.
- Drop off onto the tin then flip over so the sugar is right side up.
- Alternatively – roll out on a floured surface and cut out with floured cookie cutters.
- Bake for 12 to 14 minutes.
- Cool and enjoy or decorate with icing.
The Sunday Recipe: Quiche
December 5, 2021 at 6:00 am (Recipes)
Tags: brunch, eggs, ham and eggs, quiche, sunday brunch
Sorry, this recipe is decidedly traditional – gluten and all. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to the gluten free soon. I tried a quiche last weekend but I wasn’t satisfied with how it turned out so I did a little research, talked to my mom, and tried again this weekend. The first time I used fried uncured pancetta, and it was tasty but it sank to the bottom, along with the cheese, leaving a fluffy egg top mostly devoid of the bits that make it better. My mother suggested sprinkling the meat on the top. I thought maybe if I grated the cheese finer and mixed it into the egg and cream before pouring it into the crust that would help. I also ended up using Canadian bacon, which is lighter than the little cubes of pancetta. Both tasted delicious but I think I’d like a little bit more egg and less cream. I might try an egg bake soon that does that.
Meat and Cheese Quiche
Ingredients
Crust
- 1 cup Unbleached All-purpose Flour
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon Spectrum Palm Oil Shortening (Or shortening of your choice.)
- 3 tablespoons cold water
Filling
- 4 ounces baby Swiss cheese
- 4 ounces fried pancetta (second quiche I diced up 3 ounces Canadian bacon)
- 1/3 cup finely chopped onion
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 4 large eggs
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
Directions
- Measure 120 grams or 1 cup of flour into a bowl.
- Add the ¼ teaspoon salt and stir together.
- Cut in the shortening. (If you don’t have a pastry blender, get one, but two knives will work. You can also pulse in a food processor.)
- Pour in the water and mix then press together into a disc of dough.
- Place between two squares of parchment paper, flouring below and on top of the dough.
- Roll the dough out into a large circle.
- Cut and tack pieces onto any place that cracked, using a little water and flour after.
- Gently peel the top parchment off.
- Put pie plate onto dough face down and slide hand under the parchment then flip the whole thing over.
- Peel off the parchment.
- Ease dough into pie plate.
- Turn edges back and flute the crust.
- Chill for at least 30 minutes in fridge.
- While chilling dough, preheat oven to 425.
- Dice onion and Canadian bacon, if using.
- Grate cheese.
- Whisk eggs, cream, and seasonings thoroughly.
- Stir cheese in.
- Pour egg mix into par-baked crust.
- Sprinkle with ham and onion.
- Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.
- Turn oven down to 300 and bake 30 minutes.
- Cool at least 10 minutes before cutting.
- Enjoy!
Melora Johnson's Muse 