Lemon Zest, Turkish Apricot Scones

This morning I had none of my boys in the kitchen until the scones were done baking. But I still choose to think of this as an entry for this particular blog as I really do use their need for food as one of my motivations for cooking and baking.

A second motivation recently has been my need for a stress relief on mornings on which I am not running.  I am not happy about not running.  But to be able to run strong and safely in the long term, I need some short term rest.

So, I have experiments with two different types of scones over the past two days.  Both were fun.  And both were in the spirit of food as art.  On each day,  I focused on the colors in the scones.

Yesterday was a red and black day.  Some might think of these two colors as a direct reference to Les Miserables.  I think of these two colors instead as a reference to my growing up.  At the Highland Park elementary school in Upper Darby the the mascot was (and maybe still is) the hawks.  And on field day it was black against read.  An elementary school shirt was a red shirt with a black hawk on it.  My food choice--the basic recipe found here http://allrecipes.com/recipe/20175/scones/ with  3/4 cup each of dried cranberries and chocolate chips thrown in.  Yummy!

Today's was a bit trickier.  My two sons who still live at home were disappointed when I previewed the scones and told them there would be no chocolate.  However, I was going for more subtle flavors.  So I found a recipe here http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/scones-with-currants-and-lemon-zest.html and modified it just a little.  I didn't use the currants but instead used coarsely chopped Turkish apricots.  I replaced the cream with 2% milk.  (Mostly for not having any cream on hand.)  And I doubled the recipe.  These were VERY yummy!

I wanted the Turkish apricots as today's artistic touch was to use yellow and brown.  My 16 year old asked, "Why brown?"  I told him it was because of a conversation I had with a friend recently in which we talked about these two colors.  Topping the scones with a mixture of milk and cinnamon and sugar added to the nice flavor.  The lemon zest is a fresh flavor.  The dried Turkish apricots are sweet but more of a fall flavor in my opinion.   The yellow can be the bright color of the sun, a beautiful sunflower, or fall leaves.  The flavors were more subtle than with the chocolate and cranberries.  Cranberries are generally an "in your face" kind of fruit. And even semi-sweet chocolate chips are pretty bold.

So, I like working on contrasting scones with interesting flavors and thinking of food as art.  What do the colors represent?  How do I come up with the color combinations anyway?  (Shall I create a purple and gold scone for my high school colors or a maize and blue scone for Michigan?)

Fun memories.  Fun triggers for experimenting with the scones.  And tasty food.  What an exciting ay to bring concepts together.

Here are a few pictures form this morning.

Lemon Zest

Lemon Zest + Apricots

Scones shaped and topped with milk,
cinnamon, and sugar

Baked Scones 

Scone cut open 

Chocolate Macadamia Nut Scones

I have made breads for a while.  I have done biscuits.  And over the years of baking I have done, I have tried scones every once in a while.  Over the past couple of weeks I have made two recipes of cinnamon and sugar scones and two recipes of chocolate with macadamia nut scones.  I have shared scones with two running partners, another fellow member of Back on My Feet, people at work, and family at home of course.  Everyone seems pretty happy.

For the latter recipe, I have used a recipe from Food.com (http://www.food.com/recipe/simple-sweet-scones-66409).  However, the recipe is somewhat difficult to read and I have made some modifications.

So, here it goes:

1/2 cup plus 1/4 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts
2 cups plus 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut up
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2⁄3 cup milk

2 tbsp chocolate shavings

Preheat oven to 425 F.  

Chop macadamia nuts coarsely.  Mix 1/2 cup of the macadamia nuts with 2 cups flour, the baking powder and salt.  

Keep butter in the refrigerator until just before using.  Cut into small pieces and mix with dry ingredients.  Using a pastry knife or two butter knives. but up the butter until it forms a coarse meal with the flour.  

Add sugar, mixing gently to coat the coarse meal.

Add milk and mix until dough comes together.  Add up to 1/2 cup additional flour if dough remains sticky.  Handle dough the minimum amount possible.  

Flour a surface to spread dough and spread to approximately 1/2 inch thickness.  Cut into circles (I used a floured wine glass--make sure it is not a really skinny wine glass but it doesn't have to be extremely wide either).  Gather up leftover dough to form extra scones (again trying to handle as little as possible).

Place scones on a baking sheet--stone if you have one--and top with remaining 1/4 cup of chopped macadamia nuts.  For chocolate shavings, I like to take a dark chocolate bar and grate it.  (Of course, you can use more chocolate if you'd like.)

Place in oven and bake for 12 minutes.

Enjoy! 

Dinner on Tuesday

Today, I started the day with an intense 9 mile run on the treadmill at the Y.  It included going at the follwing paces: 8:15, 8:00, 7:45, 7:30, 2 times 7:15, 7:00, 6:45 and a finish at 8:00.  Since it took just over 1:07, I ran the first mile, paused, and then ran the last 8 in 59:30.  It was a workout that left me feeling pumped.  And I saw two people from St. Pius X--both of whom taught my youngest son in 2nd grade religious education and one of whom I taught 4th grade with at one point.  That was nice.  For the year, I am now at 1286.2 miles for the year.  That puts me on W Maple St on the west side of Wichita, KS, as I am making a virtual pilgrimage from our church in Towson, MD, to a church in New Mexico.  

Yesterday, I wrote a lot about running and spirituality.  I will cross link to my other blog (http://connectingdotsnourishingsoul.blogspot.com/).  Tonight's entry has little to do with anything in Wichita.  I am not looking up more churches in Wichita.  I think of beef and corn as foods in Kansas.  (That is a clear stereotype.)  But I am most interested in sharing the dinner that is a step in the right direction for me to get back on track for healthy eating.  This is the fuel for tomorrow morning's seven miles.  

The key here is that I was asked to post a recipe that I fixed at home tonight for dinner.  Everyone was home for dinner at a reasonable hour on a weeknight.  Unusual for my family.  And this is what we had.

The first dish is still in the frying pan. We had a 12 oz package of uncured bacon from the grocery store.  Cooked it till nearly done.  Took it out to drain.  Then, put about 1.25 pounds of thinly sliced boneless chicken breast in the pan.  Sauteed till nearly done.  Then added one bunch of collard greens that had been cleaned and cut into very small pieces.  Sauteed them as well.  Then crumbled the bacon and threw it back in the pan to mix with the other ingredients.

Then the second picture shows how we served dinner.  The other dish was a combination of two   large heirloom tomatoes (one yellow and one red) diced into bite sized pieces.  To that we added about 1/2 cup of crumbled blue cheese, 1 tbsp of olive oil, and 1 tsp of balsamic vinaigrette.  

It was a wonderful dinner.

And in the spirit of a dad and three boys in the kitchen, my youngest prepared the bacon, my middle sliced the tomato, and my oldest took over the sauteing while I answered a call for work.  

I have a great family.  

Ham, Mashed Turnips & Sweet Potatoes, and Turnip Greens

This was a pretty cool dinner.  The ham just came from steaks that I pan fried.  Nothing special there.  The turnip and sweet potato mash used turnips either from my kids' gardens or the CSA.  We must have used about 6 cups of diced turnips and 2 cups of diced sweet potatoes.  Boiled.  Then added a half pint of sour cream and some butter and milk and mashed.  Those were yummy.  We didn't add salt and pepper but those would not have been bad.  We'd heard that sautéing turnip greens was not the way to go.  So, we steamed them.  They took a while to steam--probably 30-35 minutes by the time all was said and done.  We had sliced garlic and bay leaves in the steamer and topped with butter and salt.  Not the most exciting greens but not bad.  Would work well with slivered almonds and a bit of parmesan too.  Overall, it was a great dinner yesterday.  Just with all those turnips and sweets it took a long time to prepare.  

pizza with radish greens

The picture you see at the side is not so different from many pizzas I have made.  However, for the first time we tried eating not just the radishes but also the radish greens.  This summer has started off as an exploration of vegetable greens and my next entry will talk about turnip greens.  But, for today, here is the recipe.  And, while I made the mistake of not taking any pictures of the preparation, I can say that my twelve year old is responsible for this as I was not really excited about greens but he thought it would be great to try.  It was!

So, begin with a dough to make a 16 inch pizza.  (If you need a recipe, I can post that as well).  The toppings for this included fresh mozzarella, smoked mozzarella, pepperoni, fresh tomatoes, radishes, and radish greens.  Everything other than the radish greens is pretty straightforward.  To prepare the greens, just saute them with a bit of crushed garlic in olive oil.  Spread all the toppings evenly and bake. Hope you will enjoy.  

Black Lava Soft Pretzels

So, this morning, I made soft pretzels with black lava sea salt.  These were at the request of my 7 year old who wanted to take them to the end of first grade picnic.  Here is a picture.  And below is the recipe. They received compliments at the picnic.

1 1/2 c warm water (approximately 110 F)
1/4 c sugar
1 tbsp yeast
4 c flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 c salt but up into small pieces
1 c cold water
1 tbsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Add sugar and yeast to warm water.  Let stand for 5-10 minutes.  Add flour and salt.  Mix until all ingredients are wet.  Add pieces of butter.  Mix well.  Knead for 5-10 minutes adding flour as necessary so that the dough feels just a little greasy but does not stik to the hands or the side of the bowl.

Dissolve baking soda in cold water.

Break dough into 12 pieces.  Roll into long thin segments.  Fold into pretel shapes.  Dip in the basking soda solution.  Place on parchment paper.  Sprinkle black lava sea salt on the top.  Bake for 12-14 minutes.  Remove from oven and allow to cool.  

Rye bagels

Here is an up close picture of the rye bagels I made today.  I enjoyed receiving a pound of rye flour and a small bottle of caraway seeds from one of my first grade classmates' moms.  She knew I would put it to good use.  Even the boys liked these.  Here is the recipe:

2 cups dark rye flour
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp caraway seeds
1/4 cups sugar
pinch salt
1 1/2 c water
1 tbsp years
1 cup water
1 tbsp baking solda

Mixed all the ingredients in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl warm the 1 1/2 cups of water to approximately 100 degrees F and dissolve yeast.  Let stand for 10-15 minutes and add to the dry ingredients.  Mix well.  Knead for approximately 5 minutes, adding extra all purpose flour as necessary so that the dough does not stick to your hand.  Cover and let risk for 1 hour.

Punch down the dough, adding a little more flour.  Break into 12 equal pieces.  Dissolve baking soda in 1 cup of cold water. Form each piece into a ball and push a hole in the middle.  Form into a bagel shape and dip in cold water with dissolved baking soda.  Flip the bagel in the water.  Place on parchment paper on a pan.  Bake for 14 minutes.  

Chocolate Coconut Banana Nut Bread Recipe

I started this blog back when I was in the kitchen with my boys all the time.  Now, I'm still in the kitchen a lot.  And my boys are in the kitchen a lot.  But we do not always spend time in the kitchen together.  However, this morning, Daniel and I made a wonderful banana bread variation.  Someone asked for the recipe, so I thought the blog woudl be a good way to get it up.  Here is the recipe.  Much of it is borrowed from "http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/".  It got rave reviews from the whole family.

Ingredients

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed

1 cup sweetened coconut flakes (the moist kind)

1 cup chopped walnuts
1 square unsweetened baking chocolate

1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Melt butter and baking chocolate square in a small pot together before starting.  Use very low heat and stir nearly constantly.  Then, with a wooden spoon, mix together the mashed bananas, coconut, and nuts in a large mixing bowl.  Then, mix butter and chocolate into the mixture that includes the mashed banana. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, and mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Turbo filets and squash

I really have to remember to start taking pictures of our dinners again.  Today, I left to pick up my 5 year old and gave the older two instructions--place turbo fillets on one pan (we had an incident a couple days ago where something went awry because dinner ended up being cooked on two pans and taking twice as long), top with melted butter mixed with cooking wine and lemon juice, place thinly sliced squash and leeks on top, put on a little olive oil.  They did it very nicely and dinner was wonderful.  Even the presentation with the yellow squash looked very nice.  Thanks boys!

Joshua's spanikopita

Joshua was in charge of a second recent batch of spanikopita today.  We have a ton of something called "lambs quarters"--it is a type of wild spinach.  We have used it twice to make spanikopita.  Today, Joshua was in charge of removing the spanikoptia from the stems, clarifying butter, sauteeing the vegetables for the filling, and then working with the phyllo dough.  We did get Daniel involved a little bit--he helped with some of the phyllo dough.  And even Christopher helped--by taking care of finishing the baking while we went to a birthday party.  The spanikopita was for a second party this afternoon and it was well received by all.  We'll probably make at least one more batch before the summer is over.  This has been a very popular product to receive from our community supported agriculture farm this summer.

Stir fry on bagels

Today, I sent my soon to be 11 year old on his first walking mission to get one thing at the grocery store.  Of course, I walked to get my parents stuff from the store when I was 11, but it was in 1981 and I had to go only around the corner.  I am proud of my middle son as he got there and back safely, handled the money properly, and asked the employee when he could not find what he was looking for.  What did I send him for?  Heavy duty aluminum foil.  Why?  We needed it to bake bacon with dinner.

Dinner tonight was stir fried squash served with crispy bacon and grated Muenster cheese on an open faced homemade bagel.  The recipe was my creation.  My oldest son did most of the cooking.  And the combination was enjoyed by all.

I am so proud of my boys.  I don't know what I'll do once they are back in school and they have less time to spend cooking.  I think it will be nice when I don't have so many days per week to go to the chiropractor.  While he has been a great help and become a good friend as well as an important influence on my health and training, I will be glad to get to a point at which I will have only one visit per week rather than three.

Pizza Made by My Sons

I did not get a picture of this one, but today I made a pizza dough before I left for work at 8:10.  I sent an email to my boys, and when I got home after seven, everyone else had already eaten and the pizza was mighty good.  What did my boys do?  The older two divided up responsibilities.  My middle one took the dough out to let it finish rising.  Then he spread it on a pizza pan.  My oldest one topped it.  We had a combination of mozzarella, feta, mango/chicken sausage, red onion, and lamb quarters (which some people would mistake for a week but which is a nice substitue for spinach).  It was a wonderfully flavored pizza enjoyed by all--including my 5 year old who had a piece and and a half just as I did.  I had a couple of brown rice cakes (that my five year old made me buy) to finish off the dinner with enough calories.  Next time my kids cook, I'll make sure to get a picture.

Crusty Italian Rolls

Had some of the best Crusty Italian Rolls I have made yet this morning.  Made two big enough to make full steak sandwiches with them.  The steak was not frozen, but instead was from a nice sizes steak that I sliced as thinly as I could.  The other good thing.  While I could have let the rolls rise a bit longer, I was at least able to go from start to finish in less than 2 hours.

Now I am considering offering some homemade bread for the student assembly auction.  I figure, one homemade recipe a month for the rest of the school year after the auction on Dec 10.  I could do, Crusty Italian, Wheat, Lion House Rolls, Naan Pockets, and something else.  It would be fun.  And I like helping the student assembly at the School of Public Health as the travel funds have benefitted one of my advisees.  My advisee is also the president of the student assembly this year, so she can appeal to me directly.

Baking for teachers

Today's baking adventure?  In some ways it is not much of an adventure.  Making Lion House Rolls, although not quite as early in the morning as I usually do on a weekday.  With teaching, I put in some pretty long hours, and I was not out of bed before 5 this morning.  Of course, my 4 year old was up already  so he helped and that always adds to the adventure (in a good way)!

Today's baking is not for us.  We have parent-teacher conferences at the kids' school today.  They have a tradition of asking parents to provide potluck dishes for the teachers.  So this is our contribution.  All good fun.

Otherwise, food for the day is just "whatever".  Cereal for breakfast.  Not sure what others will have for lunch while I'm at work.  Pasta for dinner.

Brief updates

Crepes for my 4 year old yesterday (and for the rest of us as well, although they were at the request of my 4 year old) and Lion house rolls made this morning which are serving as lunch for most of us (maybe Sherry) and as part of dinner with slow cooked ribs for the family this evening.  Good days for cooking.  Slow cooked ribs for dinner on a soggy day will be just right this evening.

A productive Sunday & Monday

On Sunday we had a great day in the kitchen.  We made a batch of mozzarella in the morning.  It turned out okay but not great.  It was not as soft as the best one I've made so far.  I did, however, leave the whey afterward to sit for 12 hours (as I'd found as a suggestion on a website by a chemistry professor somewhere) and then I cooked the whey a bit longer than usual as I set it cooking while reading bedtime stories to my 4 year old.  I used a reusable coffee filter to filter the whey and ended up with a great output of ricotta that tasted great. One of these times I'll get both the mozzarella and ricotta right.  Used milk from Chambersburg this time.  Comes in thick glass bottles with deposit and return.

Today, we made pretzels at breakfast time for lunch.  Served them with cream cheese or ricotta and jellies of various sorts.  Even made a braided soft pretzel or two.  Then, for dinner made pizza.  First time in a while that I was able to make the pizza with dough made at the time rather than making the dough early and refrigerating.  Made my kids happy with the quality.  Use the mozzarella and ricotta from Sunday on the pizzas and an organic pepper on one of the two.

Two great days in the kitchen.  Going to try to keep it up with my boys while teaching over the next eight weeks.

Soft pretzels--boiled and baked

Serving soft prretzels hot off the pan after boiling and baking has won my sons over.

Crepes and Pizza

Well, we have had a number  of adventures since my last post.  I tried cheese again on the morning of the half marathon.  Of the three recipes of cheese I've made so far, the one that I made at 4 in the morning on the day I ran the half marathhon was the best by far.  Perhaps I need to make it early in the morning again.  My 3rd attempt turned out a little soft, but my ricotta turned out better.

Today, we had cocoa crepes for breakfast.  Those were fund and also served as lunch for my older two boys.

For dinner, we had pizza.  I had made the dough this morning.  I could have cooked it thir morning too, but I have been generally unhappy with the consinstency of the pizza at dinner time if a cooked pizza is quickly putt in the fridge for the day.  So, I made the dough into the right shape, had Joshua a relatively small amount of sauce on, had Daniel put grated Parmesan on, and put our "spreadable mozzarella on and wrapped it in foil.  Since it took up the entire middle shelf in the fridge, Christopher used his Sharpee to write on in "Please don't crush me" and the pizza turned out to make a thick 16" pizza that fed my family of five for dinner.

What a blessing.

Biscuits, cheese, and corn bread

Yesterday morning it was biscuits for breakfast.  Yesterday evening we made mashed potatoes with bacon and crab meat cooked mixed in.  Wow, was that good, especially with Old Bay sprinkled on top.  Last night the boys and I tried making cheese.  It turned out okay.  Main lesson--don't use ultrapasteurized milk.  We may try again today with just me and my four year old.  Finally, this morning making corn bread.

Bright and early baking

I was up late reading and working last night.  So, this morning I didn't get out of bed till after 5.  I thought it was going to be raining, so I didn't plan to run.  I'll do a short run this evening.

In any case, looking ahead to a crazy day (with kids going to activities from when I drop them off at school this morning until after 6 tonight) I already have one thing in the oven and one thing ready to go.

What is in the oven?  Corn bread.  Plain and simple corn bread. Not pone.  Nothing else special.  Just corn bread--although still using meal from the local stone grinding mill.

What is ready to go?  A 16" extra cheese and pepperoni pizza?  It will have taken less than 1 hr 15 minutes from start to finish (except for cooling off) when all is said and done.  We'll see how it turns out.  Then, tonight we'll just microwave it for dinner.  Still should be good, and better than any local takeout option!

Just want to avoid those takeout options.  Too much $ and not really all that exciting in most cases.

Later this week--we'll try making homemade mozzarella on the day I'm home with Daniel!