thingstocooklater

"17: I have never been here before: my breath comes differently, the sun is outshone by a star..."

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 19:20:29 -0400

“17: I have never been here before:
my breath comes differently,
the sun is outshone by a star beside it.”

- Franz Kafka (via kimbus2000)

Smashed Chickpea and Avocado Sandwich recipe mmm

Wed, 30 May 2012 18:33:57 -0400

Smashed Chickpea and Avocado Sandwich recipe mmm

anditslove: chocolate chip cookie dough truffles.

Wed, 30 May 2012 00:01:04 -0400

anditslove:

chocolate chip cookie dough truffles.

World Peace Cookies

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 03:17:00 -0500

World Peace Cookies:

Need to make these stat. Yesterday stat. Found them whilst searching for the perfect shortbread recipe. Just after I was thinking about how I’ve only ever had Lorna Doone’s. Who IS Lorna Doone??

“While world peace is truly a lofty and admirable goal, it’s unfortunately not cutting it in my apartment as if you were standing in front of me holding one, I would probably try to take it from you. (Just ask my husband.) I don’t know if it because this is another frantic entry in those 28-day, must eat chocolate or else I will die, files or because they are the best chocolate cookie I have eaten in my entire life but there is nothing peaceful about my relationship to them.”

Love me some smitten kitchen. Though it seems she blocked her site for reblogging on tumblr, which is really strange. Otherwise there would be pictures of how amazing and wonderful they look posted here. Too much incoming THINGSTOCOOKLATER traffic, probably. Must investigate more.

-k

Not So Humble Pie: Royal Icing 101: Space Invaders A guide to...

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 21:12:09 -0500

Not So Humble Pie: Royal Icing 101: Space Invaders

A guide to intricate icing, which is exactly the opposite of what I’m about to do.

"Ingredients 8 potatoes, peeled and cubed 4 cups chicken broth 1 pound bacon, cut into 1 inch..."

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:53:31 -0500

“

Ingredients 8 potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 cups chicken broth
1 pound bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
3 leeks, sliced
1 cup heavy cream

Directions In a large saucepan or stockpot, bring potatoes and chicken broth to a boil. Cook until potatoes are tender. Meanwhile, place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, reserving 3 tablespoons of grease and set aside. Sautee the leeks in the frying pan with the reserved bacon grease 8 to 10 minutes.

When the potatoes are tender, stir in the fried leeks, heavy cream and bacon. Stir to blend and remove from heat. Serve hot.

”

- Creamy Potato Leek Soup II Recipe - Allrecipes.com

Just made this and it was DELICIOUS and easy. Perfect texture too if you cube the potatoes really small and then use a potato masher to make it to your liking.

Changes:

Substituted veg boullion for chicken broth, skipped the bacon, cut down the heavy cream to 1/2 cup and used 1/2 cup 2% milk. Sauteed the leeks in a tiny bit of butter and a lot of olive oil with 2 cloves pressed garlic.

Top with shredded cheddar cheese and fresh cut chives or just serve plain. Delicious!

mushroom bourguignon | smitten kitchen Hi! This is Kelsey. And...

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 02:32:00 -0500

mushroom bourguignon | smitten kitchen

Hi!

This is Kelsey. And this is my first post here. And let me tell you: THIS RECIPE MIGHT CHANGE MY LIFE, AND YOURS.

Mushroom Bourguignon

The best part about this — well, besides all of it, if I can so humbly say — is that it’s a bourguignon without the heft of beef, but all of the indulgence. Plus, since you don’t need to braise it in the oven for three hours, it can be a weekday night dinner. And you can serve it to vegetarians. And nobody will miss a thing.

Serves 4

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 pounds portobello mushrooms, in 1/4-inch slices (save the stems for another use) (you can use cremini instead, as well)
1/2 carrot, finely diced
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup full-bodied red wine
2 cups beef or vegetable broth (beef broth is traditional but vegetable to make it vegetarian; it works with either)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (1/2 teaspoon dried)
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup pearl onions, peeled (thawed if frozen)
Egg noodles, for serving
Sour cream and chopped chives or parsley, for garnish (optional)

Heat the one tablespoon of the olive oil and one tablespoon of butter in a medium Dutch oven or heavy sauce pan over high heat. Sear the mushrooms until they begin to darken, but not yet release any liquid — about three or four minutes. Remove them from pan.

Lower the flame to medium and add the second tablespoon of olive oil. Toss the carrots, onions, thyme, a few good pinches of salt and a several grinds of black pepper into the pan and cook for 10, stirring occasionally, until the onions are lightly browned. Add the garlic and cook for just one more minute.

Add the wine to the pot, scraping any stuck bits off the bottom, then turn the heat all the way up and reduce it by half. Stir in the tomato paste and the broth. Add back the mushrooms with any juices that have collected and once the liquid has boiled, reduce the temperature so it simmers for 20 minutes, or until mushrooms are very tender. Add the pearl onions and simmer for five minutes more.

Combine remaining butter and the flour with a fork until combined; stir it into the stew. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 more minutes. If the sauce is too thin, boil it down to reduce to the right consistency. Season to taste.

To serve, spoon the stew over a bowl of egg noodles, dollop with sour cream (optional) and sprinkle with chives or parsley.

roasted eggplant soup | smitten kitchen Roasted Eggplant...

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 02:19:51 -0500

roasted eggplant soup | smitten kitchen

Roasted Eggplant Soup
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Serves 4

3 medium tomatoes, halved
1 large eggplant (about 1 1/2 pounds), halved lengthwise (I used 3 smaller ones)
1 small onion, halved (eh, mine was medium)
6 large garlic cloves, peeled
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried
4 cups chicken stock or vegetable broth
1/4 cup heavy cream (you can add more to taste, or skip this entirely)
3/4 cup (about 3 1/2 ounces) crumbled goat cheese

Preheat oven to 400°F. Arrange tomatoes, eggplant, onion and garlic on a large baking sheet, or two smaller ones if you, like me, have a tiny oven. Brush or drizzle vegetables with oil then roast them for 20 minutes, pausing only to remove the garlic cloves (the original recipe had you keep them in the whole time, and mine, sadly, burned) and returning the pans to the oven for another 25 minutes, until the remaining vegetables are tender and brown in spots. Remove from oven and scoop eggplant from skin into a heavy, large saucepan or soup pot. Add the rest of the vegetables, the thyme and the chicken or vegetable stock and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until onion is very tender, about 45 minutes (mine took longer). Cool slightly.

Working in batches, puree soup in blender until it is as smooth as you’d like it to be. (Or, if you have an immersion blender, you can do this in the pot.) Back in the pot, add the cream and bring the soup back to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Serve in four bowls, sprinkled with goat cheese.

A spicier riff: As I mentioned above, if you like to play with spices, this soup has a lot of potential. The next time I make it, I might give it a spin with 1 to 2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon ground coriander and a pinch of red pepper flakes or Aleppo pepper added in with the broth. I might finish the soup with a squeeze of lemon juice and I might use feta, which has a stronger flavor than the soft chevre that I used. If you add any spices or made any changes, I’d love to hear what you came up with in the comments.

via smittenkitchen.com

Beetroot & Blue Cheese Pizza

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 08:53:17 -0400

Beetroot & Blue Cheese Pizza:

Tonight I tried this Toffee Apple Upside-Down Cake recipe from A...

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:04:51 -0400

Tonight I tried this Toffee Apple Upside-Down Cake recipe from A Bloggable Life and it was yummy! And an easy enough way to use apples that I got from apple picking this weekend.

There are a couple of amendments I would make to this recipe, however:

1. MOAR TOFFEE TOPPING. The recipe has you make the topping with 1/3 cup of brown sugar and 4 tablespoons of butter. This didn’t end up cover my pan even half-way so I had to make a new batch on the fly. Just double this topping part, cause even if its a lot you don’t have to put it all on… or you can because the extra won’t hurt you.

2. PEEL THE APPLES. The recipe suggests slicing an apple, unpeeled, to arrange in the topping. My advice: peel those suckers. While you’re trying to eat your way through your piece of cake with a fork, the peel holds on and causes severe structural damage.

That’s it! Do it!

Crash Hot Potatoes

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 02:05:00 -0400

Crash Hot Potatoes:

Peanut Butter and Jelly cookies. Recipe below.

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 12:06:00 -0400

Peanut Butter and Jelly cookies. Recipe below.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Cookies

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 12:04:00 -0400

[Based on a recipe from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook]

Set the oven at 350 degrees.

Cream together:

1/2 cup (1 stick) of room temperature butter
1/2 cup peanut butter

Beat in:

1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar

then Stir in:

1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup flour (preferably pastry - says the recipe. I used regular.)

Grab teaspoonfuls and roll them into a ball shapes. Place on cooky sheets.

I used my finger to poke a hole down into the middle. These will flatten out quite a bitand doing this will leave a small crater for the jelly.

Bake for about 8 minutes, then remove and reinforce the crater a little with the end of a wooden spoon (or something of that nature.) Take your jelly of choice (microwaving it for 10 seconds makes it easier to work with) and place about 1/2 a teaspoonful into the crater.

Bake for another 2 or 3 minutes until the edges are slightly brown. Thats how you know they’re done!

Makes about 50 or 60 cookies.

Alex Makes Guacamole

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:19:00 -0400

For some reason when I make guacamole, people always be tellin’ me how awesome it is. I don’t use a recipe, I go by taste - it’s all about the right amount of salt and citrus I think. Regardless, my aunt made me write out this recipe for her. If anything, use it just for the proportions of ingredients and use your tongue for the rest THATSWHATSHESAID:

Alex’s Guacamole ‘Recipe’ Using Four Avacados:

4 Avocados (Hint: When choosing avocados, make sure they give a little (or a lot) when you push down on the top. Hard avocados will make the worst guacamole ever.)
1 lemon or lime, it doesn’t matter. A citrus of some sort.
Two garlic cloves.
A half or whole red onion (depending on how big it is), very finely chopped.
1 jalapeno, guts and seeds removed, very finely chopped
Cilantro, roughly chopped
Salt (kosher obvs) and pepper

Optional: cherry or grape tomatoes, halved, quartered, whatever.
Optional again: A few or more dashes of tabasco sauce.

First I chop all the things I need to chop — the red onion, jalapeno, and the cilantro. I chop the shit out of them for reals. Set those aside.

Get the good stuff out of the avocados and place that in a bowl. Cut the lemon (or lime) in half and squeeze the juice of the lemon (or lime) over the avocados. At this point I add the salt and pepper (maybe about a teaspoon of each? Eyeball it) and I put the garlic in a press thing and squeeze it into the bowl.

Roughly mush the avocados with a fork and mix that stuff together.

Now you can mix in the chopped red onion, jalapeno, and cilantro.

If you’re using tomatoes, I add them in at this point and fold them in gently so they don’t break or get too mushed.

Give it a taste! You will probably need to add salt, or more lemon juice, or even more red onion… Almost always I add salt and more lemon juice at this point cause I am very conservative with those things in the beginning.

The trick is chopping the red onion and jalapeno up very finely, using a garlic press on the garlic (OR just chop/mush the garlic up), and having the right amount of salt and lemon juice in there… no one likes bland guacamole!

The end!

via ecx.images-amazon.com I won’t have a kitchen for...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:01:00 -0400

via ecx.images-amazon.com

I won’t have a kitchen for another few weeks while I’m moving to SF and apt. hunting (#tragedy), but when I get one this would like to move in. Now to rob a bank!

oops, i accidentally ate 110% of the cookie batter!

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:51:19 -0400

oops, i accidentally ate 110% of the cookie batter!

our favorite chocolate chip cookies | smitten kitchen gonna make...

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:12:40 -0400

our favorite chocolate chip cookies | smitten kitchen

gonna make these tonight!

Classic Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe -...

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:20:18 -0400

Classic Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe - Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Directions

Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars. Beat in eggs.
In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir into batter. Put batter in refrigerator for 1 hour.
Roll into 1 inch balls and put on baking sheets. Flatten each ball with a fork, making a criss-cross pattern. Bake in a preheated 375 degrees F oven for about 10 minutes or until cookies begin to brown. Do not over-bake.

Joan Munson’s Sweet White Corn Soup With Poblano Puree...

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:23:53 -0400

Joan Munson’s Sweet White Corn Soup With Poblano Puree Recipe | Real Simple Recipes

Ingredients

1 poblano pepper
2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons low-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small onion, chopped
5 cups fresh white corn kernels (from about 10 ears)
kosher salt and black pepper
1/4 cup heavy cream
cilantro leaves, for serving

Directions

Heat broiler. On a broilerproof baking sheet, broil the pepper, turning occasionally, until charred, 8 to 12 minutes. Wrap in a paper towel; let cool for 10 minutes. Use the paper towel to slide off the skin. Remove the seeds.
In a blender, puree the pepper with 2 tablespoons of the chicken broth; transfer to a bowl. Rinse out the blender.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender (do not let it brown), 8 to 10 minutes.
Add the corn, the remaining 2½ cups of chicken broth, ¾ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the corn is tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
In the blender, working in batches, puree the soup until smooth, adjusting the consistency with water as necessary. (Alternatively, use a handheld immersion blender in the pot.)
Serve the soup with a drizzle of the cream and the poblano puree; sprinkle with the cilantro.

This is probably one of my favorite things I have ever eaten.

Simple Food, Easy Recipes | Real Simple

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:10:10 -0400

Simple Food, Easy Recipes | Real Simple