Dinner Party: Secret Ingredient-Style

Last weekend we celebrated the birthdays of two wonderful friends and fellow newlyweds, Lauren and Jeremy. (Aren't fall birthdays the best?) We invited L&J to our apartment for a dinner party in their birthday honor. The twist: they each got to choose 2 ingredients to be incorporated into the meal.

After days of deliberation, the secret ingredients were chosen...

She picked:

1. Apples
2. Sweet potatoes 

He picked:
     3.  Butterscotch
     4.  Fish

Apparently ingredient-choosing was particularly difficult for Jeremy, who, inspired by the show Chopped, also considered- quail eggs, goat brains, preserved duck eggs, sweet tea vodka, rack of wild boar, frozen waffles, hot dogs, and watermelon. What helped him decide was the realization that he should probably choose something he actually wants to eat.

Choosing this menu was too fun! The fish threw me the most... when it comes to fish, I only know what I like, which is basically exclusively salmon. But what better time to try something new! The best of friends are the best audience for recipe experiments. Especially on their birthdays.

With the inspiration of multiple cookbooks from my library (Giada, Moosewood, Clean Food) as well as a favorite website (CookingLight.com), the final menu came to be:

First Course:

Autumn Salad

fresh apple, dried mission figs, gorgonzola cheese with maple balsamic vinaigrette

Entree:

Dill and Mustard-Encrusted Wild Haddock

with a yogurt-chive sauce

Sweet Potato Fries 

with curry ketchup

Sauteed Zucchini

Dessert:

Butterscotchies 

with Vanilla Ice Cream 

Happy Birthday to you two!

First, the salad dressing... THE cure to salad boredom... guaranteed! You can even add it to roasted veggies like I did, here.

Maple-Dijon Balsamic Vinaigrette
Shake up these ingredients:
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

baby arugula with fresh pink lady apple, dried black mission figs, gorgonzola cheese and of course, maple-dijon balsamic vinaigrette

For the fish, I chose haddock, a firm white fish, which the experts say is great for breading. I went with wild-caught for sustainability, and the kind gentleman at the Wegman's fish counter even took the skin off for me! (Without a snobby fish-filleting knife, skinning it myself would not have ended well. Ask my dad about filleting whole fish, it's his favorite hobby.) About 6 oz of fish per person. I dipped each fillet in egg whites (2 total), and then a seasoning mixture of 3/4 cup panko bread crumbs, 1 tablespoon dried dill, 1 1/2 teaspoon dried mustard, 1 tsp paprika, 3 cloves minced garlic. I lined up those bad bad boys in a baking dish and baked at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.



A chive and yogurt sauce complemented the fish.

Giada says, mix together the following-
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 tsp honey
1 tsp dijon
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chive.

It was a little different for me, but it was worth a shot. It's always good to have some curry ketchup from Germany on hand, too!

This was a meal we got so into eating up, I almost forgot to photograph it. You'll get the picture from these snapshots of my half-eaten plate.


Now, onto dessert... Butterscotch Bars! I used a Cooking Light recipe, so sweet and delicious. I made them the day before, but popped them into the warm oven before serving with vanilla ice cream.

This little butterscotchie just got smothered right before the picture was taken.

Having our friends choose ingredients was such a fun way to inspire a dinner party. I encourage you to do the same! Just be willing to follow through if they choose quail eggs... but I'm glad I didn't have to. Thanks Lauren and Jeremy... and happy birthday!

Dough Woes

Let me be the first to tell you: I don't bake. I can bake, but I choose not to. Blame it on studying food science for years in a formal setting. I've learned the ins and outs of this chemical and that acid and what can go wrong and what it looks like when you screw this up and how it should have turned out otherwise. Now, I don't mind a quick bread, and I am particularly skilled at the muffin method (food science geeks, where you at!), but there are a few baked goods I tend to avoid due to their complexity. One- the creaming method (i.e., butter cakes, cookies) that involves beating sugar into a fat to create a tender crumb; and two- yeast breads.

Yeast really is quite magical. But too much salt can kill it. And too hot of water can kill it. And overworking can kill it. And underworking underwhelms it. I'm a realist, like my dad, so I'd rather leave the yeast breads to the experts and buy a delectable loaf of sourdough for $4 at the farmer's market and not worry my pretty little self about how it came to be.

Allthatbeingsaid... I do love a challenge. And when our sweet friends Tim and Katie gave us the ever-creative wedding gift of a bread cookbook (Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois) and bags of special flours, not baking real bread was no longer an option. Let's go!

"Look how cute we are! Baking bread must be so easy!"

I followed the recipe exactly for the "basic" whole wheat dough. I weighed gluten and two kinds of flours and yeast and salt and took care of the temperature of the water and mixed it all up with the dough hook attachments for the right number of minutes and let it rise, loosely covered for the prescribed 90 minutes! Okay, that's not hard, I didn't even have to touch it yet! And then it was 8:00 pm.

I folded and turned and tucked it. Sticky. Despite using extra flour to help with the stickiness. And then I read these crucial words, "Dough may be easier to work with when chilled." Hmm. I bet. But we would like to make pizza right now. All hands on deck.


The 15 minutes that followed sounded like this:

Morgan: Get more flour! This isn't working! The dough is going up my arms!

Mark: It's fine! It's fine! Just keep working it, I'm adding more flour!

Morgan: I need you to HELP me! This is a disaster! It's sticking everywhere! I'M THROWING IT OUT! Get the trash can!

Mark: Get a grip! You are NOT throwing it out now! It's fine! It's fine! Calm down!

Morgan: You don't know what this is like!

Mark: Yes I do! I made homemade pizza crust once in Michigan and it looked like this!

Author's note- How many guys in northern Michigan make their own homemade pizza dough? Probably just one, and he recently moved to Easton...

Silence ensued for several minutes as I topped our tricky pizza dough with pesto, roasted acorn squash, and goat cheese. Baked our pie for 20ish minutes at 450... and you know what? It didn't look half-bad! And it was GOOD!

And then we ate it all up and laughed at my freak-out. We might have danced around the kitchen pointing to each other and to the pizza exclaiming, "YOU ROCK!" I am thankful for my gracious husband and how he looks past the crazed baking Morgan to the less crazy, good cook Morgan. (I trust he would have been as forgiving of my temper if the pizza actually sucked.)

First attempt at homemade pizza- far from a failure

And then 2 days later... I used the leftover dough in the fridge to make a loaf of BREAD! And it was SO easy to work with once it was chilled... and I even did this thing where I put ice cubes in the oven to create steam and it made a shiny, chewy crust! Shoot! It was really good too! We ate this with cheese and dipping oil.

And then the next day we made another pizza with the leftover, leftover dough! I had a good feeling about this one... I even apologized to Mark. I said... "I'm sorry if you thought you would be having a mediocre dinner tonight."

This proud pizza was topped with sauteed kale, peppers, and onions.

Gosh. We did it. We made yeast bread. It was challenging. But it was also rewarding.

I think sometimes the most trying recipes are the most satisfying. Hey, is this a lesson for marriage?

If you are reading this, and you have ever baked a homemade loaf of bread that you had touch, and did so without becoming a complete spazz, give yourself a pat on the back! You rock!

It's Chocolate Time!

Lucky me! A friend's birthday and Valentine's day fell just a few days apart last week... giving me an even better excuse than usual (life) to bake my most favorite chocolate cake AND try my hand at chocolate truffles. So, needless to say... last weekend was... the... best.

First, the cake. It's Crazy Chocolate Cake, people! The BEST! Growing up, my mom often made this cake on snow days. In college, I made it for Mark and I on Valentine's Day (which is why I made it last week! I was nice enough not to eat it in front of him on Skype.) Once my college roommate Erica caught a whiff of this cake, she fell in love with it and made it for simply any and every occasion for the rest of the year! Oh, it's your friend's brother's birthday! Cake. It's Wednesday! Cake. You finished your grad school applications! Cake. You got a B on a test! Cake. Though I must say, the cake I made last week was one of my best yet...

Thank you to my Mark for these lovely flowers!

No icing necessary... we've got a sugar and chocolate crust.

Love!

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Recipe: Crazy Chocolate Cake

1. Mix these in a bowl:

• 3 cups flour (Last time I used 1 cup whole wheat and 2 cups white... and then laughed at myself for trying to make a chocolate cake healthier.)
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder (Hershey's makes a dark cocoa powder that has a really deep, yummy flavor!)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp baking soda

2. Add these and stir:

• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp vinegar
• 3/4 cup oil (I use 1/2 cup applesauce and 1/4 cup oil. This is a worthy substitute! You can save quite a bit of fat and keep the moisture here.)
• 2 cups water  

3. Pour into a greased pan. Top with these:

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup chocolate chips (This last time I used Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips. Do it!)

4. Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.
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I could probably eat this cake exclusively to satisfy any chocolate craving... but I did try a brand-new chocolate treat in honor of a friend's birthday and girls' night! (Thanks Kelly W. for being born!) Chocolate Ganache Truffles... you can find the recipe here, courtesy of Vegetarian Times. They were surprisingly easy to make (no double-boiling anything!) and were QUITE the hit with the girls. But really, if you doubt their deliciousness, just look at the list of ingredients. I am almost certain you can't fail here! *Note* I did follow the recipe closely... yes, I did use Kahlua; yes, I did use heavy cream; yes, I did use instant coffee (Starbucks Via, in fact); no, I didn't use corn syrup, I used honey instead because that's what I had. 

How the pros captured Chocolate Ganache Truffles

And... mine!

Let me tell you, it was a real shame there were still some left over and they sat in my fridge for a few days. (OK, a day.) A realllll shame.

To end on an even sweeter note... it's no secret that dark chocolate has been shown to have plenty of nutritious health benefits, thanks to their antioxidant-rich properties! Many studies have shown a link to decreased blood pressure, decreased platelet stickiness (i.e. decreased risk of heart attack and stroke), decrease risk for diabetes, and possibly a link to decreasing cancer risk! The darker the chocolate (over 60%) the better the antioxidant punch. Check out what the Cleveland Clinic has to say, or a researcher at Penn State.

I have a feeling I don't really have to convince you to make one of these recipes. Now get yourself some chocolate!

Sweet Sweet Sweet Potato

Isn't it just darling to find new ways to cook well-loved foods? I am talking about the sweetest potato I know.  

(Sweet potato or yam? In the US we use the terms interchangeably. Botanically, they are two different tubers. But most of what we enjoy here in the States are true sweet potatoes! Google it.)

Three sweet potatoes. Two new recipes. One tasty and beta carotene-filled day!

My excuses for cooking up Sweet Potato Blueberry Muffins and Spiced Mashed Sweet Potatoes are both internship-related.

First, the muffins. Another intern and I are testing recipes we will make for a breakfast event in Keene honoring Champions in the area. Champions are individuals and organizations who have pledged to help make Keene the healthiest community in the country by the year 2020. (Also known as Vision 2020.) The breakfast is in March. We'll prepare food for about 50 people, and then give a short presentation on how to make the most out of breakfast. So far we know we will make homemade granola bars, mini-quiches, and muffins. We are also able to serve yogurt, fruit, and coffee... making it a complete meal. I like this recipe because it is so different, wholesome, and kind of fun! (I mean, a sweet potato muffin? Really? I still get a kick out of it!)

This recipe was adapted from chef Mark Bittman's Sweet Potato Muffins, created for Runner's World Magazine. If you look at his recipe, you'll notice I added 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, tossed in a bit of flour. I also substituted some brown sugar for the white, and next time may even use a bit of maple syrup too (you just do that in New Hampshire.) These treats are the perfect, perfect pre-workout fuel... and a delightful afternoon snack.

*Update* The second time I baked these, I reduced the total amount of regular whole wheat flour from 2 1/2 down to 2 cups. The muffins came out a bit lighter and even better! I imagine if you used whole wheat pastry, 2 1/2 would still be fine, but it can be hard to find.

"Make me! Eat me!"

The other sweet (potato) dish we whipped up (literally) is a mashed sweet potato with some uncommon flavors. Let me explain. A fellow intern and I are doing a lunch 'n' learn presentation at a local senior center. Since seniors are often told what they can't eat, (goodbye saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, vitamin K perhaps...) we are going to talk to them about how to make what they do eat even better. With spices! Did you know... 1 tsp of cinnamon contains the antioxidant equivalent of 1/2 cup of blueberries? Dried spices are essentially concentrated forms of fruits and vegetables. No, that doesn't mean we can replace vegetables with spices in our diets, but it does mean we can maximize the nutrient punch by adding spice.

These spices are some of the most powerful:

• Cloves 
• Cinnamon 
• Oregano 
• Turmeric 
• Curry 
• Thyme
• Ginger
• Cumin
• Black pepper

To start off the session with our seniors, we'll have them taste our Spiced Mashed Sweet Potatoes and guess what spices we added to the dish. Much of our research for the topic, as well as the recipe, came from McCormick.

Recipe: Spiced Mashed Sweet Potatoes.

1. Cook 2 lbs sweet potatoes. (Microwave, boil, bake, whatever your heart desires. We microwaved!) 
2. Mash.
3. Add 2 tbsp butter, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp dried thyme.

Thanks McCormick for the photo... I promise it looked like this when I made it too!

I think you will find this dish intriguing. The vanilla suggests sweetness, but the thyme keeps it savory. And the ginger does its own thing. It's good, I promise. One taste-tester exclaimed... This is confusing!

Keep it interesting! Happy cooking!

Beer Bread

It's been snowing a lot lately. And I think, cold and snowy calls for warm and doughy! Feast your eyes on my weekend snow day treat...

Beer Bread!

I first made beer bread in the foods lab at Penn State. It is so easy and tastes amazing. I have seen some pretty extravagant recipes with chocolate, cherries, cheddar, cider, onions, you name it. This one is completely basic, and is ready in 1 hour. Don't mind if I do...

Beer Bread
Mix 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour, 4-1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/3 cup brown sugar, and 12 oz. beer. (I used Harpoon IPA... yummy!)
Plop into a lightly greased loaf pan.
Bake at 375 degrees F for 50 minutes.

It's even easier to EAT!

Persimmon. Muffins?

Hey, look, these are persimmons!

Oh hey, we're persimmons.

I myself had no idea what a persimmon was less than 1 year ago. Once, my friend Victoria asked me to identify one in a photo, and I could not do so without cheating. A persimmon is a fruit, grown in the wintertime, resembling (in my opinion) an heirloom tomato topped with a shitake mushroom. Size and texture are similar to tomatoes, but fewer seeds. Cooking Light Magazine tells me they have long been part of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cuisines, and are commonly used by American cooks in "holiday puddings." (Really? Okay.)

A few days ago, another intern and I were going through cookbooks looking for recipes for a breakfast event we're doing in the community next month. We came upon several using this weird orange fruit! I narrowed it down to one and gave it a shot- Spiced Persimmon Muffins.

I stuck to the recipe for the most part, but I left out the pecans (on purpose- texture thing) and the fresh ginger (by accident- #oopsIforgot). I also substituted "flax eggs" for the real eggs. What? Why?

Flax Egg- Ok so, I don't really like eggs, and when I buy them for a recipe, the leftover eggs just sit in my fridge for months. Enter, flax egg. Developed by vegan bakers, a "flax egg" is 1 tablespoon ground flax seed mixed with 2 tablespoons warm water. Let that sit in a bowl for a few minutes to congeal and get a little goopy. It supposedly mimics the properties of an egg in a baked good! And the best part is, I am left with delicious flax instead of leftover eggs! I have had success with flax eggs in muffins before, and they turned out great with my persimmon muffins. (Tip- I just get a bit of whole flax seed from the bulk bins at the store and grind them fresh in my coffee grinder. I store the remaining meal in the freezer to preserve those precious omega-3 oils.)

Pretty rainbow-colored silicon muffin wrappers... no sticking here!

The muffins were delightful! Chewy cranberries, sweet honey and nutty whole wheat made for a great flavor and texture (also, my perfect muffin-method-mixing technique made for proper crumb formation and gluten development, thanks food science). The persimmons don't have a strong flavor, but it was fun to try baking with them. These are some other recipes that looked good- Persimmon Gingerbread, Ricotta Cheese Crepes with Persimmon-Apricot Glaze, and Arugula, Hazlenut, Persimmon, and Fennel Salad.

Morning Muesli: One of the muffin ingredients is yogurt, which I don't usually buy (texture thing... wow, I am really revealing my food jags today), but used my leftovers to make one of my favorite European breakfasts... Muesli! Muesli is a cereal mix developed in Switzerland, usually containing oats, wheat, spelt, nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. It's traditionally eaten by soaking overnight in milk and yogurt! I love museli, and had it several times for breakfast in and around Germany. I bought a muesli mix from Bob's Red Mill, and found it just delicious.

Happy Breakfast!

The Making of a Bagel Snob

Last weekend I took a very necessary get-away to one of my favorite local resorts... the home of my favorite New Hampshire residents- Reuben, Karen, and Josie. R & K are my brother and sister-in-law's best friends from college, and now they are my "fam away from fam" here in New England. These two are quite the foodies, with Reuben co-owning a happenin' burrito joint, and Karen roasting her own coffee, baking homemade breads, and canning food like it's going out of style. Spending time with Reuben, Karen, and their 6-month-old, Josie, is always relaxing and delicious, and this past weekend was no exception.

"I wish I had teeth so I could eat bagels!"

 Karen decided to wow me once again with her baking skills... she made homemade bagels! (Who does that?!) Lots of commercial bagels are nothing more than circular bread, and there really isn't anything exciting about that. True bagels are boiled before they are baked in the oven, creating that nice, shiny, chewy outside. Karen followed this recipe, which I will highlight below...

All of the hard work was already done... just like magic!

Because Karen is awesome, two days prior to my arrival, she made the homemade dough and let these bagel beauties rise. (I honestly don't know exactly what she did to make the dough, and I don't really care to know, because leaving it a mystery is much more intriguing.) So the bagel dough lying neatly on this tray is what I saw on Saturday morning, ready to go! Next, we boiled them in a magical potion for a minute!

Boil the bagels in water and baking soda. Because it's magic.

During boiling, the bagels puffed up a little, and then we pulled 'em outta the water and topped them with fun things... like kosher salt, cinnamon and sugar, and a great grainy mix. Dog Moose (one of the Top Three Best Dogs in the World) wanted in on the action, too...

Even Moose was excited for Bagel Saturday!

"Seriously, give me a bagel. Staring and smelling is just annoying."

 After we topped them, we stuck them in the oven for about 10 minutes. That's it. And when that oven door opened, out came the most fantastically chewy, tender, flavorful bagels I've ever tasted! I LOVED THESE BAGELS! Our unanimous favorite flavor was topped with cinnamon, sugar and salt... and we spread them with some homemade cream cheese. It tasted a bit like a yogurt. (Serious points to Reub and Karen for attempting a homemade cheesy spread of their very own!)

I don't want you anymore, Panera. Not with these in town.

So, it's official... I'm now a bagel snob. I will never again eat another bagel unless it is freshly boiled and baked minutes prior to me eating it. Don't waste my time, Panera... I don't need you!
I really can't say I will try this recipe on my own... I worry it might be too challenging for a baking non-enthusiast to do alone (without Karen) and it just won't be as good... so this bagel moment remains a delicious memory. A chewy, sweet, salty, warm memory. I'm okay with keeping it that way!