Oreo Cupcakes

My sister and I threw a party on Friday night to welcome her to the hood. She made these fab Oreo Cupcakes, displayed in a new cupcake holder I got for Christmas. Scroll past the pictures for the recipe

Oreo Cupcakes
1 cup butter
1 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
3 oz melted chocolate
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder
dash cinnamon
dash ginger

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Oreo Frosting
1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
chocolate shavings

Combine ingredients, frost cupcakes, and top each with Oreo crumbs and one large Oreo chunk.

White Bean Dip

I haven't felt very inspired when it comes to cooking lately. My life is still all out of sorts, and I've moved but not really, so half of my cooking supplies are in one apartment, and half of them are in another. I made a couple of meals this week, but neither is worth dishing out to the blogosphere (pasta with roasted tomatoes and chicken; attempted indian spiced crock pot vegetables).

There's just one thing I've made recently that was a huge hit, unexpectedly. I had a "housewarming" party (for an apartment I haven't really been living in) last weekend, so I whipped up a white bean dip on the fly, not sure what to expect having never tried making a spread with white beans before, but everyone loved it. White bean dip is so flexible. I thought it would taste great with sundried tomatoes or roasted red peppers, but I didn't have time to procure those, while fresh herbs beckoned from my deck.

This week, as cool fall air begins to set in, I've really been itching to bake up a storm of sweet treats to satisfy my daily afternoon chocolate cravings, so hopefully you'll see some delectable baked goodies on here soon.

Roasted Garlic and Herb White Bean Dip

1 can white beans

2 cloves garlic, whole, unpeeled

1/4 cup olive oil

small handful fresh rosemary

small handful fresh thyme

zest and juice of 1/4 lemon

salt

pepper

Through the garlic onto the baking sheet while making crackers. After about ten minutes, when the crackers are done, squeeze the garlic out of its peels. Throw all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. Add additional seasoning as needed. Spoon into a serving dish. Reserve a few of the fresh herbs to sprinkle over top. Serve alongside crackers.

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.

A Pleasant Surprise

So my sister's aforementioned graduation party took place this past weekend. The menu we planned sounded impressive, but in the end I felt it all fell a little flat. My rosemary roasted potatoes nicely browned but then grew soggy in the hours before they were served. My brownies came out neither fudgy nor cakey, but chalky. The chocolate coating for the strawberries was pasty and watery due to the low quality chocolate chips my mother procured from Shoprite. Then there was the oozing overly lemon zested icing on the lemon ricotta cake; the gummy rice in my rice, chickpea, and asparagus pilaf; the overly lemony hummus and the overly garlicky white bean and spinach dip. We love to cook, but aren't always that great in executing our menus. But everyone still ate most of the food and seemed to like it, so I wouldn't call it a failure by any means.


While at home in Warwick for the weekend, which is positively verdant this time of year, we had the chance to not only enjoy a double feature at the drive in despite the rainy forecast, but to check out the Warwick Farmers Market. It wasn't too large, but featured lots of baked goods, wine, homemade gourmet goods, plants, and a couple meat and vegetable stands. Since my hometown is about 50 miles outside of New York City, there is some overlap between our farmers markets. I was thrilled to see Dines Farms, which used to be my main meat guy until they were kicked out of the McCarren Park Greenmarket for some reason. I had a reliable source of tasty chicken up until then, and haven't had much chicken since. So we got a huge chicken breast and some mushrooms from Dines Farms to cook up for dinner, as well as some kind of wild green from Rogowski farm, which they told us was a kind of Mexican spinach, so I think it was quelites.


We rounded out our dinner plans with a bottle of Seyval Chardonnay Reserve from Applewood winery, which is aged in oak, making it more complex than Applewood's slightly cheaper regular Seyval Chardonnay blend.


We planned on taking a hike but got lazy and read books instead in my sunny backyard before taking our booty back to Brooklyn to cook up dinner. Can you blame us?


I wanted to keep our things really simple, so I didn't even add onions or garlic or any spices. I just chopped up the mushrooms and the quelites, sauteed them in olive oil with a couple glugs of the wine and shakes of salt and pepper, and covered the pan for about 15 minutes until wilted. So simple in fact, that that's really all of a recipe you need.


Meanwhile, Jesse grilled the hunka chicken along with a couple buttery yellow potatoes from Berried Treasures in a pocket of foil because we are potato addicts. We ate about a third of the chicken that night and smartly saved the rest in the fridge for future use (such as in the yummy chicken, radish, lettuce, and mayonnaise sandwich I just ate for dinner tonight).


But back to that night's dinner. I quartered the potatoes and slathered them with Ronnybrook butter and a sprinkle of fresh sage from my container garden. Then I sliced up the chicken and laid it over the sauteed quelites and mushrooms to practice my plating skills. Plunked down a glass of that white wine. And yum. Now, I've never liked mushrooms very much, but I really enjoyed these. Something about the earthy sour smell usually turns me off, but I always had this hope that maybe it would be different with mushrooms from the farmers market. So that's what led me to give these mushrooms a whirl, and it was a pleasant surprise - their smell and flavor was mild enough to just give a meaty oomph to the sauteed greens without overpowering my nosebuds. Success! If only I knew what they were called so I could find them again. Name that mushroom? Anyone?


It feels like the Dark Days Challenge just ended, yet here is two months later, moving on into One Local Summer. The challenge is this: to prepare and blog about one meal each week using only locally grown ingredients - the exceptions are oil, salt and pepper, and spices. Reading One Local Summer was what inspired me to start cooking local meals in the first place last summer, but I was too late in the game to join. Now that eating local is old hat, here goes another delicious summer, starting with this very first OLS entry of the summer.

Chocolate Almond Coconut Bark

I didn't want to go to the trouble of making truffles all over again, so I went the simple route for dessert for my party. Chocolate bark couldn't be easier to make, but it looks impressive.

Chocolate Almond Coconut Bark

Chop a pound of good quality chocolate into small pieces (unless you are using chocolate chips). In my case, I used a chocolate bar that already had almonds in it, because that's what Jesse brought back when I sent him to Trader Joe's.

Pour a couple inches of water in a small pot and bring to a simmer. Place a metal bowl over the pot and add the chocolate to the pot. Stir constantly for about five minutes until chocolate is melted.

Place waxed paper or aluminum foil over a baking sheet. Pour the chocolate onto the sheet and spread until it evenly coats the sheet in a thin layer of chocolate. Sprinkle coconut flakes over the top until chocolate is coated in coconut. If you don't like coconut, you could use crushed nuts, M&Ms, or crushed peppermints instead, it's very flexible.

Place the sheet in the refrigerator for at least a few hours until hardened. Break into small pieces with your hands and serve. Leftovers can be stored in refrigerator or freezer and will keep a long time.

Moroccan Carrot Dip and Hummus

This Saturday I held my annual holiday party, and for some reason decided to be ambitious and spend all day in the kitchen for it. It was nice to spend the day by myself cooking in a peaceful apartment. My roommates were both out all day so no one was in my way, and I just had my cute dog hanging out on the couch to keep me company.

When party time came, and people didn't eagerly gobble my food, I decided that I won't go to so much effort next time. No one cares that it was homemade. They would have been perfectly happy with storebought hummus and chips and chocolate and so on.

Early in the day, I made chips and dips. I used my old standby recipe for pita chips, which is always a crowd pleaser. Next it was time to tackle the food processor. Jesse got the food processor for Christmas. For some strange reason, he decided that we needed it. I was, and still am, skeptical about this, as I always got along fine in my life without one. Up until Saturday I had never used a food processor before. If I wanted to puree something, such as soup or pesto, I have always just done it in my blender.

I watched the 45 minute instruction video to see if I could get some idea of whether this device is actually useful. Interestingly, on the video they often put prepeeled and sliced vegetables into the processor to chop them up more finely and mix them. Now I think this is kind of silly. If you've already gone to the trouble of getting out a cutting board and a knife to chop a pepper into large pieces, why not just go all the way and knife it up into fine little pieces rather than having to use electricity and getting a whole other object in the kitchen dirty to chop it up more finely. Same goes for mixing cookie batter in a food processor. Are people too lazy to use their arm muscles anymore?

But I figured I should give the food processor a try, since it is ideal for making dips and spreads. After completing the recipes below for hummus and Moroccan carrot dip, I will agree that it is a lot easier to use the food processor than the blender for dips. I think I might also try using the food processor when I want to tackle pastry dough someday. But other than that, I think it will stay hidden in our makeshift kitchen storage, aka the underneath of a table in my living room (our kitchen is impossibly small).

Some Moroccan carrot dip recipes call for cinnamon and honey, so I included them. However, carrots are already sweet and this made the dip a little too sweet for what should be a savory snack, so I omitted them from my recipe below. The hummus came out great. In the next month I really want to try cooking Mediterranean food more often - hummus, falafel, tabouleh, tajine, and so on. Mmmm.



Moroccan Carrot Dip

4 medium sized carrots
1 large garlic clove
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ginger
pinch of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper
juice of 1/2 lemon squeezed
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Chop carrots in large pieces and unwrap garlic clove, leaving it whole. Place carrots and garlic in a pot of salted water, bring to a boil, and then let simmer, partially covered, about 20 minutes until carrots are tender. Drain in a colander, reserving 1/2 cup cooking water. Let carrots cool for a few minutes.

Place carrots and garlic in food processer and process until smooth. Add cooking water and process again until smooth. Add spices, honey, and lemon juice, and process again. Add olive oil slowly while the machine is running. Taste and add more spices to your liking. Spoon into a serving bowl, drizzle with a little olive oil, and serve with pita chips.



Hummus

1 cup dried chickpeas
1/3 cup tahini
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 garlic cloves
salt and pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
dash of paprika

Put the raw chickpeas in a pot with cold water to cover and soak overnight.

The next day, drain and rinse the chickpeas, then place them in the pot and cover with about an inch of water. Add one whole clove of garlic to the pot. Bring to a boil, and then simmer, partially covered, for about an hour or until the chickpeas are tender.

Drain the chickpeas and garlic, reserving the cooking liquid. In a food processor, process the chickpeas and garlic until finely ground. Add tahini, lemon juice, remaining garlic clove, and 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid and process until smooth. Add cumin, salt and pepper and process again, adding more of these spices to taste. While food processor is running, add 2 tsbp olive oil. If consistency is too thick, add more of the cooking liquid a little at a time until hummus is smooth and paste-like. Spoon hummus into a serving bowl, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle paprika over the top. Serve with pita chips.

German Chocolate Cupcakes

My 23rd birthday was this past Friday. Birthdays feel kind of silly now...ever since turning 21 there's nothing to look forward to anymore except getting older. Jesse took me to DOC Wine Bar, a charming romantic place in Williamsburg where the waiters always have thick Italian accents. I wish we went there more often, but they serve light Italian fare, which Jesse isn't as into as me, and the wine is expensive, so we only end up going for special occasions. I looove their pistokku, a Sardinian flatbread topped with beef carpaccio, arugala, and goat cheese.

Last year I wanted to make cupcakes for my birthday party, but Jesse insisted I not do work on my birthday and that he would take care of it. So he surprised me with a cake at the bar, but of course, it was very difficult to serve and eat because he had to run out and get paper plates and forks etc. Silly boy, convient cupcakes that you can hold in your hand are much better for bars.

So this year, I insisted that I would bake my own cupcakes, and I decided on a German chocolate version, which I've been wanting to make ever since I was first initatied into its delicious combination of chocolate and coconut last spring. They were my best cupcakes ever, probably because I sucked it up and added so many wet ingredients to make them moist. I've seen German chocolate recipes that call for toasted pecans in the icing, but that shit is expensive yo, so I left it out.

The cupcakes were all gone at the end of the night, and so was my sobriety. My friends joined me at Bushwick Country Club, which is not in Bushwick nor is it a country club - it's just a casual bar in Williamsburg. They have a policy of letting the birthday girl drink free all night so long as you bring 15 people. And they invited me to be a member, with a card and everything, which allows me to take advantage of drink specials whenever I go back. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

I had one of those nights where I talked my head off to everyone and anyone but can now hardly remember what I said. I was supposed to go to Neue Galerie the next day to continue my birthday fun, but I had one too many whiskey gingers and was sick all morning, so I will have to see the Klimt exhibit another weekend.

German Chocolate Cake

1/3 cup boiling water

4 oz sweet German chocolate or Baker's chocolate

2 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter

1 1/2 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup milk

Bring 1/2 cup water to boil. Pour 1/3 cup into a bowl and add 4oz chocolate, broken into pieces. Stir until chocolate is dissolved. Let cool.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350. Grease two 12-muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray.

Sift dry ingredients into a bowl.

In another bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add melted chocolate and vanilla. Beat in flour alternately with milk until just incorporated.

Pour mixture into muffin tins and bake for 15-20 minutes (check at 15 to see if done, if not, let bake another few minutes).

While the cupcakes are baking, also toast the coconut for the icing:

Spread 1 cup coconut flakes on a baking sheet and bake for 3-5 minutes (check on them to make sure they don't get too browned or burned!) Cupcakes are done when a knife stuck into them comes out clean.

While cupcakes cool, prepare icing:
3 tbsp butter

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp milk

3 cup confectioners sugar

1 cup toasted coconut flakes

Beat above ingredients together, vigorously, as in the photo above, and add additional sugar or milk to reach desired consistency. Once cupcakes are cool, spread icing over the tops with a knife. Makes 24 cupcakes. Enjoy, and try not to think about the millions of bowls and utensils you now need to clean!

PS. Sunday was the first snow of the season in Brooklyn! I'm glad the weather waited until after my birthday for winter to start in earnest.

PPS. Thanks to Gina for using her new baby, aka camera, to take the supremely delicious looking cupcake at the top and the one of me stirring vigorously.