Guess the Favorite

So which of this week's culinary experiments were the favorites, the ones I'll be making again?

Was it this apple thyme jelly, thyme courtesy of Kahuna's garden?

Or maybe this baked oatmeal, made with last summer's apricots retrieved from the freezer?

Or how about this homemade cranberry juice?

Do you have your pick ready?  You sure?  You want to call a friend to confer? 

Okay.  Here goes.

I can tell you straight off the apple thyme jelly was a big fat fail.  I followed instructions to the letter, but this still turned out verrrrry gummy and not at all what a jelly should be.  Someone more experienced at making jelly without adding pectin probably could have made this work.  But me?  All I can say is errrgh.  Not good.

The baked oatmeal was promising.  But the recipe I followed was too sweet, and it had 1/4 c. of oil in it to boot, so not as healthy as I'd like for a breakfast food.  I won't be making that one again, either. 

The homemade cranberry juice?  We have our winner!  It was easy and tasty and just plain fun to turn November's unused frozen cranberries into juice concocted by my very own self.  The juice made with these directions is a tad on the sweet side, so think of it as a lightly concentrated version and add plenty of ice and a bit more water when you serve it.  The recipe is from Drinks Without Alcohol by Jane Brandt.

HOMEMADE CRANBERRY JUICE

1 lb. fresh cranberries (mine were frozen), rinsed and stemmed

  (NOTE:  when you rinse frozen cranberries they will stick together in a lump and will not want to be corralled into your pot without at least a few skittering onto the floor.  Heads up.)

2 c. sugar

6 c. water

 

Put all the ingredients into a large pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for five minutes, until cranberries have burst.

Spoon into a sieve that you have lined with cheesecloth, set over a bowl to collect the juice.

 Smash cranberries against the side of the cheesecloth to extract all the liquid you can.

Cool and drink over ice, or put into straight-sided jars to freeze, making sure to leave enough room at the top for it to expand (about 3/4-inch should be plenty).

 

Happy day from our home to yours.

Sparkling Roasted Lemonade

Lemons, wearing a hat of sugar, then roasted with water and vanilla bean added -- should morph into the most delectable lemonade ever, yes?
Sadly, no.  The results tasted so bitter from the peel, it was all Kahuna and I could do to gag down two sips worth.  Then . . . down the drain it went.  All of it. 
Iced tea, anyone?

Panettone

Sadly, I must report this lovely, lovely loaf as a fail.
The pinches of dough I snuck before baking were fantastic.  It contains two sticks of butter -- I KNOW! -- why wouldn't it be fantastic?
But the finished product, I am sorry to have to report, did this when sliced:

I think that's at least four crumbles it broke into.
And it kind of tasted like pie crust.
Turns out there is such a thing as too much butter.
Making this Italian Christmas bread was an excuse, truth be told, to play with this:

Which just looked so intriguing at the grocery store.  And which I still have a vat of.
But not to worry. 

The quest for delectable panettone carries forth.  I shall not give up the fight.  Soldier on.

Anyone out there ever made panettone?  Results?  Please share.

Christmas Candy

I am sad to report that my much anticipated (by me) Christmas candy will have to go down in the books as a fail.  Though I award them points for cuteness, they taste like wads of sugar.  Slightly grainy sugar.
Which, I suppose, is what most Christmas candy actually is.
But still.

Ooops

I'm fairly certain it was not part of the plan for this  Colonial Brown Bread  to glop over the side and onto the oven like this.

Aaaargh.  Anyone have a tried and true brown bread recipe to recommend?

Christmas Baking

It's quiz time!  Also, Christmas baking time.   Also, time to bring out the elastic-waist pants.  Somehow they all seem to go together.
So here are some of the latest baking experiments going on here at the castle.  Which of the following do you think was the favorite, the one I'll be making again?

Was it these cinnamon stick cookies?

How about these Oreo - chocolate chip bars?

 Do you think it might be these frosted, macaroon-filled brownies?

Or maybe it's this cinnamon-swirled orange bread.

What do you think?  I'll whistle a Christmas tune while you make your best guess.

Whistle. 

Whistle some more.

 Rejoice, rejoice, Em-man-u-elllllll.

Got your guess? 

Ok, here goes.

Well, it certainly wasn't the cinnamon sticks.  They looked like fish sticks and tasted like lard.  Lard, lard, lard.  When the recipe called for shortening, I should have known and used butter instead.  That one was a flop.  A big, fat flop.

The Oreo bars?

Oh yeah.  Chocolate deliciousness itself.  Crushed up Oreos for the crust, a quick topping of sweetened condensed milk and chocolate chips, baked -- simple, with a resulting slightly crunchy brownie effect.  A new favorite.  Recipe to follow.

How about the frosted brownies with macaroon filling?  Sadly I must report . . . these were lots of work/would not come out of pan/too sweet/topped with frosting that got hard and cracked.  I had high hopes for these.  Most of them ended up in the garbage.  Sigh.

The orange bread with cinnamon swirl through it?  Very tasty.  I might make this again, but if I did, would tweak it.  The modest amount of orange juice and grated orange peel were not enough to provide an orange kick.  Maybe some orange extract and more orange peel would do the trick.

So there you have it.  Even with the best of plans, the highest hopes for kitchen deliciousness, we do not always achieve it.  But we press on nonetheless.  Tomorrow's another day.

Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel.

 

OREO-CHOCOLATE CHIP BARS

(note:  if you have a blender, pull it out for pulverizing the Oreos.  I first tried crushing them by hand with a potato masher, but had much better luck with my super dee duper blender.

1 16-oz. package Oreo cookies, crushed
3/4 c. butter, melted
1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
2 c. chocolate chips, divided

Combine crumbs and melted butter and pat into a 13 x 9-inch pan.  Combine sweetened condensed milk with 1 c. of the chocolate chips in microwave-safe bowl.   Nuke for about one minute, and stir until the chips are good and melted.  Pour over crust, sprinkle with remaining chips and bake at 350 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes, until chips are melted.  Makes about 48 rich little morsels.

So tell me what's baking at your house.  Any great recipes we all should  know about?  Feel free to leave a link.

Flopperooni

This is supposed to be chocolate chip - oatmeal cookies.

Yeah.  I don't know what happened here.

Watermelon Jelly

Watermelon jelly.  File this under, "Sounds like a better idea than it actually is."

But at least it's pretty.



Sad Thai Noodle Dish

Hopes were dashed, sadly, as I bit into this promising-looking Thai Peanut Noodle dish with sugar snap peas and shrimp. 
Turns out the noodles were dry, dry, dry as there was no peanut sauce in this recipe, only peanutty, soy sauce-y water that you cooked the noodles in.
Sigh.  I have to give this one a fail.
Anyone have a good peanut sauce recipe to share?

Microwave Strawberry Jam

. . . is not as grand an idea as one might think.

Paper towels.  My new best friend.

So what's going on in your kitchen?

Strawberry Shortcake

I am sorry to report that sometimes a low-fat, low-sugar, low-calorie strawberry shortcake bears a disappointing resemblance to a hockey puck.

Does anyone have a great shortcake recipe to share?

Today's Quiz

When your hobby is trying new recipes, you never know when you'll pounce upon an unexpected gem.

You also never know when you'll wind up with some . . . let's just say, less than spectacular results.

The last couple weeks have been bulging with mediocre results.

See if you can spot which of the following dishes was my favorite, the one I'll be making again. 

Was it this dried apricot/fresh rosemary yeast bread?

Was it these Scottish shortbread cookies, made with cornmeal?

Could my favorite be this retro chicken and rice casserole, topped with those '50s standbys, cream of mushroom soup and onion soup mix?

Maybe the favorite was these lemon custard cups, recipe from my great-great grandma Hattie.

What do you think?  Could the best of the bunch be this "light" recipe for fresh cranberry and lemon scones topped with powdered sugar?

Or could it be these ever-so-humble peachy carrots, a 3-ingredient recipe where carrots are simply heated with jelly and a bit of butter and served?
I'll give you a minute to think.
La la la la la.
Do you have your answer?
Give you a minute more.  La la la.
OK.  Time's up.
The dried apricot/rosemary bread was definitely interesting.  But the rosemary overpowered the apricots, and I couldn't figure out whether to eat it for breakfast or with dinner.  Dried apricots in bread is a wonderful idea, but I won't be pairing them with rosemary next time.  Pass.

Shortbread -- I've never tasted a shortbread I didn't love.  Until now.  The cornmeal in this made it dry as dust.  The bulk of these, sadly, ended up in the garbage.

On to the retro casserole.  I had high hopes for this one, onion soup mix being one of my favorite dip ingredients.  Also in its favor, the recipe came from a cute little booklet put out by the Republican Congressional committee eons ago, which even included a recipe for "General Eisenhower's Beef Stew." Alas, my California representative from way back when let me down.  It needed the extra zip of teriyaki glaze just to give it enough flavor to be edible.  Sorry, Mr. Congressman.

How about these  lemon custard cups?  While these were mighty tasty, I couldn't be sure I cooked them all the way as great-great grandma Hattie didn't give very explicit instructions on that front.  They were souffle-like on top, pudding-like on the bottom -- more like a pudding cake than custard.  With some tweaking, I bet they'd be good.  But as is, I was a little nervous that perhaps I was eating raw eggs.  Yikes.

Cranberry scones -- more like cake than like scones.  Not that there's anything wrong with cake.  I just wanted scones.  Sigh.

So have you guessed yet?  The very best recipe I've made in the last two weeks, the one I'll be making again?  It's Peachy Carrots, from The Four Ingredient Cookbook.  Who'd have thought such a simple little recipe would surpass the others?  Here's the recipe, and I will save you all that time-consuming experimenting.

You're welcome.

PEACHY CARROTS

1 lb. package of carrots (the authors recommend you slice and cook them; I simply took a 12-oz. bag of petite carrots and used them whole, without pre-cooking)
1/3 c. peach preserves (I used peach pit jelly I had made over the summer)
1 T. butter

In small skillet or saucepan, combine all ingredients and cook over medium heat until heated through.  That's it.  Sweet and yummy and pretty darned simple.

"S" Cookies

These sure don't look like the "s" cookies my grandma used to make.

Thaaaaat's more like it.
Turns out they needed a whole lot more flour than my recipe, "brought from Germany," claimed.
Anyone got any must-try cookies to recommend?

Chocolate-filled Rolls


Sadly, I'm going to have to give these chocolate-filled rolls a fail.  Not only were they too much dough and not enough chocolate, but they also took a lot of effort

as well as three expensive bittersweet chocolate bars.  Wasted.  Grrrrr.

If you want chocolate bread, try this chocolate chip bread recipe instead.

Meanwhile, I'll be trying to figure out how to get rid of 18 of these.

Summer Food Wrap-up

With Kahuna's gardening prowess and my enthusiasm for playing with my food, we've had a good summer here at the castle. Here's my wrap-up of the season -- or, What I Learned (about Food) on My Summer Vacation. 1. Most tragic food blunder: garlic paste. Thinking this was a good way to preserve

our garlic harvest, I used fully half of the year's crop, roasting and turning it into a paste to use on bread, in stews, etc. Result: a very mellow-tasting spread that doesn't even make a decent piece of garlic bread.

Grrrr.

Epic fail.

2. Most ill-advised historical food experiment: these muffins from a 17th-century recipe. I don't remember the name, but I do remember they tasted like chalk and contained enough baking powder to make a horse float. A castle record: amount of time from taking first bite until entire batch is pitched into the garbage -- 1.2 seconds.

3. Biggest surprise: homemade "butter," whereby cream, blenderized and promised to magically transform into fresh home-made butter, instead resolutely remained cream, albeit slightly dazed cream. Said cream's sole action was, upon seeing daylight as blender top was lifted, to defiantly and maniacally splash into blender wielder's eye.

"Butter" - 1. Castle Queen - 0.

4. Biggest (pleasant) garden surprise: eggplant.

Our first time growing this, we grilled, roasted, and baked it. Vegetable medleys, ratatouille, eggplant Parmesan -- all were delicious. All were eaten within minutes.

Our mothers would never believe it: we actually like vegetables.

5. Most frequently made recipe: pear nectar. Or maybe peach nectar. What can I say? I love nectar. Probably because I love sugar, and after a summer of eating vegetables, I am a tad sugar-deprived.

6. Most triumphant garden victory: enough basil for homemade pesto. The fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Totally worth the wait.

Never mind that we received said basil as a gift, already a very large plant. The point is, at this date it is still a very large plant, thriving in Kahuna's garden and popping out an abundance of leaves daily.

You go, basil. You go.

So how about you? Any summertime hits, misses, surprises? Feel free to leave a link if you've posted about your summertime food adventures. We'd love to read all about it.