Steak and Ale Pie

Ever since I had Steak and Ale Pie in England over a year ago I've been wanting to try and making it. I looked at some recipes, and they all more or less looked the same. So I based mine off one at YumSugar.com. I used a Samuel Smith Imperial Stout for my beer after getting advice from other beef chefs. My recipe went like this:

Marinade:
2 short sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 tbsp marjoram
A little less than 1/2 Imperial Stout
fresh ground black pepper

1 1/2 regular size steak, cut into cubes

flour (approx 4 tbsp)
1 medium sized onion - diced
2 cup beef broth
1-2 cup sliced mushrooms

garlic powder
onion powder

Phyllo dough

1) Mix ingredients together for marinade and let the beef sit for 3-4 hours. I think next time I'll try to marinate it overnight.

2) Take out steak and roll into flour, keeping marinade for later.

3) Cook onions and mushrooms for 3-5 min.

4) Add beef and marinade.

5) Add garlic and onion powder to taste.

6) Once the meat is ready to your liking, make yourself a meat pie with the phyllo dough!

Orange Julius!

I've been wanting to make this recipe from Top Secret Recipes for ages and I finally did this past weekend. Unfortunately the site doesn't let me copy and paste, but it's one of their free recipes if you search for Orange Julius. Anyway, it is fabulous! It looks kinda cool, and makes me think of butter beers from Harry Potter. Why pay $4 for an Orange Julius when you can make one at home?!

It's a jungle out there

They're like trees really...

Cereal in a cookie?

I read about these cookies in a reader's request column in an online newspaper. They were intriguing because they contained cereal... and not just any cereal, but Frosted Flakes! I had to try them.

Also interesting was the lack of eggs or any kind of leavener. Maybe this keeps them crunchy? The cookies looked slightly puffy when they came out of the oven but set up better after cooling. They have a crunchy and slightly crumbly texture, but are not hard enough to scrape your mouth. The slight addition of chocolate chips (only 1/2 cup for the entire recipe) gives just a hint of chocolate without making the cookie overly sweet. Thumbs up!



Frosted Flake Chocolate Chip Cookies

4 cups Frosted Flakes
2 sticks (1 cup) butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment.

Crush frosted flakes lightly (until they compress to about 3 cups; don't make them too fine).

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla.

Combine flour and baking soda; gradually add to butter mixture and stir to combine. Fold in crushed frosted flakes and chocolate chips. Mixture will be crumbly. It's best to use your hands to make sure ingredients combine evenly. Roll 2-tablespoon portions of dough into balls and place on cookie sheet. Flatten slightly.

Bake about 20 minutes, until lightly brown. Cookies will be soft but will firm up as they cool. Don't overbake or cookies will become very hard. Makes about 2 dozen.

For the love of basil...

A friendly coworker lamented that his basil plants were producing way more basil than he knew what to do with. "Make pesto!" I told him. But what then? He was getting sick of pesto with pasta. "I'd be happy to take some off your hands," I told him. The next day he presented me with a gallon size zip-loc bag packed with basil.

Me: Wow, that's a lot of basil!
Him: Make pesto!

Hah. Okay fine. Pesto it is! As far as pesto recipes are concerned, I love Ina Garten's. But since everyone seems to be complaining about being fatties, I opted for a light version from Cook's Illustrated. I've made it before and though it is lighter in taste, it is still just as delicious.

Lighter Pesto
The New Best Recipe, Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine

1/4 cup pine nuts
3 medium garlic cloves
2 cups fresh basil leaves
2 tablespoons fresh parsley
1/4 cup chicken broth
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put the pine nuts and garlic cloves on a baking sheet and place in oven for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the garlic is lightly browned and the pine nuts are lightly toasted. Put the toasted pine nuts and garlic in a food processor with the basil, parsley, chicken broth, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and salt and process until smooth. One tablespoon is counted as a serving.

Makes 2 cups

Of course I wasn't going to do pasta + pesto. That is so, like, 1995. I had scoured a few blogs and come up with... pesto bread! I was especially intrigued by the jellyroll-fashion of making the bread and the pretty swirly pattern it would become. Pretty pattern = pretty impressive.



This bread is delicious with a capital D. It is worth the effort of turning on the oven in the summertime!

Pain Pesto
Marcy Goldman

1 1/4 cups warm water (100 to 110 degrees F)
1 tablespoon rapid rise yeast
4 cups (approximately) bread flour
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
5 teaspoons sugar
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
1 (10 oz) jar of prepared pesto (I used the entire contents of the above recipe)
olive oil, salt, pepper, parsley and Parmesan cheese, for sprinkling

Stack two large baking sheets together and line top sheet with parchment paper.

In a mixer bowl, hand whisk water and yeast together and let stand 2-3 minutes to dissolve yeast. Add 1 cup flour and stir briefly. Then stir in oil, sugar, salt and most of the remaining flour. Mix ingredients and then attach dough hook and knead on lowest speed 6-8 minutes until smooth and elastic, adding more flour if needed.

Remove dough hook from machine and spray dough with nonstick cooking spray. Cover entire mixer with clear plastic bag. Let rise for 45-90 minutes or until almost doubled.

Gently deflate dough on a lightly floured surface. Let rest 10 minutes and then roll out to a 20 x 20 inch shape. If dough resists, let it rest a few more minutes then roll out gently. Drizzle some additional olive oil on the dough and then smear on pesto all over dough's surface. Roll up jellyroll style. Shape into an "S" shape and put on prepared baking sheets.

Drizzle oil on top and dust with salt, pepper, Parmesan cheese and parsley. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until puffy, about 45-60 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350.

Gently press bread down slightly before it goes into the oven. Bake until it is well browned, about 35-45 minutes. Cool to warm on baking sheet before cutting.

The Fruits Of My (non) Labor...

Now that I am unemployed I have lots of time to try new recipes. This week's theme? Fruit.

Cherry Apricot Galette
I bought a lot of cherries on sale this week. After washing, de-stemming and pitting enough fruit to make this galette + chef's snacks, I found I had enough leftover to dehydrate an entire tray of cherries as well.

My mom used to make this super easy and very tasty dessert during the summer because it's so light and infinitely adaptable to whatever fruits you have on hand, but cherry apricot is particularly tasty.
I made pie crust from scratch for the first time using Alton Brown's recipe but I used all butter. I think my kitchen was too hot and that I should have used an additional alternate fat because the pastry tasted more like a butter cookie than flaky pastry.
(as an alternative, nothing wrong with frozen pastry dough!)

Ingredients:

nota bene: the amount of fruit, nuts, preserves etc all depends on how big your want your galette and how think a layer of fruit you'd like. I don't recommend too thick or much wider than 10" final diameter, or else your crust gets soggy.

Pie crust/pastry dough (fresh or frozen)
Fruit preserves (I used apricot)
Dried fruit is best, but fresh fruit that isn't too watery is alright too (I used cherries)
Chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans, something with a sweet, soft meat)
Milk
White sugar

1. Roll out your dough to make a rough circle, approximately 1/8"-1/4" thick.
2. Spread your preserves of choice on the dough, leaving approximately 1" of crust around the edge.
3. Sprinkle a moderate layer of dried fruits and an accent of chopped nuts into the center. Leave about 2" of crust around the outside.
4. Fold the edge of the crust into the center. You want to show off the fruits in the middle and the edges do not have to be pretty; think "rustic" style...
5. Brush the crust with milk and sprinkle with a few teaspoons of white sugar (brown sugar has too much moisture but will work in a pinch)
6. Bake in a 400 degree oven for approximately 40 minutes, or until your crust is pretty.



Cherry Pie with Coconut Crumb Topping


Did I mention I had a LOT of cherries? I had to get rid of a bunch- fast. Cherry pie was the obvious pick here. I snagged the recipe from epicurious and had so much leftover filling that I made four mini crumbles, one of which is seen here.

After reading reviews I added extra vanilla and a splash of almond extract to the cherry filling. I probably would have done way more oats to the topping because I love oatmeal and maybe would have added sliced or slivered almonds for extra substance. I didn't have quick cooking tapioca, just small tapioca pearls, which I threw in nonetheless.

Now, I haven't tried the actual pie with the crust bottom and crumble top, only a little ramekin which has just filling and some crumble. But based on that: The filling was really well flavored. The lemon juice adds just enough tart to keep it interesting and accent the sweet of the cherries The coconut in the topping was an excellent addition in both texture and flavor. My only complaint? My mouth was very, very sticky afterwards. This definitely required milk or ice cream or whipped topping to go with it. Or maybe if you added cranberries or raspberries to the mix to lighten it up a little... that would probably be delicious.

For asthetic (spelling?) reasons, I would use cornstarch in future. The little dots of uncooked tapioca pearls looked like pomegranate seeds, with much the same texture.


Orange Pecan Ice Box Cookies
(adapted from Sunset's Orange Refrigerator cookie recipe)

I was up late one night with a lack of ingredients, an urge to bake, and an old orange. Alas! What to do? Zest the orange, and find a recipe.
I found a Sunset magazine's "Best-Ever Cookies" issue hiding on my bookshelves from christmas and got the basic idea from the following recipe, then changed a few minor things to my liking.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter (at room temperature)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
3 cups flour
1/2 cup minced walnuts (in this case, pecans)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
(and a splash of vanilla)

1. In a bowl, beat butter, sugar and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in egg, orange peel and vanilla until well blended.
2. Add all dry ingredients and nuts, mix well.
3. Spoon the dough onto a sheet of wax paper or saran wrap and form a 2.5" thick log. Wrap the logs in the paper or plastic wrap and freeze until solid, about 2 hours.
   
4. Slice the logs into 1/8" inch slices and place on greased cookie sheet.
   
5. Bake at 375 for 12 minutes until edges are barely browned.

I actually halved this recipe and made thicker slices. If you like cripy cookies, go for thin. Otherwise they stay a little softer the thicker they are.

I'm usually kind of hesitant on the orange + baking combo, but wow these were delightful. And they made my kitchen smell fantastic while baking. They remind me of tea cookies, thin and crispy, light flavor and not heavy at all. A nice buttery cookie with a more elegant twist.

Dehydrator-dried Cherry Tomatoes

Definitely doesn't sound as romantic as "sun dried", but remember these guys? Well, about 36 hours on the dehydrator turned them into red raisins. I tried one straight up and I think I actually overdid it or cherry tomators are just not good candidates for drying, it wasn't fantastic. It might be an ingredient that can only be used in combination with other flavors, but we'll see how it goes.

Mapo Tofu

Yum, yum, yum! I love Mapo Tofu.