It’s been a minute! Life’s been pretty hectic – moving into a new place, changing jobs, and this fell a little by the wayside. But I’m back! For this first posting in a while, I went classic, I went traditional, and let’s face it… I went with what I wanted to eat. So of course, gooey, dense, chocolatey brownies were a no-brainer; on this lovely Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles, nothing sounded better.
The New York Times has some great recipes, but my favorites are the historical recipes. You know – the cheesecakes from 1960, or in this case, Katharine Hepburn’s brownie recipe. There’s something that I love about recipes from our past – it’s some kind of visceral connection, from history straight to my belly; it’s my own personal version of a time machine.
The recipe is super easy, cocoa powder, butter, sugar, and just a dash of flour.
The pina colada may or may not be part of the recipe. I’ll go with “strongly recommended.”
It’s so much fun to envision the great Katharine Hepburn at her home on a similar Sunday afternoon, heating up a saucepan full of butter and cocoa powder, letting her kitchen fill with that tantalizing aroma.
Oh man… who doesn’t love the smell of melting butter and chocolate!?
I know that’s probably not how it went down… but leave me to my reverie. It’s more fun this way. Anyway, add in the dry ingredients to the wet, and viola! You’re ready to pop them in the oven.
35 minutes later (an agonizing 35 minutes later!)
Author not responsible for how many brownies may or may not still be left in that pan
And you have chocolate happiness ready and waiting. I wonder who Katharine served these to? Who are you making them for?
*Special note – definitely enjoy a delicious pina colada with these. Or really, any baking. This summer I discovered the bliss that is coconut water-infused rum, mixed with pineapple coconut juice. Let me tell you – this faux pina colada is easy, delicious, and refreshing, and really, if you’re ever in need of a quick, crowd-pleasing cocktail, this 2-step little number is as effortless as it is scrumptious!
Add straw for bonus adorable factor! (I’m convinced it tastes better with a dash of stripey pizzaz!)
There was no chance I was going to be done with Christmas cookies so soon after I started. Obviously. Because I really can’t stress enough the importance of those sugary little pieces of heaven, ever, but especially around the winter holidays. Craving some rich hot cocoa? There’s a cookie for that. Indulging in a little late-afternoon, light snack? There’s a cookie for that. Waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, worried there are no more cookies? Don’t worry – there are always more cookies.
It’s kind of like “there’s an app for that” only way, way better.
So I did in fact make some Christmas sugar cookies
Mmmmm Sugar Cookies!
and also the chocolate caramel crack(ers) from Smitten Kitchen (phenomenal!!) but I also made my favorite of all time, Chocolate Crackles. It turns out these are a pretty widely known and delicious cookie, but I grew up only knowing them as my great-grandmother’s recipe for little nibbles of heaven in my belly. So, they’re delicious, and are tinged with a little dash of sentimentality that tends to come out around this time of year. No one in my family can resist them, and no matter how many you make, they always seem to be gone too soon. It’s pretty much just eggs, sugar, baking chocolate, and pecans, rolled in powdered sugar, so nearly impossible to go wrong.
Even the dough looks delicious
It’s best if you refrigerate it overnight, but if you’re like me and have never ending kitchen appliance fails that totally throw off your entire baking schedule (sinks, dishwashers, all technology fails around me. I was clearly born in the wrong era) you can always make the dough early in the morning and pop it in the fridge til later that afternoon, to a still very satisfying end result. Roll the chilled dough into little golf balls and then roll around in powdered sugar as much as possible
le bowl of powdered sugar. this may have attributed to my sugar high…
prepare your cookie sheet, or “tray of awesome”
tray of awesome
and then 10-12 minutes later, voila! you have the most addictive cookies ever. Death by chocolate… there are worse ways to go, totally.
Christmas means a lot of things – cookies, carols, crazy retail experiences, amazingly terrible movies from your childhood you’d totally forgotten about until they pop up on ABC Family (Jingle All the Way, who could forget that mid-90s brilliance of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad!? Seriously. Amazing.)
Schwarzenegger. Sinbad. All the best that the mid-90s had to offer
and you know, more cookies. Again. Because cookies, like pie, are doubly-important. Christmas cookies hold a special place in my heart, and I’m talking about the traditional, delicious sugar cookies cut into shapes of little boots and Santas, that you bribed friends into helping you decorate in return for boozy holiday drinks and the promise of eating said cookies upon final completion. I love those cookies, they are amazing, they bring me back to happy, sugar-coma-y, childhood memories infused with the smells of cinnamon and nutmeg and a little bit of being too tired to finish the entire batch.
But this week, I was craving something a little different. Perhaps (okay fine, probably) due to my mild obsession with my new cast iron skillet, I wanted to make tiny, fried dough balls of goodness, infused with citrus and doused in honey. Because, who wouldn’t want that? And these cookies, called struffoli, were so easy, and simple, and smelled so good in my apartment, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make them. Plus, you get to say “struffoli” a lot, so that was just a big bonus for me.
Start off with lots of flour and eggs:
flour, eggs, standard goodness
Get some citrus up in there
mmmmm citrus
and then get zesty
zesty! cocoa for the chef option, but highly recommended
roll out some ropes
rope-y dough. Don’t worry – it gets way more appetizing
And then cut and fry up those fritters!
Sizzlin’ away! Look at my beautiful skillet!
And then, you have bowls of delicious fritters, begging for a honey glaze
le honey glaze
And drizzle those puppies generously
tasty honey goodness
And then end up with so many plates of cookies. So, so many.
allll the struffoli!
You can put them into little bags for your friends as gifts, or, you can sit and eat them all during your second viewing of Jingle All the Way. I’m not telling you which option I chose… but I will say you really pick up on the subtleties of 90s overacting after the first viewing of that movie!
We made it! Sort of… we’ve rolled through, in some form or another, to the other side of Thanksgiving. Some of us are a little worse for the wear (did I really need that 4th slice of pecan pie?) but we’re here. And it’s finally time for Christmas! I refuse to start celebrating before December, but as soon as the first rolls around, you better believe the lights up, the carols are playing, and my oven is working overtime while I go overboard with my holiday baking excitement. After the fam departed sunny Los Angeles, taking our good weather with them, and I managed to finally get all my pots and pans tucked back in their cabinets (as mamacita had borrowed my entire kitchen to make her outstanding Thanksgiving meal) all I wanted was some hot cocoa and some light, creamy, not-too-sweet tasty goodness. You know, to slowly come down from the sugar high I’d been experiencing for the past week. To fill the sad, pie-less void in which they left me, I decided that it was the perfect time to try out a little pot de creme recipe I found on saveur.com. Many years ago, I’d attempted a simple chocolate pot de creme, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the grainiest, soupiest, grossest thing I’ve ever attempted to bake. Ever. So I went into this cautiously optimistic that my skills may have improved in the past few years, and even if these maple pot de cremes turned out terribly, I could drown my sorrows in a mug of rich, dark peppermint hot cocoa.
Luckily, all went better than expected! It started out with some eggs:
they’re so pretty in my freshly cleaned bowl!
Followed simply by some brown sugar, cream, and maple syrup. It’s so hard to go wrong with all your ingredients are so right
Sugar. Cream. Syrup. This seems like heaven for Buddy the Elf
Whip it all together, pour it into a couple ramekins, add some boiling water to your roasting pan and then pop those suckers in the oven for a little over an hour! (Depending on your oven – mine always takes longer than recipes state, I’ve just grown accustomed to adding on a couple minutes here and there)
uncooked, but they look so creamy and inviting…
Like the planning genius that I am, I completely forgot to get the cooling racks from underneath the oven before turning it up to 350 for over an hour. So makeshift cooling racks happened instead
Hey, it works
Whip up a little fresh cream with a dash of vanilla and voila! Tasty noms!
Light, creamy, sweet maply goodness!
Never the wrong call to bring in to the office either… especially on the Monday after a holiday when no one really wants to be back at work, and everyone’s still kind of in a turkey coma. So easy, so tasty!
So it’s that time of year again, the time of food. You might think that is all the time, and you would not be incorrect. However, the “holiday season” is upon us, and I for one refuse to waste any time diving in. Obviously, Thanksgiving was Thursday, and with it came delicious goodness – pies, candied yams, green bean casseroles, turkeys slathered in rich gravies, pies (yes, I mentioned pies twice. They are doubly important). However, I’d like to focus on a little-known holiday known as “the parents have descended upon me, oh crap, I need to feed them.” I’m working on a better name for it. Suggestions accepted and appreciated.
My wonderful family joined me in Los Angeles this Thanksgiving. It was a delight having them here, as we’re spread across the country and rarely are we all in one location. The parents flew in the Sunday before our feast, and I wanted to welcome them with a tasty meal since my father routinely complains that I never cook for him. My astute observations that he lives 3,000 miles away fall on deaf and dejected ears, so I figured now would be as good a time as any.
Cooking for family is a totally different experience than cooking for yourself, or your friends, most of whom are polite enough to simply thank you for your efforts and then quietly whisper to their friends “McDonald’s?” as they leave. Family is different. They feel perfectly comfortable telling you “this is way too garlicky! I don’t like my vegetables soaked in oil.” (Actual quote, my parents). So, the pressure was on to find a delicious, easy enough meal to concoct to impress them but still maintain my sanity. And apparently, I’m an old southern lady because I settled on fried chicken and skillet cornbread. Who doesn’t like fried chicken and cornbread? Crazy people, that’s who. So armed with the cast-iron skillet and Ad-Hoc cookbook my mama got me for Christmas, I went to work.
mama’s awesome, there’s no getting around it
I started out with the Thomas Keller Ad-Hoc fried chicken recipe. I normally tweak and play with my recipes, but with this one, I follow it to a T. His recipe results in savory, rich, flavorful, epic, crunchy delicious goodness. I don’t say that to praise my cooking – I say that to praise his recipe. It is pure perfection, and super easy. First, You create the brine – basically toss a bunch of herbs and lemon juice into a pot, boil it to dissolve the salt (it’s a brine, after all) and throw your chicken in there. Okay, so full disclosure, I follow the brine and cooking recipes to a T. But my parents only like white meat, so instead of buying two small 2 1/2 pound chickens as the recipe calls for… I punked out and bought a bunch of chicken breasts, and two drumsticks. For myself. Judge away. So first, the brine:
The brined chicken. Raw chicken bad – brined chicken delicious
Brine it for exactly twelve hours, if you need to save it for later, just take it out of the brine, put in a tupperware, and continue refrigerating. You’ll want to take it out an hr and half prior to frying to get the chicken to room temp. Then, you mix up a delicious flour/cayenne/pepper/paprika mixture.
Is so good. My god.
And then get a little prep-station going with the chicken and the buttermilk and the flour mixture.
Flour. Buttermilk Flour. Fry!
And then… go to town!
Chicken is so ready to be delicious
The first fry… it was my drumsticks. This is actually because dark meat fries at a lower temperature than white meat. And also because drumsticks are the most important, so they go first. Duh.
They be fryin…
And then, the satisfaction of knowing that if nothing else, you will eat well that night
Oh god. All the fried chicken. In my belly.
After frying everything (which took roughly an hour or so), it was time to move onto the skillet cornbread. I found a great recipe on seriouseats.com for cheddar, bacon, scallion skillet cornbread. And I found a recipe on marthastewart.com for jalapeno cornbread… so I kind of mushed the two together, and added more jalapenos… recipe to follow. But basically it turns out… skillet corn bread with bacon, cheese, and jalapenos is a recipe for a happy belly.
Mixin’ that cornbread up. Wine for cook, not recipe.
And the mix
Cheesy spicy goodness!
And first, you fry up some bacon in the skillet, and get that good bacon fat flavor soaking into the cast iron –
Always bacon
And then… delicious skillet cornbread
Such an easy recipe. Such a crowd-pleasing result!!
For dessert, dad’s favorite are waffles, and churros. So, I found a recipe (again on seriouseats.com for waffle churros and chocolate dipping sauce. So churros… in a waffle iron. How can you go wrong?? You can’t.
Waffle churros. ‘Nuff said.
With that recipe came a great chocolate ganache dipping sauce, and I thought to myself, “why not make it mexican chocolate?” and it turns out all you need to do is mix up cinnamon, ginger, and cayenne in a 4:2:1 ratio and toss that sucker in there.
Chocolate… mmmmm….
And then, after adding in some wilted spinach with garlic, sweet potatoes with carrots, brown sugar, and cinnamon, and a spring salad mix, I finally had the spread:
The spread.
All of this for my parents and godmother. All of whom at least claimed to appreciate it. So, a relative success! (Ha! I made a funny, get it?) And then obviously, afterwards, all the wine happened.
I recently decided it would be a brilliant idea to travel to the east coast on a Friday night, get very little sleep, and then wake up at 5 am on Sunday to fly to Oakland, and then back home to LA on Sunday evening. For anyone considering this, it is a terrible plan. Do not do it. Alas, hindsight is 20/20, and life goes on. There, was however, one astounding epicurean discovery I made in the Denver Airport.
An airport, you say? Has the sleep deprivation and multiple time-zone shifts gone to her head? Quite possibly. However, I would counter that if you ever find yourself in the Denver Airport with say, roughly a 2 hour layover in Concourse C, you may just have to see for yourself what all the fuss is about. Because I had an absolutely delightful meal at Root Down Restaurant – a sneaky local treasure sandwiched in between the X-press Spa and a cell-phone accessories kiosk.
From the moment I walked up to the host stand, service was friendly, engaging, and attentive. The host pleasantly asked how many in my party (I’m a party! .. a party of one), and how long I had until my next flight, and proceeded to lead me to the cutest, smartest “table for one” I’ve ever experienced.
Could this be any cuter? Look at the little space for my adorable luggage. That orange card is the wifi password. They have everything!
Kathleen, my lovely server, brought me piping hot coffee and introduced to me what can only be the most ridiculous array of coffee sweeteners I’ve seen. And I live in LA.
agave, honey, stevia, coconut sugar, sugar in the raw. seriously.
Having sorted out my coffee, I was torn between the tofu scramble, the pancakes, the eggs benedict… okay. Fine. I wanted everything. It’s cold out and brunch is my favorite meal.
so many options! i want all the food.
The ever-helpful Kathleen recommended I try the steel cut oats – it’s her favorite. That sounded delicious, but I was skeptical, as I’ve had some seriously sub-par oatmeal in restaurants. I find there are a few breakfast staples that, while simple, really give you an idea of the quality of restaurant you’re patronizing. Oatmeal is definitely one of those staples. I shouldn’t have worried. Just a few minutes later, out came my delicious steel cut oats with brown sugar, vanilla-coconut milk, and an almond-mango compote. Warm in my belly, and exactly what I needed on a cold morning layover in the Denver Airport, having risen at a some ridiculous predawn hour.
it was so tasty. the other diners may have my constant photography strange or off-putting, but luckily no one said anything
The meal was simple, warm, delicious; in short it was everything I’d wanted, and exactly what I’d needed. Aside for the luggage and multiple single-diners, this could have just as easily been a delightful local meal. It was instead, one of the best airport restaurants where I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. Absolutely above and beyond, on every level. Root Down is a must if you find yourself a bit peckish in the Denver Airport.
I suppose I should note that apparently I’m not the first one to discover this hidden diamond in the rough- Root Down has apparently won numerous awards and commendations for being delicious, as well as being noted in a number of blogs (and now, one more!) I don’t care- I’m still taking full credit for my discovery. And spreading the word!
I don’t know if you know this – Halloween just happened. Though you may have also thought we were way closer to Christmas because as of October 1st, this display was up in my local Target:
are you kidding me!?
However, it was just Halloween, and October, and as any loyal Starbucks patron knows – that means pumpkin spice lattes all day long. It seems a recent development (perhaps due to social media as well?) that October has become the month of #psl, but my obsession with pumpkin spans decades – long before the appearance of this seasonal delight.
My love of pumpkin started with pumpkin pie – that Thanksgiving treat that used to only come once a year. When my god-sister and I were old enough, my mama used to allow us to bake our own pie, the day after Thanksgiving, to “practice.” This really meant an enormous mess of flour, pumpkin, and shortening all over the kitchen, but resulted in our very own pie. Sure, it was burnt in places, the sugar had crystallized on top where we hadn’t properly mixed the filling, but it was all ours. The day after Thanksgiving was always the best day – fresh made pumpkin pie, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathons on television. Oh to be be young again.
Now, my love of all things pumpkin has expanded into, well, everything pumpkin. This pumpkin soup from Trader Joe’s is delightful –
mmmmm warm pumpkin in my belly!
And yes, this coffeemate pumpkin spice creamer goes in my coffee every morning. It’s kind of gross, but also wholly delicious. I just try not to focus on the ingredient list too much. It’s just for a month… so that makes it okay. Right?
oh yeah. this happens. it’s delicious. don’t judge me.
My roommate and I decided that since I’d gone a little crazy with Halloween decorations, we should probably have some people over and provide a reason for my holiday overload. I obviously I jumped on the party as my opportunity to bake way too much under the guise of “cooking for the masses.” After some serious searching I decided on pumpkin oatmeal cookies with a maple glaze, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, and a pumpkin pie martini. Nothing too crazy, just enough. Right?
Well, it would have been just enough pumpkin, except I ran into my dear friend Adam two days prior to Halloween, and realized (because I’m a horribly forgetful person) that it was his birthday and I hadn’t gotten him anything. So to make up for my memory lapse, I invited myself over on Halloween morning to make pumpkin waffles for him and his roommates. Let’s be honest – getting to use my waffle maker is pretty much just my own present to myself. I really am a terrible person. So without further ado, please enjoy.
2 cups oats (Trader Joes rolled oats here worked great)
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla bourbon extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (again, I used Trader Joes here – it’s a little soupier than Libby’s. If you’re using a soupier consistency puree, I’d add a couple more spoonfuls of oats, my cookies were just a little too sticky)
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
Maple Glaze –
This is just a really basic guide – go ahead and mix the sugar and maple syrup and milk in varying amounts until you’re satisfied with the flavor/consistency/color. It’s all about your preferences, as the baker, you get to decide what is most delicious and everyone else just has to eat them!
2 cups powered sugar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
splash of milk (about 1 to 2 tablespoons)
To make:
Preheat oven to 325 F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, if you want, for easy cleanup.
In a large bowl, combine egg, oil, vanilla honey. Mix until consistent. Then add in the oats, spices, baking powder, and pumpkin puree. Combine, and chill for 1/2 hr.
Scoop spoonfuls onto baking sheet, and bake for 12-15 minutes (depending on your oven – I tend to need to bake on the longer side, these cookies went in for about 14 minutes).
1/2 cup white whole wheat pastry flour (it’s lighter than regular whole wheat flour, which I find sometimes makes my baked goods a little too tough)
3/4 cups unbleached all purpose unbleached flour
3/4 cup raw sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin puree (again, I used Trader Joe’s, you can use whatever you prefer)
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 large egg whites
2 teaspoons vanilla bourbon extract
baking spray (for the muffin cups)
2/3 cup mini chocolate chips
To make:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a mini muffin tin with paper liners and lightly spray liners with oil for easy removal (I learned my lesson the hard way with the Target liners – so cute, but they’ll stick like glue to your baked goods).
In a medium bowl, combine dry ingredients: flours, sugar, baking soda, pumpkin spice, cinnamon, and salt.
In a large bowl mix pumpkin puree, oil, egg whites and vanilla. Using stand or hand mixer, beat at medium (on my kitchenaid hand mixer I use a “2”) until consistency is thick.
Add the dry ingredients a third at a time to the wet ingredients – mixing in between each addition, and making sure to get the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Fold in (gently add with a spatula, not the mixer!) the chocolate chips at the end.
Scoop a spoonful of batter into each mini-muffin liner. One regular tablespoon full should be sufficient. Bake for 22-25 minutes (mine go in again for about 24 minutes).
Enjoy!
oh they’re so good. and you can eat a lot of them and not feel guilty because they’re so small, right? calories don’t count when they’re small…
*Note: You will need a waffle iron for this. It’s the worth investment – it’s one of my prized possessions.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
4 large eggs
1 cup whole milk (or almond milk, or soy, or coconut, they’ve all got thicker consistencies than non-fat milk, which is good for these waffles)
1 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
To make:
Set your waffle iron to medium hot.
Combine all wet ingredients – eggs, milk, buttermilk, butter, and pumpkin – into a large bowl. Whisk until the consistency is smooth.
In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients – spices, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. I normally just use a large fork to combine the dry ingredients, a few brisk beats should do the trick.
Combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, whisking until just combined. The mixture can be a little lumpy, you don’t definitely want to over-mix!
whisk it, whisk it good! also, cute 1/2 cup measure I borrowed from Adam’s house. win!
Using a 1/2 cup measure for each of the waffle squares, pour batter on the liberally oil-sprayed waffle maker.
get ready…
Closer waffle maker. Wait for epic waffles.
get set…
Be notified of epic waffle-completion by pleasant beep of waffle maker. Nom all the waffles!!
go!
Feel better because you did in fact manage to do something nice for your friends.
Adam liked his waffles! we added chocolate ganache he had in his fridge, this was not the wrong call.
My brother recently moved back to Oakland, CA. He’d been there before, I’d been there, we overlapped a bit, and then he moved on, as people do. But now he’s back, and this is great because my brother is awesome (now that we past the tormenting phase of our relationship), and I have a free place to stay in the Bay Area. Woot! So I went up for my monthly visit – shout out to Southwest cheap and frequent flights between LAX and OAK – and was, if not shocked, then mildly appalled at his living quarters. After wading through the empty packing boxes, I arrived at the space that would have otherwise been labeled the kitchen, but in my brother’s case is “the empty room where more boxes go, and other random crap.”
During intensive questions regarding his current eating habits (this is where my inner Jewish mother came out) I learned he’s subsisting mostly on Soylent.
image via wire.com could this be any less appealing??
It provides all your necessary nutrients without any of those pesky trappings like flavor, and general meal enjoyment. This made me very sad. And also very hungry. My very dear brother who lives like he’s already experience the zombie apocalypse informed me that he would not eat any fresh food I brought for him to eat later. No sandwich makings, no fresh fruity snacks, nothing. Quick thinking led me to Berkeley Bowl – or as I’ve renamed it “home to the worst grocery shoppers in the world.”
such delicious produce! banned from it all!
Nevertheless, I prevailed with some frozen dinners from Amys (pretty tasty, healthy, and most importantly brother-approved) and Helen’s Kitchen, and just because it’s October and I was feeling selfish, all the makings for pumpkin loaf. I used a recipe from Pinterest that I wasn’t wildly impressed with, but I think with a few minor changes could be a winner. I was pretty much going for easiest recipe with the fewest ingredients, since I also had to purchase the basics like loaf pans, measuring spoons, mixing bowls, and basically everything that every kitchen has. Except my brother’s. Well, now it has them. You get the gist. After two pumpkin loaves and a freezer full of semi-healthy options, my inner Jewish mother was satisfied. Until the next trip, obviously.
2 cups pumpkin puree (the recipe called for Libby’s, but Berkeley Bowl was sorely lacking on all things pumpkin, so I made due with Pacific – soupier consistency, required a longer bake time)
3 cups sugar (this was WAY too much. I would cut it by a 1/3 in the future)
1 cup canola oil
2/3 cup water
4 eggs
3 1/3 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp salt (way too much – you’re fine with a tsp here)
1 tsp ground cinnamon (I accidentally added 2, and it was so the right call)
1 tsp ground nutmeg
I added an additional 1 tsp of ginger, and 1/2 tsp of cloves – it’s just not pumpkin bread if you don’t have that pumpkin pie flavor!
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, either butter and flour or canola spray two loaf pans – 9×5.
Mix all wet ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients. The original recipe calls for a large and a medium, I found I needed two large, but I like a little margin for error.
Combine the dry ingredients into the wet, stirring until combined, but don’t over mix because no one wants to eat tough pumpkin bread. Well, I would. No one else wants to.
Pour mixture evenly into two loaf pans, cook for 45-55 minutes. My cook time was closer to 65 minutes, but that was due to glass cookware and soupy pumpkin puree.
le pumpkin loaves. they were okay. i still would rather eat them than soylent.
So the other night, my friends and I decided we would forgo our usual haunts in favor of a new and exciting restaurant, much hyped, in the area. This was clearly our first mistake. Never give up on the tried-and-true in favor of trendy-yet-unproven. Alas, it happened, and here’s how it went down:
It’s so cute! Don’t you just want to like it?? We wanted to!
We were all pretty psyched to try Scratch Bar – and looking forward to an evening of “truly innovative culinary craftsmanship,” Sadly, what we received was a strong smell of gas leaking out of the kitchen, an odd – yet not entirely unwelcome – array of music from classic rock to Snoop Dogg (because who doesn’t need a little snoop drizzle in their evening??) and a fairly standard upscale bar-fare menu. While Jonathan Gold and Hailey Duff may both be wildly impressed with the presentation and flavors of this menu, my dining party remained decided unexcited by the bar’s offerings.
Our server, though enthusiastic, managed to forget both my drink order and my one and only dietary restriction of no avocados (alas, I can never enjoy this deliciously abundant Californian treat!). By the time our food actually arrived, however, we were high enough on gas fumes from the kitchen and singing along to Snoop Dogg that I’m not sure it really mattered. My girlfriend and I comfortably shared two small plates, while our poor male companion ordered a number of dishes, and after ravenously devouring them, was left with a rumbling stomach and his GPS locked onto the nearest Chipotle.
le box of vegetables… or “convincing your 5 year old to eat her peas”
We ordered the “box of vegetables,” which pretty much consisted of a couple slivers of snap peas, oil drenched oyster mushrooms, a ton of sweet corn, and a construction of fried potato strings (the “box”) surrounding the vegetables. It was fine, a bit too oily, and seemed like a trick to getting your child to eat their vegetables. As an adult, I’ve come to enjoy my vegetables in all forms, even without sly trickery and potato chips on the side, so I felt this was an unnecessary addition to what could have been a pretty tasty appetizer.
oh salmon salad, you had so much potential
Our main course was the salmon and kale salad. Though supposedly one of their best dishes, it arrived (for the second time – the first coming replete with delicious and dangerous avocados) drenched in dressing, with what can only be described as salmon’s version of a tuna salad thrown in. Alas, my Chop’t salad the other day was far tastier, and as a bonus, there was no gas smell. Though I wasn’t serenaded by Snoop Dogg, either, so maybe that was all a wash. All in all, a disappointing experience, and a wasted Taco Tuesday. Sigh. Back to margaritas and carnitas for me!
all the food, all the time 