Buckwheat Crepes

In Russian these are called blini (блыли) which is also a mild curse word, because you know how when you make crepes or pancakes, the first one off the griddle usually doesn't work right, so you say "блын!" like you would say "darn it!"

filled with mushrooms spinach and feta cheese

Buckwheat has an interesting flavor, not interesting in a bad way,  just different than whole wheat flour. It is still very mild, though. And it has a strange color to it, especially when mixed into the batter. I would recommend trying it for a nice change of pace from regular wheat things. It is nice to get some more variety when it comes to the grains we eat.

note the strange color of the batter - it's supposed to look like this

I think you can just substitute buckwheat flour for all-purpose flour in your favorite crepe recipe. But I noticed that the batter was very thick after resting, so I added about 1/2 cup more water. I used a 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour, I thought they would need a little of the gluten to help them hold together, but now I think they will hold together just fine with just the eggs, they would be a little more delicate, but still manageable. So theoretically they can be gluten-free and I think you could also use just water, no milk and make them dairy-free too. But I have not tested either theory yet. ** see edit below **

Buckwheat Crepes (adapted from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) 
1 c. buckwheat flour
1/4 c. all-purpose flour (optional)
1/2 c. milk
1 1/2 c. water (approximately)
pinch of salt
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. melted butter, cooled

Blend everything together really well. Let rest for at least an hour or overnight. Add more water if the mixture thickens too much. Heat up a crepe pan or your favorite pancake griddle to medium hight heat (you'll probably need to turn it down a little after the first 4 or 5) and pour on a little less then 1/4 cup of the batter (depending on your griddle size) turning the pan as you go to coat the whole surface with batter before it sets up too much. Let it cook for a minute or two - the top will be dry and the edges will start loosening and curling up - then flip it over and let the top cook for another 30 seconds or minute. Flip it onto a plate and repeat the process with more batter. Fill the crepes with your favorite savory filling and either eat as you go, or put them in a pan in the oven on low heat until they are all assembled. We ate some leftovers the next day with scrambled eggs. I think that these would be good as a dessert crepe with something fruity, but we have not tried that yet either. ** see edit below **

cooking the second side of the crepe

** edit ** I made these again with just buckwheat flour (1 c.), eggs (2), water (2 c.) and salt (pinch) and they worked great. So they can be gluten and dairy free, I even forgot the butter. And they were delicious with both apricot jam and Nutella as dessert-y crepes.

Chocolate Cinnamon Cake: The Recipe

We have officially received permission to put up the recipe for the cinnamon brownies. Lovemuffin's coworker was very amused to see that his nickname here is Lovemuffin, that probably helped, so thanks a bunch! A couple things to be aware of, you can cut the recipe in half and use an 8 x 8 inch pan instead, if you are watching your waistline, like I said, you will probably eat these really really fast. Also, start making the icing when the cake only has a couple minutes left on the timer, because the icing should be poured over the cake pretty much right out of the oven. Usually you don't do this with cakes, because the icing just melts into the cake, but this one somehow just turns the cake extra rich and fudge-like and it is super good. So don't skip the icing. I think this would be a great recipe to modify, add some chili and anise and other Mexican spice flavors and make it a chili chocolate cake. It is so great like this though, I probably won't experiment with it just yet.

Chocolate Cinnamon Cake
Mix together in a large bowl:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
4 Tbsp. cinnamon

In a saucepan, bring to a boil:
1 cup butter
4 Tbsp. cocoa
1 cup water

While that is heating up, mix together in another small bowl:
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. baking soda

Pour the hot chocolate mixture over the flour/sugar mixture and beat together. Add the egg and yogurt mixture and beat well again. Pour into a 9 x 13 inch pan and bake in a preheated 375 oven for 30 -35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Icing: (don't forget it!)
Bring to a boil in a saucepan (you can even use the same one from the cake batter without washing):
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup milk
4 Tbsp cocoa powder

Remove from heat and mix in:
4 cups powdered sugar (1 box)
2 Tbsp cinnamon

Pour the warm icing over the warm cake within a couple minutes of taking it out of the oven, let cool as long as you can stand to wait, then eat it.

A French Dessert

I get to come and visit the Motherdear and other family members for a bit, and so last night we all got together and ate lots of lasagna and then I made a dessert for everyone that I learned about in France a few years ago. You may remember a previous post about pear and chocolate tarts, and having this dessert in France was what originally made me aware that pears and chocolate are really really good together. Here's what it looks like:

Pears and ice cream with chocolate sauce

You need a good quality vanilla ice cream, put pear slices on it and top it with chocolate sauce or just melted semi-sweet chocolate chips. If you use chocolate sauce it will stay pliable and will be easier to eat and you'll be able to taste the chocolate more. Plain melted chocolate will harden immediately on the ice cream and you won't get the full flavor effect because of the chocolate being so cold and hard, but it will still be pretty good. Sister-In-Law had her's with cinnamon instead of chocolate and said that was very good together too. It is nice to use fresh pears, but they should be very ripe and smooth and not hard and crunchy and gritty. These pears were a little bit hard and gritty. Little Brother suggested that we warm them up and Older Sister suggested that we cook them with brown sugar so that they would be soft and even more delicious. That got me thinking, you could probably sprinkle pear halves with sugar and maybe cinnamon and cook them on the grill and immediately serve them in this manner and that would be pretty heavenly. Here is all of us (except me) together eating and being silly. Good times.

enjoying each others company and dessert

There are a few interesting things to note in this picture. First: isn't that table nice? Little Brother (on the left) made it all by himself in woodshop class in high school. I want one too! And we are all in the house that he and his wife just bought - isn't that great? Second: there is a green package sitting by Motherdear, which used to contain seaweed. Perhaps someday I will tell you about the awesomeness of seaweed and something you can do with it so that people will eat it without being weirded out. Third: there is this girl sitting by Older Brother who was very nice and we all liked her very much and it was very cool to get to hang out with her. We even saw them holding hands, so maybe we'll get to see more of her in the future.

Cinnamon Brownies

Lovemuffin has made two batches of these fabulous cinnamon brownies from scratch, all by himself. We ate them really fast.  

8 AM, brownies are here

1 PM, brownies are pretty much gone

I don't know if it is okay to put up the recipe, because he got it from someone at work and I don't know if she wants it all over the internet for everyone in the whole world to see. But maybe we'll get permission to share it here. I will say this, if you want to make an approximate imitation, find the most rich decadent brownie recipe you can find and add several tablespoons of cinnamon to it, and then as soon as it comes out of the oven, pour some more decadent buttery cinnamon and cocoa filled frosting over it and let it cool and get nice and fudge-like. They find their way into your tummy quickly, so it's a good idea to have people to share them with. 

Happy New Year

I had this great idea that I was going to cook more and write more in this blog starting this year, but there are always  a lot of other things that I want to work on too. This skirt, for example, that should have only taken one day to finish, as well as some other sewing projects that I was able to complete in a timely manner.

The skirt that should have taken 1 day to finish.

And then my schedule changed and I thought I was going to have some more time to update, but then I had to go do this activity instead with Aunt and Friends, and that took up some time, not that I'm complaining or making excuses, oh no, just letting you know why I'm so slow with the updating of the weblog.

It really is a happy place!

"He's so tall!"

Best roller coaster ever!

What a wonderful day!

So here is a quick rundown of what has been going on with the food in my house. 

I got these marvelous cookbooks for Christmas from my wonderful family (thank you, family!), all of them are so pretty and shiny and useful. 

I cooked beets for the first time ever using a recipe from "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" with pistachios and garlic which was interesting. I'm not sure I like beets that much. I learned from "The French Laundry Cookbook" how to prepare pig's head and feet and sweetmeats in a very fancy way, but that's probably never going to happen in my house. I am going to have to modify the feeding of my sourdough to make it work with the recipes in "Breads from the La Brea Bakery," and it will be totally worth it, because those are some amazing recipes. That one and "The Bread Bible" are going to be so great to have in my house instead of having to get them from the library all the time, they are pretty great. 

I also acquired some kefir grains from Lovemuffin's Auntie, so I've done some interesting experiments, trying to make good kefir and almost but not quite succeeding. When I figure out a good procedure and ratio to make good thick kefir that doesn't taste like beer, you can be sure that I will post it here. Also, I think the kefir grains need a name, any ideas? 

I finally psyched myself up to go the the Whole Foods store that always intimidates me, but they have a nice bulk section and I bought some interesting grains and things, quinoa and amaranth and coconut flour and green lentils that I cannot find anywhere else. So when I do something awesome with those, you will be the first to know. 

This year I hope to be able to keep experimenting with food and keep writing about my successes and failures. I hope that you enjoy reading about this as much as I enjoy sharing it with you. Happy New Year!!

Pull-Aparts

Today, Christmas Eve, we are spending time with Pricklypear's family, watching movies, making weird food, and making our favorite -- pullaparts. We call them pull-aparts because they you pull them apart to eat them. Pretty clever name, eh? This is the only food tradition that we really have at Christmas and we eat them on Christmas morning. This year we ate them on Christmas Eve for dessert.

making the pull-aparts

Raw pull-aparts after rising for 30 minutes, see the cinnamon coating splitting?

There isn’t really a recipe. Motherdear always just used leftover bread dough of her whole wheat bread and dipped blobs of it in melted butter and cinnamon and sugar. I think the best ratio of cinnamon to sugar is 1:3, so 1 teaspoon of cinnamon to 1 tablespoon of sugar. The batch size we made today needed a cup and a half of sugar, which would need half a cup of cinnamon.

Baked pull-aparts, so yummy!!

This Christmas, I am very glad to be able to come see my family and eat fun food with them. I love them so much! Happy Holidays to everyone!

More on Persimmons

My attempt at persimmon jam was pretty unsuccessful. My one week's worth of experience with persimmons failed to prepare me for how much they would not act like other fruits that I have canned in the past. Here is what the jars looked like, and yes, I know I could turn them upside down to mix them together more, but I want you to see how little fruit there is compared to gelled sugar. Pretty much the whole bottom half is sugar/pectin.

Here are some things I learned from this experiment:

1) Use very very ripe persimmons---I used some that were quite firm still, but they should be mushy so that if the skin is punctured the innards want to come spilling out (what a description!) and you can easily peel and mash the innards with very little effort. If they aren't ripe enough the jam will not be juicy enough and you will have half of it be gelled sugar without any fruit to speak of in it, like mine. Also the flavor of the less ripe persimmons is quite delicate and cooks right away in the 5 or so minutes it takes to get the mixture cooked enough for the pectin to set up. This is really hard because for most fruits, if they are this ripe you throw them away because they are rotting. This is why it would be nice to have previous experience with persimmons, to know how they act at different stages of maturity.

2) Add a fair amount of something acidic-like lemon or lime juice, or even citric acid powder-because the persimmons themselves aren't acidic enough to preserve correctly without it. I used lime juice and a little zest, and at the end that was all I could taste in the jam. Next time I will do citric acid, I'll just have to figure out how much.

3) Start with one batch, don't commit to more than one until you have fine-tuned the recipe, or until I fine-tune it for you :)

Today I found some extra mushy persimmons at the market and I rushed home to taste them. They are a strange fruit, they taste delicious this way, but they have an extra weird texture. Kind of slippery, like raw fish. Now I understand why they are typically turned into pudding instead of eaten raw and fresh. The texture is just wrong for eating this way. But I saw a couple of recipes briefly at the library today, one for ice cream and one for quick bread, and a reference to a fresh persimmon pie, that sounds delightful. I think I'll be experimenting with these lovely mushy ones. The one on the right is not ripe yet, and I think you can see the difference. And you can see the insides, all shiny and soft.