Chicken and Hot Pepper Pizza

I made pizza again and look at how beautiful it is! I'm always surprised at how it comes out looking and tasting like real pizza, minus the whole charred crust blackened by an 800 degree brick oven of course. This one was topped with tomato sauce, diced chicken, hot pickled peppers, and parmesan.

I know everyone loves Peter Reinhardt's whole wheat pizza dough as featured on 101 Cookboks, but whenever I make it, the crust is just too thin for my liking. It works great for the grill, but now that I've got my oven back, I'm sticking with my other go-to pizza dough recipe, which is what I used here.

Mmm pizza. I guess it's a good thing it's so time intensive with all that rising, or I'd be making and eating pizza to much for my own good.

Staycation's All I Ever Wanted

With my parents away on a real vacation in Europe, I thought it would be a nice time to take a staycation at their place, to get out of the city, kind of like going to a B&B except it's free. And unlike a B&B, I had to feed the ornery goat that resides in our backyard barn. Interestingly, I'm so used to living in 550 square feet in the city, that my former home in the country felt too large, with its dark, empty, creaky, dusty open spaces.

I had envisioned a gorgeous fall weekend of colorful foliage, hiking, apple picking, and so on. Instead it was dreary gray and miserably drizzly all weekend. We still managed to fit in a visit to Applewood Orchards & Winery - I think it was the only winery left in the Hudson Valley that we hadn't yet visited.
I couldn't tell the difference, but Jesse thought Applewood's wines bested them all, so we actually bought a whole case, when normally we'd politely buy just one or two bottles.

Applewood also features orchards for picking, but we weren't in the mood, so we just walked around, saw their pretty gardens, and headed back home.

The chilly gray day called for a warm, hearty dinner. I made chili, using the wealth of banana peppers and tomatoes from my mom's vegetable garden, along with some local onions, half a bottle of beer, and ground turkey (nonlocal and nonorganic because there wasn't much selection at the Warwick Shoprite). The chili wasn't very spicy because of the dearth of spices available in my mom's kitchen, but it was simple, fresh, colorful, and yummy. I put Jesse in charge of making cornbread, using the recipe on the back of the Bob's Red Mill course-ground cornmeal package, and it actually turned out great. He's a good sous chef. We paired it with Applewood's hard cider, a perfect accompaniment.

Now I'm back at the grind, back in the city. I finally managed to get a shot of the view from the deck of the apartment I don't really live in. The huge monolith of a building on the right is some kind of Verizon station, and the tall buildings straight ahead are the Bushwick projects.

Grilled Pizza with Arugula and Goat Cheese

Another grilled pizza success, using dough balls that I had kept in the freezer since last time I made pizza. I changed up the topping by making simple arugula and goat cheese pizzas. I drizzled olive oil over the top, scattered a handful of fresh arugula leaves, dotted it with goat cheese, shredded some parmesan, and finished it off with a little salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning spices. The peppery argulua wilted down nicely and goes oh so well with creamy goat cheese. As you can see above, I didn't use so much goat cheese - because I find my local Patches of Star goat cheese to be really rich and like it best in small, savored doses.


After making two such pizzas, I ran out of arugula - what to put on the third? Then I spied a mushy Heirloom tomato that needed to be eaten soon in my fruit bowl, so I sliced the tomato thinly and placed it atop all the ingredients on the pizza, minus the arugula. Also delicious - how can anything with crispy bread and sweet heirloom tomatoes not be?

A Busy Night

I came home tonight and cooked for about 2 1/2 hours straight. I didn't need to. I guess I just felt like getting all this food prepared in one go to make the rest of my week easier. And, when I made pizza dough this weekend, I had the foresight to freeze a few dough balls, so I also have my eye on giving pizza another try later this week with the rest of the arugula and chevre. Again no pictures because Jesse has retaken possssion of his camera and I keep forgetting to ask him where he's hiding it.

- dinner tonight: first bruschetta of the season! with heirloom tomato, garlic, basil from my deck, and olive oil on homemade whole wheat toast

- dessert: a decadent peach and nectarine smoothie with Ronnybrook ice cream instead of yogurt

- into the fridge for lunch tomorrow: salad of arugula, radishes, beets, hard boiled egg, Patches of Star chevre, and an olive oil-red wine vinaigrette

- into the fridge for a future dinner: caponata to have with toast and chevre

- into the fridge for a future snack: boiled and balsamic marinated beets

- into the freezer: steamed beet greens, which probably will be eaten in tacos at some point

Dog Ate My Pizza

Yeah, there he goes looking all cute and innocent again until...

First the good news. Last time I tried to make grilled pizza, it was a gummy disaster. I think that dough recipe, which works wonders in the oven, was probably just too thick for the grill. Meanwhile, tons of people out in the blogosphere have made grilled pizza with no problems. So I was determined to try again using a different, thinner dough. I wisely chose the mother of all thin crusts: Heidi's whole wheat pizza dough, also following her grilled pizza tips.

Tonight, I came (home from work), I saw (raw sausage and radish leaves turn into a delightful sauteed topping), I conquered (grilled pizza). However, I was so worried about the giving the pizza ample time to cook through in the middle that I let the first couple pizzas burn a tad, but at least it was edible and delicious, compared to last time. Heidi's pizzas are actually so thin that they don't really have a middle, just crispness, so there was no need to worry. Next time, I will leave my dough a little laxer instead of stretching it out parchment thin as she recommended.

But here comes the bad news. I made three pizzas tonight with my own blood, sweat, and tears (okay more just like a little easy labor with the help of a friend). We ate up two of the pizzas but didn't touch the third. It lay there waiting patiently to be packaged into an amazing lunch for tomorrow. I walked my friend to the door when she left. I was gone for about TWO minutes. I came back upstairs. Huge gasp - the pizza is gone! Without a trace. Because my dog ate my pizza!!!

Devil dog strikes again. All of my hard work wasted on his already-fed stomach. What misfortune will he bring next? Only his pea sized brain can tell. And that's why I have no pictures to show for my work, either, because as you could say, the dog ate my homework!

Tortilla and Tomato Time!

As soon as tomatoes and corn both came into season last week, I couldn't wait to make tacos with beans, fresh salsa, and homemade tortillas. And then I liked my tacos so much that I couldn't wait to make them again for dinner last night.
I am not happy that most tortillas I can find in stores around here are filled with incomprehensible ingredients, including the dreaded high fructose corn syrup. Then I saw Liz making her own tortillas and wanted to give it a try. After all, it is easier and faster than making bread because yeast isn't even involved!

I ended up adapting Orangette's recipe and cut it in half because I didn't want to push my luck on this floury experiment; replaced half the flour with local whole wheat flour; and replaced the shortening with butter. My first time around, I made the mistake of greasing the skillet and dividing the dough into too few tortillas, so I ended up with some huge greasy creatures. On my second try last night, I cooked the tortillas dry in my cast-iron skillet and they came out a little more uniform and pliable. They were not at all like store-bought tortillas, but were thick, hearty, and chewy, owing to the high proportion of whole wheat flour. Once I pick up more all purpose flour, I will try making lighter versions of these tortillas. Nevertheless, I liked them enough to gobble up the extra tortillas plain (both times I made them!) Oops. All the more reason to make them again!

And so, last night's dinner: tacos with homemade tortillas made with local whole wheat flour; dried pinto beans soaked and simmered until tender (not local); fresh salsa featuring sweet farmers market tomatoes, corn, and onions, cilantro from my deck, along with a handful of the meager tomato harvest from my deck (so far just one Big Boy and a bunch of tart cherry tomatoes); and a touch of grated Bobolink cave-aged cheddar. And lucky me, I have two more tacos all wrapped up in foil awaiting me for lunch again today!
Whole Wheat Tortillas
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup water
3 tbsp butter
3/4 tsp salt

Bring about 1 cup of water to boil. Meanwhile, combine flour and salt in a bowl, and mix in butter. Add half of the boiling water and stir to combine. Continue to add water slowly, using only enough water as necessary until it comes together into a dough. With floured hands, knead the dough for 3-5 minutes in the bowl (this is my trick - your bowl is probably big enough to just knead in the bowl instead of dirtying another surface). Form dough into a ball, place back in bowl, and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rest at least 20-60 minutes. (Or up to one day in the fridge, and then let the dough come to room temperature again before rolling out.)

With floured hands, divide dough into about 10 small balls. Heat a dry skillet. On a floured surface, roll out tortilla as thin as you can get it. Cook on skillet over medium low heat for 1-2 minutes until it puffs slightly and the bottom turns golden brown. Flip tortilla and cook 1 minute longer, until the other side turns golden brown. While this tortilla cooks, roll out the next one so that it is ready to place on the skillet as soon as the first one is done. The idea is to keep rolling out the next tortilla while the previous one cooks. Repeat until you are finally done with all that rolling and flipping, and you can sit and fill your tortillas and feast. Makes 10 fajita-size tortillas (I like to eat my tacos on fajita-size tortillas - but I'm guessing this would probably made about 15 taco-size tortillas or 7 burrito-size tortillas).

Fresh Tomato and Corn Salsa
3 tomatoes
2 ears of corn
1 onion
1 handful cilantro
salt
pepper
cayenne pepper
pot of water

Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Meanwhile, shuck the corn. Once the water is boiling, add the corn to the pot, bring it back to a boil, and then shut off the heat and let it sit for five to ten minutes before removing corn with tongs to cool.

Meanwhile, dice onion, cilantro, and tomatoes and combine in a bowl. Once the corn is cool enough to handle, slice the corn off the cob and mix it in with the rest of the salsa, along with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Kitchen Disasters

That was a beautiful and delicious pizza I made last week with local flour, turkey sausage and radish greens, and nonlocal tomato sauce and parmesan. Yes, you can eat the greens that come with a bunch of radishes. I wash them thoroughly, sautee them, and they wilt down a lot. They're a little bitter, but add a nice complexity to pizza.

I loved the pizza so much that I tried to make it again this week, but with the sick humidity crushing us this week, I decided to try my hand at making grilled pizza. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, but I tried twice with two pizzas, and both times the edges of the dough grew colored and crispy, almost burnt, while the gummy inner dough refused to cook through, no matter how long I let them linger on the hot grill or in the toaster oven afterward. They looked tasty like they wanted me to eat them, but I couldn't. I salvaged the sausage and radish greens by scraping them off and throwing together with quick-cooking orzo for a meal, while the pizza remains above sadly went into the garbage.

I have three theories - I should have used a dough that reliably produces a thin crust since my recipe usually puffs up a bunch; I shouldn't have topped it with so much sauce and sausage; I should have let the first side cook longer before I flipped it over. We'll see. For now, it's back to my tried and true method for making pizza in the oven, despite the heat.

This meal that we made for dinner last night looks great, but it wasn't actually, because it was pervaded by bitterness. I was so excited about being able to eat radish leaves, that I decided to give carrot tops a try. The bunch that came with my carrots from the Greenmarket looked so pretty and frilly that it seemed a shame to just throw them away.

I made a salad of lolo rosso lettuce, grated carrots, and a garnish of chopped carrot tops, with a roasted garlic dressing. The dressing was a gift from Jesse's mom and was pleasant. But the lettuce was overwhelmingly bitter, and the carrot greens didn't help, being chewy and bitter and not fun to eat. I couldn't even finish my salad. I guess there's a reason why people always throw out carrot tops.

Knowing how much Jesse loves Sixpoint beer, which is brewed in nearby Red Hook Brooklyn, Jesse's mom also surprised us with this terrific growler of Sixpoint Gorilla Warfare, a rich stout. I decided we should use it to cook the mussels. We sauteed garlic scapes and another handful of carrot greens in olive oil, then added mussels and half a pint of beer, and let it cook, covered, until the mussels opened.

I had been craving mussels all week, but it was a bit disappointing. The garlic scapes weren't potent enough to lend the dish a garlicky aroma like I hoped, the wilted carrot greens weren't much to taste, and the stout gave the mussels a slightly bitter taste. I should have known that a mild lager or white wine works better for mussels. It wasn't a total disaster, like the failed grilled pizza, but it wasn't the rich warm broth of mussels that I had hoped for.

But that's how it goes with cooking. You experiment, and you learn from your mistakes. And post them on the Internet for others to learn from as well.

The Other White Meat

Tofu's not something I cook with often. I used to eat it more when I was a semi-vegetarian in college, for no better reason really than being wary of handling raw meat, but since careening down the path of eating local, whole, farm fresh foods, I left tofu behind, along with all the other "Chik Patties" and overprocessed fake meats I stopped eating.

But after work the other day, I made a rare trip to Whole Foods to check out their organic chicken selection, since I wasn't able to stop at the farmers market the day before, and I needed more food for dinner that night. To my surprise, Whole Foods' organic chicken breasts are more expensive than at the Greenmarket! Why would I pay $10 a pound for factory farmed meat when I can get happy chicken breasts from Quattro's Game Farm for $6-7 a pound? No thanks. Seeking an alternate source of protein, I ambled (more like pushed and dodged) my way over to the tofu section. And what did I behold but a tofu package beaming "Local Tofu" back at me, made in Nyack, NY. No, it is unlikely that the soybeans were grown in the area, but I was happy to at least be supporting a local vendor. And at $1.99/package, tofu definitely trumps chicken in terms of keeping my savings in my pocket.

I've realized lately that I am spending more money than I'd like to on food, probably as a natural consequence of being a foodie. Of the money I spend, most of it goes toward food (and some to alcohol), since due to my anticonsumerism stance, I don't buy much clothes, or makeup or books or movies at all (thank you library). And yes, I totally espouse the idea that it's good to pay more to buy sustainable food, because it's important to pay the true cost of food. But I still don't like to see my money disappear. So I've been making a concerted effort to cut down costs by buying cheaper cuts of meat like sausage, cooking less meat, cooking with dried beans (at $1-2/lb in bulk, they are the cheapest protein ever!), baking my own bread, buying the less fancy vegetables like radishes that have dual uses (roots and greens), growing my own herbs, and meal planning up the wazoo to make sure food in my fridge gets eaten or frozen in some form before it goes bad. As food prices rise, we all want to find ways to cut costs, and Cathy also recently posted helpful suggestions on how to "combat soaring food prices."

So speaking of meal planning and using up what's on hand - after dinner that night (radish, bok choy, and tofu stir fry with soy sauce, sesame seeds, and quinoa), I combined the rest of the tofu with my leftover garlic scape pesto, this time adding parmesan and almonds to beef up the pesto. I left the tofu pesto salad in the fridge for a couple days to let the flavors mingle. Then, amidst all the running around before camping last weekend, it made the perfect lunch served on homemade bread with fresh lettuce. The tofu pesto salad sandwich was creamy and had a nice spicy kick from all the garlic scapes. I thought it would also taste good blended into a tofu cream cheese (speaking of which, I really need to attempt that), or warmed up on the stove a bit, for a form of imitation scrambled eggs. Something tells me we'll be seeing tofu a little more often around here.

Camping at Little Pond

I don't recommend camping just for a night - it's too much prep work to drag out camping gear, figure out food, pack everything up, set everything up, and do it all in reverse again the next day. But that's what we did anyway Saturday, as we found ourselves on a long drive up Route 17 to camp in the Catskills. We stayed at Little Pond Campground, a state campground that actually features a rather large pond with a beach, picnic areas, and hiking trails. There are even some campsites situated tranquilly right on the water, but those were already taken by the time we made our reservation.

The campsites were quiet and more secluded from each other than other campgrounds I've stayed at. Our site was bizarrely large, as you can see below.
Near dinnertime, I tried to grill potatoes in foil, but our fire wouldn't stay consistently hot. After over an hour the potatoes were still raw and hard. We have much to learn in the art of fire-making for our next camping trip. Our propane-powered camping stove is great for cooking, but I would also like to be able to harness the fire's energy for cooking like Liz.

After giving up on the potatoes and chucking them back into the cooler to be cooked later in the week, we turned to making the rest of dinner: burgers on homemade toast (made with local flour before we left) and topped with beer-braised swiss chard. We simply sauteed half a bunch of swiss chard in olive oil and then let it braise in half a can of beer for about ten minutes. It could have used some more spices, but that was all we had on hand and it worked. Then Jesse came up with the idea to put the swiss chard on the burgers, which was brilliant.

The burgers were grass finished black angus from a new Greenmarket vendor, Grazin' Angus Acres. Their farm in Columbia County uses wind power and they also raise chickens to provide the farm's nitrogen needs, inspired by Joel Salatin's sustainable farm described in Omnivore's Dilemna. I recommend taking a look at their website, which has informative information on the health and ecological benefits of grass fed meat. Not to mention that the burger was delicious. And of course, what camping trip is complete without cheap beer? I forgot to pick up tastier local beer, so Jesse's Bud is what I was stuck drinking.

It rained just as we woke in the morning, so we stayed inside the tent until the torrents passed. Unfortunately that meant we didn't have time to cook breakfast before we had to pack up and check out, so breakfast was at Roscoe Diner.

I don't recommend it unless you like institutional style food, down to the bagel that was toast in the shape of a bagel. As I ate it, I realized it's been years since I've eaten that poorly. Luckily, I wasn't a foodie back in the days of my Aramark-catered dining hall, or I don't know what I would have eaten throughout college.

The sun perked up during our long drive home to Brooklyn so I could fully enjoy the lush green landscapes of the Hudson Valley and cry a little inside about not living in the country anymore. Summer in the Hudson Valley is my favorite thing ever. We took a detour on the way to pick up my sister from my hometown and ferry her to the city.

While there, we also stopped at Rosner Soap in nearby Sugarloaf, a cute crafts village, so I could stock up on soap. They make my favorite soap - it comes in a multitude of flavors like lemongrass oatmeal and peppermint tea tree that smell heavenly, it lathers well, it doesn't contain scary chemicals like store-bought soaps, and at $4.50 a bar it's much cheaper than certain $8 Brooklyn-made soaps. Add to that their colorfully painted stores and beautiful flowers, and I get the feel-good buzz of supporting a local vendor.

Locavore Potluck

Last Saturday was my much anticipated locavore potluck. I had been awaiting the day since I first thought up the idea sometime over winter - to bring together my friends for the most noblest of potlucks, encouraging them to seek out local food sources. I'll have it in March, I planned, naively expecting that by then the bounty of spring would appear in the farmers markets. And when March continued in winter's fashion, I hoped April would bring fresh vegetables. Until April also did not seem flush enough with green. I almost had a date set in May, once asparagus and lettuce appeared, but scheduling conflicts pushed it back another month.

Then of course nature pulled a trick and jolted into summer with a heat wave, thick and oppressive and blowing hot air and sweat around our bodies. But the show must go on, so I planned to get most of the cooking done in the morning with the hopes that the apartment would cool off before the party. The morning found me at Union Square (bizarrely with larger crowds at 9am than I'd ever seen on a Saturday) to pick up a pork roast from Flying Pigs. Stupidly I hadn't asked for it to be defrosted when I ordered it, so it was frozen solid. Luckily after an hour an and a half in a water bath at home, it seemed mostly defrosted, so into the crockpot along with a sliced onion, barbeque sauce, salt, pepper, and a little water. This is my usual method for making pulled pork, and it couldn't be easier. You just leave it in there for hours and hours on low in the crock pot, maybe turn it up to high for a couple hours, and then back to low, and after about 8-10 hours it shreds when you go to cut it.

While the pork defrosted, I got to work on buns for the pulled pork. I thought the heat would help these babies rise into fluffy buns even more beautifully than last time, but instead they refused to rise and ended up as tight undercooked mini buns. I have no idea what happened, but they sufficed for the purpose. And the mini buns meant that people piled less pulled pork onto their sandwiches, leaving me with more leftovers (muhaha!)

While the oven preheated for the buns, I also roasted some potatoes into fries. Now common sense would dictate that you would not be silly like me and turn your oven on and instead buy hamburger buns and make something like a cold potato salad. But I was determined to use my local flour for the buns. And Jesse insisted on having roasted potatoes since he doesn't like potato salad, and since we had an overflow of potatoes from last week's party, I had to do something with them. So all my sweating in a sauna of a kitchen was my own fault.

I also picked up garlic scapes, which are young garlic shoots, at the market that morning. They are often transformed into garlic scape pestos, but I thought they would be perfect in aioli for dipping the fries. Aioli is essentially garlic mayonnaise, and I found it to be easier to make than I expected. I noticed, though, that I didn't seem to need as much olive oil as the recipe called for, probably because my eggs were on the smaller side. So I recommend slowly whisking in the oil and stopping when the mixture has reached the right consistency, even if you have some oil left over. Mine was creamy and thinner than commercial mayonnaise, but with a much brighter, richer flavor. Now that I know how easy it is, I'll definitely be making my own mayonnaise again, except this time I'll store some in the fridge right away so I can enjoy it later in the week - instead of leaving it all out in my 90 degree living room for more than three hours during the party and then tossing the leftovers from fear.

Although I finished cooking by 2pm, the apartment wasn't any cooler by partytime, but everyone seemed to have a good time despite the heat. Now, the party wasn't entirely local - the invitation just asked that everyone try to bring something incorporating at least one local ingredient. Eating locally is new to most of my friends, so I wanted it to be an encouraging, not daunting, challenge. I was impressed that my guests all made an effort to bring something local, and enjoyed trying all their great food. There was nary a bag of chips or can of PBR to be found.

My sister (who is working at Bobolink for the summer since it's only a 5 minute drive from our parent's home - how cool is that?) brought rosemary bread she'd baked that morning, and one of Bobolink's new spring cheeses, Tarte de Vache (Cow Pie), which was medium soft, grassy and pungent. Two vegetarian couples coincidentally both brought tortellini salad, and another standout was a jar of curry-pickled baby turnips and radishes. There was also a brilliant strawberry rhubarb bruschetta with fresh mint. As well as my pulled pork sandwiches, fries, and heavenly aioli, all local except for the yeast, barbecue sauce, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and vinegar.

For dessert there was a chocolate chip loaf from a Greenmarket bakery, ice cream from Ronnybrook and 5 Boroughs (warning: their Cha Cha Chocolate is super spicy), strawberries, and locally made marshmallows from Whole Foods. And of course, a few bottles of New York state wine, and lots and lots of Brooklyn, Bluepoint, and Southampton beer. The party didn't end until late in the night when all the booze ran out and I was ready to slip into a food and drink-induced coma.


Garlic Scape Aioli

2 stalks garlic scapes
1 tbsp fresh parsley
salt
pepper
1 egg yolk
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Combine garlic scapes, parsley, salt, and pepper in a food processor. Alternately, you can mince them finely, or use a mortar and pestle, but my mortar and pestle doesn't seem to do much so I went the mechanic route.

Scrape garlic mixture into a bowl and whisk in egg and then lemon juice and vinegar.

With one hand, pour olive oil very slowly into the bowl, while whisking briskly and continually with the other hand. (Not as hard as it sounds.) If you add too much oil at once, just pause your pouring and whisk until it is incorporated. Taste occasionally, and once the mixture has reached your desired consistency and taste, stop adding oil.

Store immediately in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to five days. Serve with fries, fish, asparagus, or spread on sandwiches.

Impromptu Greek Salad and Homemade Hamburgers

Ever since I eagerly devoured an awesome Greek salad at Westville in the West Village, I have been craving the combination of leafy greens and creamy feta. So Wednesday during lunch I followed my cravings. I wandered through the Union Square Greenmarket, beginning with a selection of a variety of lettuces, bright red radishes that were calling out to me, a red onion, and finally, feta cheese from Lynnhaven Farms. Back in midtown, I stole little plastic cups of balsamic vinegar from the deli across the street (shhhh). Then at my desk, I chopped and assembled the. best. impromptu lunch ever. The lettuces had that lively tenderness that signaled freshness.

So I assembled the same salad to accompany burgers for dinner that night, and then for lunch a couple of days later. By then, it was clear that two days in the refrigerator had taken their toll on the lettuce, and they now had the more wilted quality of supermarket mixed greens. See, the difference is noticeable! And although $6 per little tub, the feta cheese was worth it for its creamy, salty tang. It was reminiscent of the goat cheese my mom made when I was a child from the milk of the goats raised in our backyard barn. I didn't know how good I had it then.


As for the burgers, the meat was ground chuck from Hawthorne Valley Farm, picked up from the Greenmarket a week ago and frozen solid. While it took its time defrosting in a water bath, I improvised some hamburger buns that came together surprisingly quickly. The key was taking the necessary amount of flour and yeast out of the refrigerator that morning so they were nice and warm when it was time for baking after work. I used half whole wheat and half all purpose flour to give it a little more fluff than my usual dense all whole wheat bread.

It was a test run for my locavore potluck next month, and they came out good enough that I will be serving them again then. They may not be perfectly round and airy like store-bought buns, but they will be wholesome, made with simple ingredients, and hot from the oven. The recipe below is more for my reference so I can replicate it. And not so much a hard and fast recipe. Because there are things I'm not sure about. Like the ideal size of the pan, and whether the pan needs to have sides so that the buns rise upward. Advice is welcome.

Jesse prepared the burgers with worcestershire sauce, and some freshly chopped sage from the deck. He grilled them to medium-rare perfection served with those salad ingredients again - sliced red onions, lettuce, and feta cheese, albeit non-local ketchup of course. Yum. I'm glad it's grilling season again, that our grill is fixed after a two week hiatus, and that we have another package of local hamburger meat awaiting us in the freezer for a future barbecue.

Hamburger Buns
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup warm water
1 tbsp olive oil

Combine yeast and 1/2 cup warm water and let sit a few minutes until bubbly.
Meanwhile, combine flour and salt. Then add olive oil, yeast mixture, and half the remaining water. Combine in bowl with a rubber spatula. Add additional water as necessary until a slightly sticky dough forms.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and need 10 minutes, adding flour as needed so it doesn't stick to everything. Return to bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and place in warm place for 40-60 minutes until doubled in size. (My warm place is inside my gas oven with the door propped open, and in that situation, the dough was over-ready and sighing back on itself when I poked holes into it at 45 minutes, so make sure you check on it periodically.)

Preheat oven to 400. Grease two small or one large baking pan. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and gently press down, pressing out air bubbles. Divide in half and set one half aside under the bowl. Divide each half into five balls (ten balls total) and place on pan. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let sit 25-35 minutes until proofed - the rolls will touch each other slightly. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, removing when rolls are golden brown and hollow when you tap the underside.

Dark Days Challenge Week 7: Sausage Pizza and Roasted Beet Salad

I've made pizza before, but it always came out dense and crunchy throughout. This time I was amazed to open the oven and see a beautiful golden brown puffy crust. It may have actually risen this time because I used sugar instead of raw honey. I know I shouldn't use raw honey, since I've read it sometimes has bacteria that can kill yeast, but I love the idea of using local honey too much to give it up. Well maybe I should.

Or it could have been because I kneaded the dough in the food processor instead of by hand. I have always been afraid of using the dough option on my food processor, worried that the dough would come out over-kneaded. However, it was so amazingly easy and quick that I'll have to do it again. I'm horribly inefficient at kneading dough. First I am never sure if the consistency is right so I keep adding water and flour. Then I feel like I'm kneading forever but the dough never stops being sticky. But 45 seconds in the food processor and the dough was perfectly kneaded.

I topped this with flavorful DiPaolo turkey sausage, tomato sauce, and some parmesan. I'm not big on cheesy, greasy pizzas and can thus hardly stand most pizzeria pizzas these days - so this simple combination was enough for me. On the side, we enjoyed a roasted beet salad again. Amazing how I gobble down roasted beets these days, when I barely knew beets existed before this year.

Pizza Dough
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp raw sugar

1 cup tomato sauce (from a jar or can since it's winter)
2 large cloves garlic
1/2 onion
1/3 lb turkey sausage, not in casing

Pour flour and salt into a food processor and stir to combine. In a small bowl, combine water, yeast, oil, and sugar. Pour wet mixture into food processor. Process on dough button for 45 seconds. Use a spatula to turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead a couple times. Form dough into a ball and place in a large bowl, covered with a plate, and let rise in a warm spot (I place the bowl inside my oven, turned off and propped slightly open) for 45-90 minutes, depending on the temperature of the ingredients and your warm spot. My yeast came straight from the fridge and the flour straight from the freezer, so it took a full 90 minutes to double in size.

Turn dough out upside down on a lightly floured surface and gently press down to deflate. Form dough into a ball and return to bowl. Let rise another 25-40 minutes, approximately half the time of the first rise.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Place a large cookie sheet at bottom rung of oven to preheat.

Meanwhile, sautee diced onion and garlic in olive oil over low heat. Add turkey sausage, stir and chop it into crumbles, and continue to cook until browned.

Turn dough out upside down on lightly floured surface and gently press down to deflate. Roll dough out into a thin, flat circle. Top pizza with drizzled olive oil, then tomato sauce, then sausage mixture, then grated parmesan cheese, crushed red pepper, and oregano and basil.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and sprinkle cornmeal over it. Carefully slide pizza onto the sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes until puffed and golden brown.

Makes two filling servings.

Falafel in Pita with Red Cabbage Slaw and Tahini Sauce

I've wanted to make falafel and pita for a while, since I started reading cookbooks about various types of bread. As an advocate of eating less meat, I love getting falafel and pita from street vendors instead of chicken gyros, and I wanted to replicate it at home. I attempted this once a few weeks ago, but let the chickpeas soak out at room temperature for 36 hours, and they foamed and smelled bad, and after much innternet research, I decided I was scared of the bad chickpeas and thre them out. This time I let my chickpeas soak in the fridge for just 24 hours and was determined to make it happen. I even left early from hanging out with my friends on a lazy Sunday evening to get 'er done.


It was really making pitas that was the time consuming part of this meal. Look! My pita puffed! Not perfectly, though. I don't think I rolled my pitas out thinly enough. Or else I let them rest for too long before putting them in the oven. I've read that if you leave them too thick they will think they are supposed to be buns. These were like half buns/half pita - small in diameter but thick and fluffy on the inside, with pockets of air. Most importantly, they were delicious! Bread is bread and I'll always love it unless it tastes bad. I just sliced them down the middle to be able to stuff them pita-style.

I followed Jennie's pita recipe from Straight From the Farm almost exactly, with a few changes - I used half whole wheat flour and half white flour and replaced the 1 tsp sugar with 3/4 tbsp honey to up my crunchy factor, and then baked the pitas on personal squares of aluminum foil instead of a preheated bakingsheet. I got that idea from Susan from Farmgirl Fare. Dealing with a preheated baking sheet scares me so much. I have to take this huge scalding hot sheet out of the oven, lay things on it, and then put it back in the oven again. Me and hot baking sheets don't get along. That's how I've gotten so many burns, and why this blog is called The Wounded Chef. Anyway, so squares of aluminum foil was easy, and foil cools much more quickly than a baking pan. And it worked all the same.


I don't do deep frying. Instead I cooked each falafel ball in a thin layer of olive oil on one side for a few minutes till it browned, then flipped it over till the other side browned. I kind of squashed my falafel balls down in the pan so that as much as surface area browned as possible. Then I was paranoid that I didn't cook them enough, but I didn't get sick later that night, so I think they were cooked just fine.

Lettuce and tomato are typical accompaniments to pita, but since it's winter and they're not really seasonally available, I used a diced red cabbage slaw for the vegetable factor. I was amazed at how well the tastes of the pita, falafel, cruncy cabbage, and saucy tahini went together. It needed all four components to make it whole. Without the tahini it would have been try dry, and withought the cabbage it would have been too boring. I'm finding that cabbage is a great winter replacement for crunchy summer vegetables like lettuce, celery, or cucumbers. For example, shredded cabbage also worked well in place of celery in a chicken salad recently.

Falafel
1 cup dried chickpeas
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp fresh parsley
1 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp flour
olive oil

Soak chickpeas overnight in water. Rinse and drain chickpeas. Combine ingredients in a food processor until smooth. You want to be able to form small balls of dough without it sticking too much to your fingers.

Heat a thin layer of oil in a pan. Fry falafel balls several at a time in the pan until browned on each side, and then place on paper towel to cool and to absorb off some of the oil.

Makes more than enough falafels for 8 small to medium-sized pitas.

Tahini Sauce
This one's easy.

4 tbsp tahini paste (look for it near peanut butter in your grocery store)
3 tbsp water
ample salt, pepper, and paprika
squeeze of fresh lemon juice if you have it
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, minced

Whisk ingredients together, adding water slowly, until smooth creamy sauce forms. Use less water for a thinner sauce, or more water for thicker sauce.

Red Cabbage Slaw
1/3 head red cabbage
1/2 red onion
1/2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp salt

Chop cabbage into very thin slices, or even dice if desired. Dice red onion. Combine ingredients until thoroughly mixed. Voila.

Stuff a few falafels into a pita, top with slaw, and then spoon sauce over it to coat the top. Take a giant bite and enjoy.

Dark Days Challenge Week 4: Saturday Mornings

What you see above is a typical brunch in my home on the weekends - eggs, toast, and homefries - and it's all local. I've been waiting to tell you all about my weekend morning feasts until I could say that. Last weekend I found flour at the farmers market, so I was able to make my weekly bread local AND homemade! I don't know how I missed the flour before...maybe I never looked closely enough, or maybe the farmer had just freshly milled some that week. It's from Oak Grove Mill on the Blew Farm in Franklin, NJ, only 50 miles away, and in addition to the whole wheat flour I purchased, he was selling a whole cornucopia of rye, cornmeal, pancake mixes, and buckwheat. I was happy to discover that this local flour worked just as well for breadmaking as King Arthur flour. So there you have it, homemade toast, potatoes and onions from the GreenMarket, and eggs and butter from Ronnybrook Farm. Somtimes I wash my breakfast down with a cup of sweet Ronnybrook milk too.

Afterward, we get dressed and trek a few blocks away to the Greenmarket in McCarren Park, where we refresh our supply of eggs, milk, butter, vegetables, and so on for the next week. (Sometimes I also supplement this with a trip to the Union Square market, if the selection in McCarren Park is particularly scarce). Saturday mornings have become my favorite part of the week ever since I started going to Greenmarkets this summer. For some reason, I really look forward to the chance to be outside in the morning air to pick out my food for the week from farmers who always manage to smile even when that morning air is frigid. And the chance to enjoy a leisurely, terrific, fresh meal, knowing that it's better than Enid's, which I used to think served the best brunch in Williamsburg. When the weather was warmer and the Greenmarket teemed with hipsters, strollers, dogs, and other ecletctic personalities, I was energized on Saturday mornings to wake up as early as possible and get to the market before all the good stuff ran out. Now that it's winter, I'm lazier and sleep in because there isn't much competition over eggs and vegetables, and also because I think I have a touch of seasonal affective disorder.

To think that last winter I didn't even think about where my food came from and felt awkward and intimidated by farmers markets. Actually, I think my whole environmental awareness emerged around this time last year, when I started reading No Impact Man and other green blogs, but my enthusiasm for local eating didn't really start until I was inspired by One Local Summer to make great meals out of ingredients from farmers markets. So next time you're planning a grocery store trip, consider spending a fun morning or afternoon at a farmers market instead. Something tells me you'll find it more enjoyable and rewarding.

Dark Days Challenge Week 3: The Thanksgiving Experiment

After finding turkey breast at the Greenmarket, I thought what better to pair it with than stuffing. Considering that I want to make Thanksgiving dinner next year, I might as well start practicing now! To make the stuffing, I combined toasted whole wheat bread cubes with sauteed onion, garlic, apple, parsnip, and a few handfuls of torn-up kale, and enough chicken stock to moisten everything. I added the kale to compensate for the lack of celery, which is not in season now, but I didn't like the result. Kale's bitter flavor disrupted my enjoyment of what should have been a purely sweet combination of bread and apples. I'm not going to bother posting the recipe yet, since I am considering this part of an ongoing experiment over the next ten months to find my perfect stuffing recipe.


As for the turkey, I feel clueless about roasting turkey or chicken breast. They tend to come out on the dry side, lacking in flavor, and slightly pink on the edges. I covered the turkey breast in salt, pepper, and sage, then drizzled with melted butter and roasted them covered with aluminum foil. These were small breasts (about 1 lb each), so they were done in about 45 minutes (even though they don't look done in the picture above I promise they were!) and the skin didn't get crispy either. Maybe I'm too timid with the butter. Advice is welcome. Clearly, I've got a ways to go before next Thanksgiving.

This post is part of the Dark Days Challenge, in which I prepare at least one meal each week comprised of mostly local ingredients. All ingredients for this meal were found at Greenmakets from farms within 300 miles away, except for the bread (made at a bakery down the street), organic free range chicken stock from a box, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Dark Days Challenge Week 2: Fresh Clam Chowder, Sort Of

I saw Ina Garten prepare clam chowder on Barefoot Contessa a few weeks ago, and it suddenly ocurred to me that clam chowder is something I could easily make out of all local ingredients, even in the "dark days" of January. Growing up, I had always been scared of clam chowder, probably because of my parent's fear of bottom feeders, as well as its murky appearance. But now that I love to eat meaty dayboat clams from the Greenmarket, I figured I should give it a try.

My chowder actually ended up tasting more like a sage-spiced potato soup with a few clams in there to taste, because I only used a pound of clams. I also left out flour, which would have thickened up the broth and made it more like traditional New England Clam Chowder.

Interestingly, it was difficult to find a clam chowder recipe prepared from scratch using whole clams. Google mostly led me to recipes calling for canned clams and botled clam juice. I guess if you live in the midwest, then you have no choice but to use canned clams. But shouldn't those of us on the coast always indulge in the fresh taste of clams straight from the sea?


The chowder ended up being part of an impromptu dinner party that also involved making bread; homemade fries that gave Jesse a huge blister burn while baking them; flounder and kale steamed in a balsamic dijon sauce for someone who couldn't eat shellfish; and a chocolate and coconut dessert that will appear in a later post.


I made bread that was meant to be eaten with the chowder, but my dinner guests actually ate most of it before the food was done. Instead of spending all day slaving over bread, I made whole wheat beer bread, which was done in little more than an hour. It seemed to good to be true - the promise of a good loaf of bread without any kneading or rising time - but it came out as a funky-looking but good-tasting moist bread. To me, it wasn't as good quality as real kneaded bread, but Jesse surprisingly claimed he likes beer bread better than kneaded bread. (Maybe he just likes eating his beer as well as drinking it.)

This post is part of the Dark Days Challenge, in which I prepare at least one meal each week comprised of mostly local ingredients. Below is a summary of food mileage for this meal:

Flounder and Clams - Long Island dayboat stand at the Greenmarket, under 115 mi
Onion, garlic, kale, and potatoes - unknown NY farm at Greenmarket, under 300 mi
Sage - dried from unknown farm at the Greenmarket, Goshen, NY, 73 miles
Milk and butter - Ronnybrook Farm, Ancramdale, NY, 115 miles
salt and pepper - not local
For the bread:
Whole wheat flour - King Arthur, Norwich, VT, 266 mi (though the flour is probably coming from much farther away...)
Saratoga lager - Olde Saratoga Brewing Company, Saratoga Springs, NY, 194 mi
Honey - Twin Spruce Apiaries, Climax, NY, 141 mi
baking powder - not local

Whole Wheat Bread

Part of the reason my holiday party preparations took so long, from about 1:30 - 9:30 pm was because I decided I might as well bake a loaf of bread since I was going to be in the kitchen anyway. I haven't made bread in a while, since I had to return my bread cookbook to the library and since I ran out of yeast. But for Christmas, Santa, aka my mom, got me a big, shiny breadbox and The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book: A Guide to Whole Grain Bread, and I bought myself yeast in a cute mini mason jar from The Brooklyn Kitchen. So it was time.


I followed The Laurel's Kitchen's recipe for a loaf for learning, replacing all whole wheat flour with 2 cups whole wheat and 1 cup white because when I've gone all whole wheat in the past it comes out very dense. And look, it worked! It is my first wheat loaf that rose into a perfectly formed loaf instead of a dense block of bread. Thanks Mom.

For my holiday party, I toasted up some slices and covered them with roasted garlic cheese and beet, leftover from my beet and cheese crostini. Those beets just keep going and going. I think there's still enough for me to have some beets for an afternoon snack today.

My First Pizza: Meatball and Onion

Now that it's pretty much winter, it felt like time to make my meatball heros, all warm and saucy on crusty bread. Jesse loves my meatballs. It must be the Italian side coming out in me that I can make great meatballs just like my old Italian aunts, without even knowing their recipe. Usually, I end up with leftover meatballs, which I make into another hero for lunch, or add to pasta or something. But this time I hit upon a great idea - to use the leftover meatballs on homemade pizza.

This was my first attempt at making pizza, dough and all, from scratch (well, except for the tomato sauce, that came from a can), and it was a huge success. Just look at the photo - crunchy, warm, with the right combination of sauce, cheese, and toppings, and the taste of whole wheat to make it really feel homemade and good for you. Jesse couldn't stop raving. In between every bite, he declared that this was the best thing I've ever made. He even said he would marry me just for my meatballs and pizza, now combined in the greatest dish of all, meatball pizza.

After enjoying the pizza, we geared up for a suprisingly easy and not too cold five mile bike ride to the Columbia Street waterfront district for an open bar with Sixpoint beer, and a friend's birthday party. After riding back drunk on the empty Brooklyn streets at 3am, we toasted up the leftover pizza, scarfed it down, and passed out. What a perfect way to end the night.

Of course, I am already thinking of how I might improve upon the recipe for next time. The bottom of the pizza was nice and charred and crunchy, but actually it was crunchy throughout, without any springiness. Maybe I poked too many holes in the dough and let too much air out. Next time I will try putting all the ingredients on before the pizza goes in the oven and just cooking it all together for 10 minutes.

Meatball and Onion Whole Wheat Pizza

1 packet (1/4 tsp) active dry yeast

3/4 cup warm water

2 tbsp honey

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup tomato sauce (half can of Muir Glen tomato sauce)

3 cloves garlic, diced

1/4 onion, diced

About 8 leftover small meatballs, cut into pieces

1/2 ball fresh mozzerella

In a bowl, dissolve yeast and honey in warm water and let it stand for approximately five minutes, until it is nice and bubbly like the photo below.

Add the flour and salt to the bowl and stir until ingredients begin to form a dough. Place dough on a floured surface and knead for 6 to 8 minutes, until dough feels nice and elastic, adding extra sprinklings of flour as needed when the dough gets too sticky.

Place dough in an oiled bowl, turn it over once to coat in oil, and cover it with a dish towel. Let it rise in a warm place, (ideally 85 degrees), away from drafts for 45 minutes, until dough has doubled in size. Because my apartment is cold lately, I turned my oven on and placed the bowl on top of the oven to create a warm environment for the yeast.

About 20 minutes into letting the dough rise, place a rimless baking sheet on the lowest level of the oven, and preheat to 550, or as high as your oven will go.

Once dough has doubled, punch it down and let it rest a few minutes. Place it on a floured surface and roll it out thin with a floured rolling pin. You don't have to roll it into a perfect circle. I tried, but it turned out more rectangular, and I think next time I will just go straight for a rectange. Crimp the edges to create a crust, and feel free to make your crust as big as you would like - I wish I had made mine bigger. Poke small holes throughout the crust to keep too many bubbles from forming, shown below. Spray surface of dough with olive oil cooking spray.

Remove preheated baking sheet from oven, sprinkle with cornmeal, and carefully slide dough onto the sheet. Bake for approximately 5 minutes, until dough begins to get crusty.

Remove baking sheet fom oven. Spoon tomato sauce over the pizza. Place half the mozzerella on top, then scatter all other ingredients over it, and then place the rest of the cheese on it. Grate 1/4 cup parmesan over the top. Finally, season with salt, pepper, basil, oregano, crushed red pepper, or other spices as desired.

Place pizza back in oven and bake until cheese is melted and crust is golden brown, approximately another 7 minutes. Cut into squares and dig in. One pizza is plenty for two people, especially because you get to enjoy the leftovers later. I think I might make my next dinner party a pizza party!

Halloween Treats

Last weekend, I hosted a Halloween party at my apartment, complete with decorations, costumes, and season treats.










Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

I gave Jesse the task of carving the pumpkin, and when I returned, I was pleasantly surprised by his unique and well-carved interpretation. "It's a girl?" I said. "Of course it's a girl, it has a girl shape!" he responded. Okay then, if you say so.

I took the innards out of the pumpkin. The stringy guts weren't worth saving, as it was a surprisingly small amount for such a large pumpkin. But I did use the seeds to make toasted pumpkin seeds, a la Simple Recipes - with a couple modifications. First of all, I added paprika because I love to add that spice to all most every dish I make. I am never sure just how much taste paprika really adds, but the color seems to give food a psychological kick for me at least.

Also, the recipe above only requires 20 minutes in the oven. Some of my seeds were done at that time, but I had to let others sit in the oven until 50 minutes or so, and they still weren't deliciously crunchy but overly tough and chewy. Who knows, maybe due to my shitty apartment oven?

Chocolate Covered Apple Chunks

Next up, I made chocolate covered apple chunks. I thought about making caramel apples, but last time I tried to make caramel (over popcorn) it didn't come out right at all, so I decided to stick with coating the apples in chocolate because it is so much easier to do - just melt chocolate! I saw something similar on Iron Chef, where they created a trio of mini caramel covered and chocolate covered apples on sticks using an ice cream scoop to scoop out round pieces of apple.
So that was my inspiration. But I don't have an ice cream scoop and I don't have toothpicks, so I just left them as jagged apple pieces to melt in your hand. They turned out fine, but weren't a very exciting snack. I think taste-wise, caramel goes better with apples than chocolate does.

Bring a couple inches of water in a saucepan to boil, then lower to simmer. Place a metal bowl over the saucepan as a double boiler. Empty a bag of chocolate chips (milk, dark, semi-sweet, whatever you prefer) into the bowl and stir continuously until melted.

Meanwhile, chop 3 apples into 2-inch pieces. Once the chocolate is melted, Slowly stir in the apples with a metal spoon making sure the apple pieces are coated evenly.

Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Lay the apple pieces evenly on the foil, without letting them touch (if they touch, they will stick together). Place sheet in the refrigerator for at least one hour (can be made a day in advance and stored in the fridge) to allow chocolate to set. Remove from fridge shortly before serving.

Carrot CupcakesAs you may have figured out by now, I like to make cupcakes and muffins for parties rather than full-sized cake because 1. they take less time to bake and thus use less energy 2. they are already in personal-sized portions with no cake cutting involved 3. they are easy to eat with your hands.

I also made carrot cupcakes for theparty, modeled after Straight From the Farm's carrot cake. Here is my version of it, modified to include less oil and eggs, replacing that with more apple sauce, honey, and milk. She used pear sauce, but luckily I had made apple sauce from local apples a week or two ago and was saving it for a random baking adventure, so the apple sauce ended up in this and didn't go to waste. Just for the record, the carrots, apples, eggs, and honey in this were all local.

I liked this recipe. It is a nice change from most carrot cake recipes, which gain moistness from pineapple, which is definitely not local. I would consider them muffins without frosting and cupcakes with frosting. I also ventured away from typical carrot cake frosting to do a plain vanilla cream icing because I don't like cream cheese icing. I have never believed that cream cheese should have a place in baking, whether it be cheesecake or frosting. The photo shows both chocolate and vanilla frosted cupcakes. What happened was, I had lots of chocolate at the bottom of the bowl after making my chocolate covered apples, so I scraped up the extra chocolate and just spread it over the top of cupcakes. But there wasn't enough chocolate for all the cupcakes so I ended up having to make vanilla frosting too. Next time I would just stick to vanilla frosting for these as chocolate kind of masks the actual taste of the cupcake.

They would have tasted awesome if I hadn't overcooked them. They came out dark on the bottom, slightly tough, with a slight burned taste, but still relatively yummy. Next time the only change I would make would maybe be to add more flour and one more egg so as to have more batter and bigger cupcakes - as you can see in the photo above, they are somewhat small.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup apple sauce
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp soy milk
3 cups grated carrots (about 3 average sized carrots)
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Frosting
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp milk
1 cup confectioners sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 F and prepare two muffin tins with a good coat of nonstick baking spray. Set out the ingredients for the icing so they come to room temperature.
Sift together the flour, spices and baking powder and soda and set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together oil, apple sauce, sugar, honey, and milk until everything is well combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Slowly stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Do not over mix! Add the carrots and walnuts.

Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tins and bake on the center oven rack for 15-20 minutes. Make sure to check on them so they don't overcook! Test with a skewer inserted into the center to see if it comes out clean. When the skewer is clean, remove cup cakes from oven and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

While the cake is cooling, make the icing by combining the buter, vanilla, and milk. Add half the confectioners’ sugar and stir slowly to start and then beat well to get rid of lumps. Taste the icing to determine if it’s sweet enough for you. If not, add more sugar until you’ve reached your desired sweetness. When cake is completely cooled, spread icing over top. Makes 24 cupcakes.

The Roommate's Goods

My roommate Gina also contributed to the party goods. She made sugar cookies, and I topped them off with icing left over from my cupcakes:

Gina also made a pumpkin pie, following her boyfriend's mother's pie crust recipe - coming out much better this time than her first attempt at pie crust - and a Paula Deen pie filling complete with cream cheese. Paula Deen, butter lover, scares me as a rule, but this pie tasted pretty good.

Unrelated: Bread

Finally, I have embarked on the quest to bake my own bread instead of shelling out $4-$5 for great farmers market bread. This is my second loaf and hey it looks like the real thing! My first loaf was all whole wheat, but was flat on top and dense, probably because I didn't let it rise long enough. For my second loaf, below, I followed the recipe for Basic Hearth Bread in The Bread Bible. With all the rising involved, I started at 7:30pm after work and didn't get to taste a finished slice until 1:15 am. Yikes! This was good, but much whiter than I would like. Next time I think I'll go for 3/4 whole wheat and 1/4 white flour, and let the sponge ferment in the fridge overnight. The great thing is, I have so many chances to improve at this if I keep making a new loaf of bread every week. I won't be sharing a recipe on here till I come up with my perfect bread. This week's bread was good, but not perfect.

Which brings me to an issue about this blog. As you may tell, I haven't been posting everything I've been cooking. As a perfectionist, I feel insecure about posting not only my failures but also meals that are just okay. I aspire to greatness and that means you'll just have to put up with sporadic posts, waiting for the best.