Peanut Butter Caramel Cookies

These cookies are awesome. I stole the recipe from my mom's recipe book, I think she got the recipe from someone from church a long time ago. We only made them a couple of times, and they were unbelievably delicious every time. They look like boring drop cookies on the outside, but when you open them up, there is a delicious ooey-gooey treat in the middle.

Here is the original recipe as written by someone named Marlo Carter:
Peanut Butter Caramel Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
24 Rolo candies

Cream together butter, peanut butter, white and brown sugars, add egg and vanilla, beat until smooth. Mix in remaining ingredients. Chill dough at least 15-20 minutes before forming. This will give you time to unwrap the rolos and preheat the oven to 375.
Roll a tablespoon of dough around one Rolo, shape into a ball completely enclosing the candy, roll in white sugar if desired. Bake at 375 for 7-10 minutes. Makes 24 cookies.

Here's the amounts I used today to make a double batch:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
approx 1/8 cup milk
approx 50 Rolo candies
And I baked them for 11 minutes.

As you can see, I did not double the amount of butter, which is why I use a little milk - a trick I also borrowed from my mom. Add just barely enough milk to make it the correct consistency. The smidge less butter as well as the wheat flour are there to make you feel a smidge better about eating them, because you will eat a lot of these right out of the oven.
As I was forming the cookies, I was wondering if there is another way to form these, instead of wrapping it up entirely with dough, but then one of the cookies leaked while it was baking and I was glad that I did not experiment with different styles of cookie formation with a whole pan full.

Here's some more pictures to make you want to get door-bell ditched by me this Halloween.

Crepe Party

I made some crepes the other night, my crepe pan is well seasoned now and I have the technique down, so it was kind of a party. The savory crepes for dinner were delightful and surprisingly filling. I used the recipe for blintzes from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" and they were very sturdy and hefty, as you can see in this picture. You can use any tried and true crepe or blintz recipe.

Savory Crepes For Dinner

1 onion, finely chopped

about 10 mushrooms, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 10 oz. package frozen spinach, thawed and drained

3-4 oz. mozzerella cheese, shredded or diced

2.5 oz. parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

10-12 crepes or blintzes, already cooked

Saute onion, mushrooms and garlic till soft, let cool somewhat. Mix with well drained spinach, cheese and spices. Place about 1/4 cup of filling on the crepe and roll it up burrito style. Place all of the rolled crepes in a casserole pan in a 350 F oven for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is melty, then serve. Or you can just keep the filling very hot when you prepare it and everyone can roll up their own.

And I made sweet crepes for dessert/breakfast the next day with cottage cheese and berries and a dash of sugar. You don't really need a recipe for this one.

Pumpkin Bread

I made this pumpkin bread from Nancy Silverton's book "Bread from the La Brea Bakery." The book is very cool because all of the recipes use a sourdough starter, and that is just what I need. I will probably be purchasing this book, so I have more resources for keeping my starter, Harriet, occupied. Anyway, I thought I would share the pictures because it turned out so great. I don't think I can share the recipe, because that might be a copyright issue because I did not alter it at all, I'm not sure what the rules are. You can see the pumpkin seeds in it, and the lovely orange color of the mashed yams, and the way I even managed to score the top of the loaf in the manner indicated in the recipe. I don't usually follow the recipe this closely, so I'm quite pleased with myself.

 

Pear/Ginger Upside-down Cake

Every year at pear season I experiment with a pear and ginger cake recipe that I saw in a random cookbook from a craft store, and I couldn't get it to work like it looked in the picture. Somehow these people made a thick-ish batter and set pear slices on top and after baking the pears were still on the top of the cake. When I tried it the pear slices sank to the bottom and it wasn't very impressive. So then I tried a few mutations on the theme, trying to perfect a recipe (pear-fect, ha ha) to get the most flavor into the cake and make it beautiful. I've tried making a pound cake in a bundt pan so that the pears in the bottom of the pan will end up on the top when you take it out of the pan and it should be pretty, but it wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be. And then I was talking to my dad a few days ago, telling him my plans for the hundred or so pears that I had getting ready for jamming, and I told him my dilema, the elusive cake recipe. He suggested doing it like a pineapple upside-down cake, because it's easy to find a trusty recipe. I tried it last week, and somehow this gave me the most flavor bang for my buck, and I think it looks pretty good. So, thanks Dad! This one is for you.

Pear and Ginger Upside-Down Cake
(Adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, 11th edition.)

3 firm pears
1 tablespoon finely diced fresh ginger
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Peel, cut in half, and core the pears, coat with lemon juice as needed to keep them from browning while you work. In a skillet over medium high heat, lightly cook the pear halves with about 1 teaspoon of the chopped ginger until they are a gentle golden brown on the outside. This step is important for fresh pears to soften and cook them a little, as well as infuse them with the ginger flavor, but if you can't find good fresh pears (a struggle, I know) and opt for canned pears instead, you can skip it.
Grease a 9-inch cake pan, mix together the brown sugar and tablespoon of butter, sprinkle over the bottom of the pan. Arrange the pears, cut side down, on top of the sugar, and sprinkle the remaining ginger over all.
Mix together the flour, granulated sugar and baking powder in a medium size bowl. Add milk, the 1/4 cup butter, egg, and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer on low for about a minute. Spoon the batter over the fruit in the pan.
Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 35-40 minutes until  a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for about 5 minutes on a wire rack, then invert onto a plate and serve warm. Eat any leftovers for breakfast tomorrow.

Jamming Time

Pears were on sale last week for really cheap, so we bought at least 30 pounds of pears and I made a lot of jam yesterday and today, and now I have a strange callous on my hand from paring so many pears. I did a bunch of pectin-free batches, and I did about 4 batches with the kind of  pectin that uses less sugar. It all turned out well. The first couple of batches made with pectin set up really hard, I think because the pears were less ripe at first. I let them sit with a banana in a warm place for a day before doing the next ones with pectin. The pectin-free pear jam, unlike the pectin-free boysenberry jams I did a couple months ago, turned out a little more like syrup than jam, although some of the pectin-free jams set up more, depending again on the ripeness of the fruit. I was really excited to do some fun flavor combinations because pears are nice and mild and like being eaten with all sorts of spices. I have been planning on doing pear and ginger for a while, it's a combination that I experiment with every year during pear season (see my pear and ginger upside-down cake, recipe coming soon!). It is delicious, but the other combination I tried was even better: pear with cardamom. It is like heaven on a piece of toast, on a hotcake, mixed in with your oatmeal for breakfast, and probably warm over vanilla ice cream. I can't give you the recipe because I think I might start selling it. Yes, it is that good.

In the picture from left to right: Pear with cardamom and other spices, Pear with ginger and cardamom, Pear with ginger.

Mark Bittman's Layer Vegetable Torte

I just love The Minimalist. I made this vegetable torte tonight, and it was magnificent! I used a Greek cheese called myzithra instead of parmesan, and it was pretty good, but next time I will just use parmesan. I had thought about using some onions too, but when it came right down to it, I forgot. It happens a lot. I stuck the veggies under the broiler to cook them instead of on the grill, that is easier for me. We ate it with mashed potatoes. My pictures aren't very good tonight, but check it out:

Pizza Dough with Sourdough

My sourdough starter experiment turned out well. It is very active and happy, and I have named it Harriet. I am still figuring out how the best schedule for feeding and learning how to use it. I don't love sourdough breads, so this is kind of a weird experiment for me. But it's all about learning, right? I have done this pizza crust a couple of times, and it worked really well. It is adapted from "The Bread Bible," by Rose Levy Berenbaum. The hardest thing about sourdough so far is knowing how long to let it rise. The first time made this I mixed up the dough at about 11 AM and made the pizza at 5 or 6 PM, and it had not doubled, but was light and fluffy enough to spread right out on the pan and it made a beautiful crust. The second time I made it I tripled the recipe and let it rise once overnight and it definitely doubled, then I split it in thirds and put each piece in seperate bowls in the fridge during the day and pulled them out about 1 hour before (we meant to take it out even earlier but forgot) and it rose only a little in the fridge, and it was hard to spread it out when the dough was cold, so I would not let it rise in the fridge again. And I of course used my new scale, and this size batch makes just enough for my 14-inch pizza pan.

SourPizzaDough (or PizzaSourDough)
100 grams starter
176 grams flour (I used some all-purpose flour and bread flour)
100 grams water
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
approx. 20 grams olive oil

Combine starter, flour, water, salt and sugar. It will be sticky and messy and crazy. If you find it unmanageable, let it sit for 10-20 minutes, then try kneading and folding it a little more. Scoop the dough into a clean large bowl and pour the olive oil over the top. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise for a few hours. I find it helpful to fold the dough over itself to incorporate some of the oil after an hour or so, to make the dough smooth and easy to handle. When you are ready to form the crust, pour any more excess oil from the dough bowl onto the pizza pan and smear it around. Plop the dough on top and gently spread it out. Top with your favorite toppings and bake for about 20-25 minutes until the cheese is melty and toasty and the crust is brown on the bottom as well as the outside crust.