Tag Archives: Recipe

Pear/Apple Almond Tart

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We all have tried and true recipes.  You know, the things that you make over and over again.  You know how to do it well.

…If it ain’t broke, don’t fit it.

I know I certainly do.  Sometimes you need something you know is going to taste good.

Here are some of my tried and trues.  I’ve made each of these a handful of times, and each time they turn out well.

Peach Pie

Spicy Chocolate Cupcakes/Cake

Protein Pancakes/Waffles

Lentil Chili over Sun-dried Tomato Cornmeal Waffles

Sometimes when I make the same recipe, but change them slightly.

Take this Pear Almond Galette…

I’ve made a few times, but this time…

I changed a few things:

1. I made a large Apple Almond Tart.


2. I made mini Pear Almond Tarts.

The basic differences are shape and fruit.  The taste is pretty much the same, though.  Let’s be honest though, sometimes we all need a “fancy dessert” in our arsenal.  This is mine.

Apple Almond Tart

For Crust:

350g all purpose flour
2 sticks of butter, cold and cubed
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup very cold water (or vodka, yep, you read correctly)

For Apple Almond Filling:
2-3 apples, peeled, carefully cored and thinly sliced (you can also use pears or peaches or pretty much any fruit)
1/2 cup sugar
6 tbsp butter, softened
2 egg
1 tsp almond extract
2 tbsp flour
1 cup almond meal (ground almonds)

Prepare the dough a day or two in advance.  Measure out flour, sugar and salt.  Combine in a large bowl.  Drop butter cubes in the flour mixture.  Using your hands break up the butter and work it into the flour until you get it to be the size of small peas.  Pour in the water, using your hand, work the dough together to form a ball.  You might need to add more water (rarely if you measured the flour correctly), but only the tiniest bit.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate.  This will help keep your crust from shrinking.

The next day, or when you’re ready to make the tart, remove the dough from the fridge.  Roll out between two pieces of parchment paper.  Not too thin.  Place in the tart pan, press into the sides and trim the edges (patch up any areas that are too thin or stretched, this will help avoid strinkage).  Poke with a fork and stick in the freezer while you make your filling.  You can do the same with mini tart pans.  This is enough dough and filling for about 8 mini tarts.

Pre-heat the oven to 375.  Using a hand mixer, beat together the sugar and butter until smooth.  Add the eggs (one at a time) and almond extract.  Beat until well combined.  Add all purpose and almond meal, beat until combined.

Pour the mixture into the tart pan, fan the thinly sliced apples on the surface and press them down lightly.  Sprinkle with extra sugar if you’d like.  Bake for about an hour and 20 mins for a large tart or until the top is golden brown all around, including the center, or about 45 mins for the mini tarts.  Check periodically as every oven is different.

Allow to cool, then sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Serve and enjoy the almond-y goodness.

Go ahead make changes, choose different fruits, but in the end, this is a tried and true.

You’re bound to like it.  If not, at least it looks fancy.  Maybe you’ll add it to your list of go-to recipes as well.

 

Quinoa Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

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On this blog, I have a tendency to tell you how great the featured recipe is.  This time, I’m not going to call it amazing or mind-blowing.

Rather, these cookies are interesting.

Interesting taste.

Interesting texture.

Interesting ingredients.  Quinoa in a cookie?  Yes.

Not bad-interesting, by any means.  Definitely good-interesting, but these don’t taste like your average cookie.  I’m going to recommend that you make them, but here’s what you should expect.  These are sweet and cakey.  They’re not chewy cookies; so don’t expect hard, chewy cookies.  They’re soft and cakey, good qualities in my opinion.

So give it a try.

Quinoa Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Epicurious’s Almond-Cranberry Quinoa Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup agave nectar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup cooked quinoa
1 cup oats
1 cup chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 375F.

Cream together butter and sugars, add agave nectar and eggs.  Beat until combined.  Next add almond flour, all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Mix until just combined.  Fold in quinoa, oats, and chocolate chips (you can also mix it up and add dried fruit and nuts). The dough will be sorta sticky, so you can stick it in the freezer for a while if you’d like, but don’t worry your cookies won’t turn out super flat.

Place 2 tbsp sized balls of dough on parchment paper-lined baking sheet.  Bake 12-14 minutes or until golden.

Allow to cool 5-10 minutes before removing from baking sheet.  Makes 24 cookies.

If you look closely, you can see the quinoa in there.  Every foodie in America pretty much loves quinoa, so why not try it in your cookies?

Potato-Carrot-Parsnip Soup

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I’m a firm believer in a few things:

1.  Cooking enormous meals such that you will have tons of leftovers.

2. That most soups taste better the next day.

3.  My friend, the Biscotti Queen (or Sara), is the best recipe recommender on the planet.  (Like the Pear-Onion Brie Bruschetta I made last week)

Let me elaborate on the third thing.

Biscotti Queen and I no longer live across the street from each other.  Rather, we live across the country.  Her in NY, me in CA.  Sad times.  But thanks to gchat, we still talk everyday.  We recently had a discussion that the top three things we talk about are:
1. Jobs
2. Boys
3. Food and things we want to make
Honestly, that’s probably in backwards order…

So she recently suggested I make Potato, Carrot and Parsnip soup from Epicurious.  But you know me.  I can never actually follow a recipe.  I always have to make changes. I tried to go the healthier route with this one… resolutions remember.  We won’t talk about the fact that I just ate 4 cookies…

Potato-Carrot-Parsnip Soup

adapted from Epicurious

2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, thinly sliced
4 large carrots, peeled and chopped
3 large parsnips, peeled and chopped
2 good sized russet potatoes, chopped into 1″ cubes
1/3 cup fresh chopped parsley
1 tbsp fresh thyme 
4 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup Sherry
salt and pepper to taste 

Heat oil in a large pot.  Add onions and cook for about 10 minutes.  Add carrots and parsnips and cook an additional ten minutes.  Add herbs, potatoes and broth.  Bring to a boil and cook until potatoes are tender (about 15-20 mins-ish).  Next, using an immersion blender, puree the soup (the original recipe says to only puree half but I did the whole thing.  Whatever’s your style is fine).  Add milk, sherry, salt and pepper and bring to a simmer.

Serve with crusty bread and enjoy!  (Serves 6-8)

Now this was tasty when I had it last night for dinner, but I swear it tasted about 8384940284949 million times better tonight.

So Biscotti Queen and I recommend you go make this now.

I promise it’ll be delicious, and if it’s not right when you make it, try it again the next day and be prepared to be wow-ed.   Can you say no to that?

 

Pear-Onion Brie Bruschetta

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Happy New Year!

With the start of 2012, I’m sure everyone’s thinking about resolutions.  Most people’s are probably to exercise more or travel somewhere exotic.  For me, it’s to cook more savory dishes.  So I’m starting 2012 with a bang! (I actually made these on January 1st!)

Ok I’ll be honest.  This is only sort of savory, but it’s also a little sweet.  Caramelized onions and pears.  Naturally sweet, but perfectly balanced with salty brie.

Baby steps.

I’ll get to fully savory soon enough.  After all, I have all year.

Pear-Onion Brie Bruschetta

1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 large onion, diced
2-3 pears, diced
2-3 tsp fresh thyme
1 baguette
few ounces of Brie

Heat oil and butter together on medium.  Once oil and butter is hot, add onions and pears.  Cook until caramelized (about 30-40 minutes).  Basically you can put it in there, stir it around, leave it alone for 10 minutes, stir it, leave alone for 10 minutes, stir again, etc.

Once it’s a nice caramel color, stir in the thyme, cook for another minute and turn off the heat.  At this point you can either serve it or put it in a container to transport.  That’s really the beauty of this appetizer/snack.  You can take it anywhere.  It can be eaten hot or cold and it’s easy to assemble.

So for the assembly, cut a baguette into thin slices (about 1-2 centimeters thick? I’m bad with measurements, use your best judgement), spoon some of the onions and pears onto the bread, and top with a small slice of brie.

Serve and enjoy!  Just to note, I tried putting the brie under the pear-onion mixture but I found that it slides off more for some reason.  But if you want to put the brie under the pears and onions, go for it.

Like I said, this is perfect for any occasion.  I took it for a picnic.

You should try it too.  Feel free to make it a resolution, and by that I mean your resolution should be to eat more delicious things.

Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies with a Caramel Surprise

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Who doesn’t love a surprise?  Especially around the holidays.

Okay so the surprise is caramel.  I gave it away.  I’m terrible at keeping secrets.  And let’s be honest sometimes it’s not even a surprise but a gooey caramel mess.  You can’t really go wrong.  Either way, I’ll keep calling them a surprise cookie.  I sounds more enticing that way.

Caramel in a sweet and salty cookie.  I know, it’s exciting. Definitely surprise-worthy.

You’re probably going to want to make these for your next Holiday gathering and/or potluck.  They work for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa; clearly, they’re really equal opportunity cookies.

Did I mention they’re fun to make? And more importantly fun to eat.

Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies with a Caramel Surprise

1/2 cup white sugar
2 tbsp butter, softened
2 tbsp heavy cream, room temperature
pinch of salt
3/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups pretzel pieces

First make the caramel filling.  Put 1/2 cup sugar in a saucepan.  Turn heat on to medium and wait til the sugar starts to melt.  Carefully keep stirring until all the sugar is melted.  If you get clumps, smash them with your wooden spoon.  Push them to edges, they’ll melt faster.  Once your sugar is a light brown color, remove from the heat and quickly stir in the butter.  Once the butter is incorporated, add the pinch of salt and stream in the cream and you stir.  Keep whisking/stirring until it’s one thick, uniform texture.  Set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 350F.  Cream together 3/4 cup butter, 1 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup white sugar.  Beat in eggs, one at a time.  Next add try ingredients  (including chocolate chips and pretzels).  The key is to work the dough as little as possible.  It’ll be a little sticky but that’s okay.

By now, your caramel should be pretty cool.  If it’s not then hang out for a few minutes until it’s cool enough to put in a ziploc bag.  Once you can, put it in a ziploc bag and cut off a bottom corner so you have a make-shift piping bag.

Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper and get ready to assemble your cookies (note: the dough will be pretty sticky!  This is sort of a messy cookie making extravaganza, but get into it!  It’s fun!).

Grab a small amount of dough and sort of flatten it into a disk shape.  Using your finger, make a small well.  Pipe about a tsp of caramel into the well. Then fold the edges around to cover the caramel.  Put some more dough on top to make sure the caramel is completely coated with cookie (you might have to use bits of dough to patch up holes).  Repeat until you have 36 dough balls (depending on how big you make them) or you run out of dough.

Bake for 12 minutes or until golden around the edges.

Then surprise your fella, co-workers, siblings with these cookies.  They’ll appreciate them.  Mine did.  I can almost guarantee yours will too.

Who doesn’t love surprises?  Especially ones that involve chocolate, pretzels and caramel.

That’s what I thought.  Get to the kitchen!

Caramel Pretzel Brownies

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I have a tendency to under-cook things.  It’s a bad habit, but to me, over-cooked anything is disgusting.

Who likes a soggy vegetable? (Other than Italians who seem to overcook ALL their vegetables… or maybe that was just FAO)  I like mine to have a bit of a crunch still.

Overcook your Thanksgiving turkey… Not delicious.

Steak well-done.  My dad likes to say it’s like the sole of a shoe.

Brownies are really no different.

I am of the firm belief that all brownies should always be a little undercooked.  If you’re in the brownie’s fully cooked camp.  We can’t be friends.  Sorry.

I really would like to find a middle ground, but no.  I can’t.  Slightly undercooked brownies are amazing.

Want to know what’s even better?

Slightly undercooked brownies with caramel in the middle and pretzels on top.

No words.

Caramel Pretzel Brownies

For Brownies:
4 Squares Bakers Unsweetend Chocolate
1 1/2 sticks of butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup flour
handful of pretzel sticks

For Caramel:

1 cup sugar
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350F.

While the oven heats, make the caramel.  Heat the sugar in a saucepan until the sugar melts and turns golden.  Remove from heat, stir in butter and add pinch of salt, once butter is incorporated, stream in cream while stirring.  Once well combined, set aside to cool slightly.

In the meantime, make the brownie batter.  In a pan, melt together butter and chocolate.  In a mixing bowl, combine sugar and eggs.  Once the butter and chocolate have melted together, stream into sugar/egg combo while stirring.  Stir in flour until just combined.

Pour half the batter into a greased 9×13 baking dish (or line with parchment paper, which is what I did, and I used 2 9×9-inch pans).  Then drizzle caramel over first half of the batter.  If your caramel cooled too much and got sorta firm, you can reheat it a tiny bit.  Then pour the rest of the batter over the caramel.  Arrange pretzels on top.  Bake approximately 30 minutes or until it no longer jiggles in the center (it might take a little longer, but not sure).  But remember, the goal is a slightly undercooked center.

This will yield, amazingly fudgy, dense, delicious brownies.  They’re not super thick, but trust me, they more than make up for it in flavor.

So actually when I made these, I made two kinds.  Caramel and Peanut Butter.

So if you’d like, you can use peanut butter instead of caramel.

Both are delicious, the caramel was just extra delicious.

See the caramel in there? (hint: look to the left!)

Divine.

They’re gooey, sweet, salty,  and most importantly slightly undercooked all in one perfect little square.

I’m pretty sure that means they’ll make the perfect treat any time.

Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Filling and Raspberry Frosting

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We all have oh-shit moments.

You know what I’m talking about.

Oh shit, I just cut an extra inch off my bangs.

You’re on a date, wearing a dress.  All of a sudden you realize… oh shit, I totally didn’t shave my left leg.

Sitting alone in your room with your computer, a spoon and a jar of peanut butter… Oh shit, I totally just ate half a jar of peanut butter.  Don’t say it’s never happened to you.  You probably felt a little ill afterward.  Oh shit, I did.

But there are also good oh-shit moments.

Oh shit, I can’t believe a boy left me soup on my doorstep.

or at 6:45am… oh shit, I can’t believe I just ran 4 miles.

and oh shit, these cupcakes are delicious.

It might be my obsession with lemon, but I thought these were great!  Others agreed.  Lemon curd makes everything better.  So imagine a delicious lemon cupcake, filled with lemon curd and then topped with raspberry cream cheese frosting.

I know.  It makes you want to say oh shit, right? I totally get it.  We don’t have to talk about the bad language.  Focus on the cupcakes.

Lemon Cupcakes with Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

For cupcakes:

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
zest and juice of three lemons
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup milk
Lemon Curd filling

For Frosting
8 oz cream cheese, room temp
1 stick butter, room temp
1 lb powdered sugar
4 tbsp raspberry preserve

Pre-heat oven to 350F.

Cream together butter and sugar.  Beat in eggs one at a time.  Add lemon zest and lemon juice and sour cream.  In a bowl, combine dry ingredients.  Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet.  Alternate between adding the flour mixture and the milk.  Mix until just combined.

Pour batter into lined cupcake pan.  Bake 17-20 minutes (depending on your oven).  Mine took 17 minutes.  Also accidentally wayyyy over baked the first 12 and had to throw them away.  Beware!  These might not look done on top but poke them with a toothpick after 16ish minutes to see when they’re ready!

Allow the cupcakes to cool completely, then cut holes in the top using a knife and scoop some out.  Then put some lemon curd in a ziploc bag, cut off an end and pipe some lemon curd into each cupcake.

Next make the frosting, throw all the ingredients in a bowl and let your hand/stand mixer do the work.  If it’s too stiff, add some liquid (or more raspberry preserve), if it’s too runny, add more powdered sugar.  Adjust accordingly.

Frost your cupcakes and serve them up.  They don’t have to be perfect or uniform.  They’ll be delicious either way.

Then, wait for your audience to say oh shit.  Listen carefully, they might say it quietly if they’re trying to be polite.

The final oh shit moment of the night… I made a Facebook page for Foodologie.

Oh shit.

Please “like” me.

Pumpkin Spiced Muffins

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Friends, I have a confession.  Yeah, I know.  Another one?  Yeah.  I have another one.

I think muffins are boring.

A cupcake is exciting because it has frosting.  Quick breads are fun because they’re generally in loaf form, and let’s be honest, anything in loaf form is automatically cool.  True story.  Don’t even get me started on bundt cakes.

But the point is that muffins are blah, so I usually avoid them.  That said, the beauty of the muffin is the fact that it bakes quickly.  Go 20 mins?  Put some muffins in the oven.

I tried to make these look more exciting by using parchment paper instead of cupcake liners.

Fail.  They’re not any cuter.

But they are tasty.  Thanks to Biscotti Queen (who shared this recipe with me), I’m going to share with you this recipe.

If you feel a little more lame after making them, sorry.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Actually I take that back, you’ll feel lame until you try them (or just the batter which I swear was amazing).

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

1 can pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1/2 cup veg oil
1 1/5 cups white sugar
1 1/2 tbsp molasses
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mace
1/2 tsp ginger

Pre-heat oven to 350F.  Combine wet ingredients and sugar in a large bowl.  Add dry ingredients.  Stir until just combined.  Scoop batter into lined muffin pan.  Bake about 20 minutes or until they pass the toothpick test.

Then let them cool, put them in a box, give them away and regret the moment you decided to make these into muffins and not a pumpkin loaf.

That would have been way cooler.  Regardless, you should give these a try either in muffin or loaf form because they’re delicious, pumpkin-y and it’s November.  Do you really need another reason?

Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Today was one of the worst days ever.  I’m not going to talk about.  Instead I’m going to talk about cookies.

Fact: Cookies make life better.

There’s something I really love about a plate of cookies.   No it doesn’t matter what kind of cookies.  I just sorta find them pretty.

I gave these away.  The next day I received a few texts telling me they were popular with co-workers.  I won’t lie, I was sorta kicking myself for giving them away.  As I wrote this post, all I wanted was one of these cookies.  That’s what happens when you have a stressful day: you want cookies.

From what I recall, they were a little bit cakey (but less so than your average pumpkin cookie, which always seems more like a muffin top to me) and chewy.  I’m pretty sure that means they’re good.  Cakey but chewy?  Done.  I want it again.

Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup white sugar
1/2 brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1 cup chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.  Set aside.  Cream together butter, pumpkin puree, sugars and egg yolk.  Mix in dry ingredients until just combined.  Fold in Chocolate chips.

Form dough into golf ball-sized balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden on the edges.  Allow to cool for a few minutes before removing from baking sheet.

Put on a plate and make someone’s day that much better.

Almond-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Did you hear that chocolate may reduce women’s risk of stroke?  In case you really needed a reason to eat more chocolate, now you have one.

I’m only looking out for you, and because I love you so much and I don’t want you to have a stroke, I’m going to share some ways you can eat more chocolate.

Like this

Champagne Brownies

Spicy Chocolate Cupcakes

Double Chocolate Coconut Cookies

Chocolate Wine Cake

Oh and don’t forget these

Chocolate Cupcakes with Caramel Filling, Cream Cheese Frosting and Sea Salt Candied Walnuts

And most recently this:

Almond-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup almond butter (I used maple almond butter)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, heaping
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup oats
3/4 cup chocolate chips (or more, if you’d like)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream together butter, almond butter, and sugars.  Beat in egg.  Add dry ingredients (except oats) and blend together.  Fold in oats and chocolate chips.

Place balls of dough on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.  Bake for 10-15 minutes depending on your oven, or until golden on the edges.  The center will be slightly undercooked but don’t forget they keep cooking even after you take them out of the oven, not to mention a slightly undercooked center is delicious.

I’ll be honest, these were amazing because of the texture.  Although I sort of wish I had used PB instead of almond butter, or maybe added some almond extract in there, and coconut.  Yes, coconut would have been divine. 

But really, the chocolate will suffice, after all that’s all that really matters right now.

So be healthy and go make some Almond-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and eat a few handfuls of chocolate chips while you’re at it.