Popover Pizza

I saw this recipe on a friend's blog, and decided to try it for 4 reasons: 1-we have a minor pizza obsession in our house, 2) I love popovers and the idea of taking popover batter and turning it into pizza, brilliant! 3) We had some leftover mozzarella from our last pizza adventure. 4) I got to use my new immersion blender from Motherdear to make the batter. Hopefully I'll have more with the immersion blender soon. In the meantime, here's how I made it.

Vegetarian Popover Pizza Casserole

Preheat oven to 400.

Prepare batter (can be done ahead of time or when your filling is simmering as given in the other recipe)

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup flour
1 glug of your favorite cooking oil (a glug is a highly unprecise measurement, you pour until you see/imagine the oil "glugging," it's about one tablespoon)

Now prepare your topping. Here's what I did, but you can see the other recipe and the link to the original recipe with other ideas for the meat eaters out there.

a bunch of mushrooms (about 14 oz), sliced
1 onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
10 oz frozen spinach
1 can diced tomatoes
dried basil to taste
salt and pepper to taste
lots of grated mozzarella
a good bit of grated parmesan

Saute the mushrooms until they release their water and shrink, add the onions and continue to cook until they start to soften. Add the garlic and continue to saute for a few minutes. Add the spinach and canned tomatoes and spices and let simmer for a few minutes.

Pour the topping into a 9 x 13 inch pan (I actually used a 7 x 11 inch pan and it worked fine, but I think bigger might be better for this amount of stuff), top with all but 1/4 cup of the cheeses. Pour the batter over the topping, make sure it covers to the edges and corners, top with the remaining cheese and get it quickish into the preheated oven.

It will get puffy and browned, I forgot to watch the clock, but I imagine it was about 30 minutes (and I'll admit I turned up the oven to 425 about 2 minutes into it and I was already impatient) then take it out and let it cool/collapse for a minute, scoop it out and eat it like the pizza lover you know you are.

Winter Fruit Pie

Today, in honor of National Pie Day, I made this winter fruit pie, based on this recipe at epicurious. I didn't make the streusel topping because I didn't have any walnuts. I used my trusty pie crust recipe and made a lattice top, and used honey and a little brown sugar for sweetener, and cinnamon and cardamom for spices, and instant tapioca as the thickener. I think it turned out pretty well, not too sweet, not soggy, but some juiciness. I'm glad I freeze cranberries when they're available, because I like them for other things besides sauce at Thanksgiving. The figs were a little weird, very seedy and crunchy, I would leave them out next time.

Winter Fruits Pie

Happy National Pie Day!

Into 2012, Hurrah!

Wrapping up the holiday posting a couple of weeks late, but that is one of my holiday traditions, I think.

I first want to send a huge THANKS! out to MIL for her generosity in having all of us out to her place in Germany, and to the family for their general awesomeness, I had such a lot of fun with all of them. The whole time there was pretty awesome, filled with feasting and other fun things, and also with enough long, brisk walks that I didn't outgrow my pants. Some of my favorite (food related) parts teaching my nephew to say "delicious," and cooking with him. We made quiche together and he insisted on having a turn cracking the eggs.

cooking with Nephew

Mmm, look at all that wurst!

Cooking with Lovemuffin and J

Mussel Mustache

I received several awesome gifts, and want to send out another huge THANK YOU! to everyone for their thoughtfulness and generosity.

"Gooey Somethings" personalized apron and hotpad, from MIL
Build Your Own Earth Oven by Kiko Denzer, from Dad
beautiful hand made ceramic egg separator, from Older Sister
quince balsamic vinegar and black pumpkin seed oil, also from MIL
incredibly sharp Japanese knife, from Aunt K
Immersion blender (not pictured) from Motherdear

Stay tuned for some (hopefully) exciting experiments using the new tools and ingredients!

I also have a goal to keep doing all the things that I love to do, the things that make me feel alive and happy. That includes cooking, baking, eating, and writing in this blog, and some other favorite activities, of course. In fact, a friend invited me to participate in this 50/50 challenge and so far I'm doing pretty good! I hope this new year, and all the time, sees you doing the things you love and that make you feel alive.

(non-alcoholic) Glöggfest

While in Germany, we had several feasting opportunities and accompanied our food with spiced juices, or non-alcoholic glögg, or just glögg for short. Apparently my in-laws have had a glögg tradition for years now and didn't realize it. Every year on the evening when they decorated their Christmas tree, they would have hot spiced apple cider and snacks, the perfect glöggfest. 

Making non-alcoholic glögg is super easy. Get your favorite fruit juice, add some whole spices, and heat it to just below boiling for an hour or so to let the spice flavors blend with the juice. It also smells good during this time, so don't rush, enjoy the process. 

Good juices to use: 

apple cider

blackcurrant juice

blueberry juice 

cranberry juice 

pomegranate juice

grape juice 

orange/citrus juices  

blends of any of those 

anything else you can imagine (for example, I saw some rhubarb juice in a German grocery store, that could make an awesome spiced drink too)

Good spices to use:

cinnamon stick

black peppercorn (trust me on this one - so good!)

cardamom 

fresh ginger

orange peel 

whole allspice 

star anise  

whole cloves 

Sweeten with sugar or honey, if desired. 

I didn't get any pictures of spiced juice, but I can tell you that it looks a lot like normal juice. So I'll send you to the virtual goody plate where she has pictures and specific recipes for more spiced juices. Like cranberry (good hot or cold) and grapefruit (why didn't I think of this?).

Deliciousness

On my flight to the Frankfurt airport, I heard the flight attendants talking about this spread that is like peanut butter but tastes like speculatius cookies, which we love. Listening to them, I thought, they don't know what they are talking about, they probably think Nutella is this special spread. But today at the grocery store, while looking at the different hazelnut spreads, I found.... speculatius spread! As well as some other flavors, like coconut and pistachio. We think this will be killer on crepes, we're planning a crepe brunch party next Sunday. I'm also trying to calculate exactly how much of this stuff I can fit in my bag, and I'm glad I packed light. Oh, for your reading pleasure, a very short article about the market for this stuff in Belgium.

speculatius (speculoos, speculaas) spread

Here's another bit of deliciousness from Germany. Quark is a soft, fresh cheese, kind of in between yogurt and cream cheese. I only heard of quark last summer, so I've been looking for it here and so far been unsuccesful in finding plain quark, but I have found several flavors, like these two savory ones, and the plum/cinnamon holiday flavor as well as other fruity flavors.

red pepper and herbed quark spreads

Plum and cinnamon quark

Oh, and here's a little quark brotchen, it's kind of like a cream cheese danish, and I've eaten at least three of them already. We've gotten them from cheap self-serve bakeries for about 1 euro. I'm so impressed that even the cheap places like those bakeries have really good stuff. I wish there were more places like that in the States.

quark filled sweet bread

three of us with our quark breads

 This was quite possibly the best apple strudel I've ever had. Of course, most of the strudel I've had has been super cheap frozen grocery store variety when we were living in Vienna. So, yesterday morning we went out to a Viennese cafe for warm drinks and cakes, and some of use ordered strudel. It was obviously the best choice since there was a fight over the last few crumbs. The cakes and marzipan stollen look pretty good, but they didn't come with warm with warm vanilla sauce and whipped cream and currents. Yeah, I know, you wish you were here, right?

Viennese apfel strudel

chocolate/vanilla cake for the monkey, gluhwein cake with cherries, and stollen with marzipan for Lovemuffin

 

Weihnachtsmarkt Foods

I'm in Germany for a couple of weeks for Christmas and New Years with Lovemuffin's family. Last week we enjoyed the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market). We visited 3 markets, Wiesbaden (where we are staying), Mainze (where I got most of my pictures) and Rudesheim (which is supposed to be great, but it was a little disappointing for us). We tried to go to the Frankfurt one, too, because we heard it was big and awesome, but we got there a day late and they were just finishing taking down all the stands. That was too bad.

My favorite market was the one in Mainze, because that is where we found these amazing mushrooms. The mushrooms were simmered in this creamy sauce that is a little bit spicy, like it maybe has spicy paprika in it or something, not strong chili powder. Then they top it with a big spoonful or two of sour cream plus cucumber/herbs (I think it's cucumber in there, something crunchy and refreshing). It is so good, I'm very impressed. I'm sure other Christmas markets have these mushrooms too, but Mainze is close and cheap to get to and I went back a second time for more.

mushrooms cooking in cream sauce, one side is done, the other just started

Mushrooms in cream sauce with sour cream topping

Another food that is nice at the markets is curry wurst. It is a sausage with a ketchup-y sauce on top with a sprinkle of curry powder spice. You can also get fries on the side topped with mayonnaise and ketchup. This delightful meaty treat is not restricted to Weihnachtsmarkt, I've had it in the summer at bratwurst places, and I would definitely recommend it. We think that they ketchup sauce is a little different that regular ketchup, but still made by Heinz. We saw a bottle in a store and I think I'll try to bring some home. It's pretty good stuff and I might try it on a veggie sausage.



almost close-up shot of curry wurst

enjoying curry wurst

Here's another bit of delectableness. I think these are called schoko-kuss, but I could be wrong. These come in lots of different flavors, and are filled with marshmallow goodness. Surprise, marshmallows are much better when fresh. The first time we got them, we shared a box of 12, and we were so surprised and pleased with their deliciousness, we decided to go back for a box of 25. But you can get very sugar-high very fast when eating these.

variety of shoko-kuss



"After Eight" minty marshmallow treat

"After Eight" and liebkuchen flavored schoko-kuss

Before coming this year, I had heard that the Weihnachtsmarkt smells great, and one of the things you smell when you walk around them are these candied nuts. They are mostly almonds (mandeln), but you see some pecans, pistacchios, etc. There are usually different flavors of mandeln made with different spices or flavorings like amaretto. They are kind of expensive, these little (100 gram) packets costed 3 euro each, but they smell and taste so good.


packets of spiced mandeln

The other thing that you see at every Weihnachtsmarkt is Glühwein, which is a mulled wine. I haven't partaken (so, no pictures), but it comes in these cute commemorative mugs that say which city you drank it in. If you return the mug, you get part of the money back, so say you pay 2 euros for a drink, you bring the mug back and get 1 euro back. Or you can keep the mug as a souvenir. We made our own spiced fruit juice drinks for our celebrations at home. More on that later.

Oh, and to celebrate my 100th post, here are some extra pictures.

Mainze Weihnachtsmarkt

I don't know what these are called, but I like them

me and brothers-in-law at markt

sausage/salami stand at market with blutwurst/blood sausage (at just left of center)

Mainze Weihnachtmarkt surrounding the Romanesque Cathedral

Gooey Orange and Cardamom Chocolate-filled Cookies

I've been trying to think of a way to do chocolate and cardamom cookies, and I thought a good way to do it would be to make a ganache with cardamom in it, then wrap that in cookie dough. A quick google search shows this recipe, which proved that it was not an original idea, and that it would probably be successful.

These are marginally more complicated than chocolate chip cookies. First make some ganache (for such a fancy word, it isn't that complicated to make) and let it chill. Now make a complementary cookie dough. Scoop chunks of chilled ganache and roll them in to smallish balls. I know you want them to be enormous, but trust me, it works better this way. Wrap the ganache balls in cookie dough. Keep the ganache chilled, if it starts getting soft, take a break and put it in the freezer for a few minutes.

Now bake your cookies as usual, and try to share. On a thermodynamic note, try to let them cool a little before biting right into them, the cookie part might seem just the right temperature, but the gooey innards will be hotter, like molten lava, and they will burn your fingers and tongue and everything if you are not careful. Yes, I know from experience. When I made this amount of ganache, it lasted for 2 batches off cookie dough, which is how I know I prefer the orange version instead of plain, so you may want to double the batch of cookie dough, but it's hard to say because I was still working out how big the cookies could be and how much filling to put in them.

gooey chocolate filled cookies

Cardamom Chocolate Ganache
(these measurements are approximate because you may want to make it more or less sweet or cardamom-y)

1 cup whipping cream
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/4-1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
12 oz dark or semi-sweet chocolate
2-3 Tbsp honey (I used orange blossom honey, but regular clover honey would be great)

Heat the cream and butter together in a saucepan until it just starts boiling. Add the cardamom, then pour over the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is melted completely, then stir in the honey. Let it set in the fridge for at least an hour. Scoop out teaspoon (or slightly larger) sized balls, and store in the fridge until you are ready to form the cookies, or in the freezer if you don't anticipate using it right away. And don't let your lovemuffin eat them all before you have a chance to stuff it into cookies.

Orange Cookie Dough
(base on Original Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe on bag)

3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1 1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
zest from 1 small orange (more or less to taste)
2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Cream together butter and sugar. Add vanilla, eggs and orange zest. Mix together flour, baking soda and salt, then mix well into wet ingredients. Cover and chill in refrigerator a few minutes, or longer until you are ready to form the cookies.

Now, take a ball of chocolate, scoop out some cookie dough, and wrap the cookie dough around the chocolate. there should be 1/2" or so surrounding the ganache. I'm sure there's a good way to figure out the exact correct proportion of cookie to ganach, but I did not do it this time. I just know that they can't be too big. Bake cookies at 350 for  9-11 minutes, until the edges are golden and the middles are set. Let cool for a minute on pan, then scoop them onto a cooling rack.