Roasted Carrot and Avocado Salad-I made my own version of this (lengthwise quartered carrots boiled and roasted as described, avocado, celery in lieu of greens) for spring (aka Easter) brunch.

Cinnamon Buns-I made these twice last month. I just mixed all of the ingredients together in my mixer and let the dough rise on the counter for an hour or so. Then I rolled them out and added raisins to the filling. I let the cinnamon buns rise in the fridge overnight and baked them just before work in the morning. Hot, gooey, cream cheese frosting topped cinnamon buns were enjoyed by all of us health conscious pediatricians.

That this assignment is written is really fabulous.  Rather than discussing my day with my cats, garden, classmates, friends, and husband, I am suppose to write about it for ostensibly my own benefit.  (I don’t think these are read by a very large audience).

So I decided to increase the audience size for mine by a person or two.  I’ll share it on my blog.  (Shouldn’t there be a residency blog requirement in modern times?)

Let me start by acknowledging that obesity is bad and that we shouldn’t eat to drown our unhappiness.  This is not an issue on the oncology ward.  Kids with cancer can use some extra calories.

I brought a few dozen homemade donuts to work today cause a certain patient loves donuts.  She requests at least a box a day while in the hospital.  Her father obliges regularly.  She prefers yeasted donuts and taught me that the rectangular donuts are ‘Long Johns.’    Another of our patients went through a powdered cake donut phase, although sadly she has developed a more refined palate.

I shared the donuts with my patient as well as the nurses and well, anyone else who found them.  Sprinkles, sugar, and butter made a bunch of us a tad happier today.  I’m sure I broke some rule sharing donuts with my patient, but I don’t much care.  If all I can do is make a disaster out of my kitchen, yet again, I’m happy to do so.  And yes, I believe that sometimes it is better to share a snack than actually talk about anything substantive.

Oh, and here is the recipe at the end of the chapter.

Better Than Sex Cake

• 1 – box yellow cake mix
• 2/3 C. sugar
• 1 – 20oz. can crushed pineapple (not drained)
• 1 – 6oz. box of instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 – tub of non-dairy whipped topping
• 1/2 C. flaked/shredded coconut (Toasted)

Grease & flour a 9″x13″ cake pan and bake cake according to package
directions. When cake is done, poke holes in top of cake using a
chopstick or similar implement. Mix pineapple and sugar and pour over
cake. Prepare pudding according to package directions
and pour over cake. Chill then spread whipped cream topping over cake
then sprinkle with coconut. Keep refrigerated.

To toast coconut, set oven to 300 degrees and cook for 20 minutes.
Stir coconut every 5 minutes to prevent burning.

Scones-yields 16

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup butter (no substitutes)
• 3/4 cup dried cranberries
• 3/4 cup white chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup milk

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add cranberries and white chocolate.
Stir in milk just until moistened.
Turn onto a lightly floured surface; gently knead 6-8 times.
Divide in half. Pat each into an 8-in. circle. Cut into eight wedges.
Place 1 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake at 400 degrees F for 15-18 minutes or until lightly browned.
Remove from pans to wire racks. Serve warm and enjoy!

Taco Soup

• 1 lb hamburger, cooked till brown and crumbly(optional)
• 1 can Kidney beans
• 1 can Black beans
• 1 can Pinto beans
• 2 cans white shoepeg corn
• 1 can rotel tomatoes
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 pkg taco seasoning
• 1 pkg ranch dressing
• 2 cups water

Combine all ingredients in large pot and heat thoroughly.  Serve with
shredded cheese, sour cream and tortilla chips

Pancakes

Recipe per person/pancake:
~ 3/4 C flour (I often substitute 1/2 GF all-purpose flour and 1/2
buckwheat flour)
~ 1.5 tsp baking powder (I never measure anything, really. I work by sight.)
cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger to taste
1 egg
~ 1 Tsp yogurt
milk to make thick batter (generally 1/4 C to 1/2 C)
cored and thinly sliced apple

Mix dry ingredients and form a well. Add egg to well and beat egg
slightly. (Not mixing into dry yet.) Add yogurt and mix with dry. Add
milk as needed to form thick batter. Pour into greased, hot frying
pan. Press apple slices into top. Flip when small holes begin to form
on top of pancake (i.e., heat bubbling up. The bottom should also be
browned around the same time.) Flip and cook few minutes till done.

Baked Rice (adapted from Chef Paul Prudhomme)

• 2 cups uncooked basmati rice (it neegs to be the drier long grain rice
• varieties)
• 2 1/2 cups vegetable broth*
• 1/3 cup very finely chopped onion**
• 1/3 cup very finely chopped celery
• 1/3 cup very finely chopped green bell pepper
• 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• Pinch ground white pepper
• Pinch ground cayenne pepper
• Pinch ground black pepper

In a (5 x 9 x 2 1/2-inch) loaf pan, combine all ingredients; mix well.
I spray the pan first with PAM.  Seal pan snugly with aluminum foil.

Bake at 350 degrees F until rice is tender, about 1 hour and 10
minutes. Serve immediately. However, you can count on the rice staying
hot for 45 minutes and warm for 2 hours.

*You can use chicken stock if you are serving the rice with a chicken
dish, seafood stock with a seafood dish, beef with a beef dish.

** The original recipe calls for 1 ½ T but I find this is not nearly
enough so I use ¼  cup

This is a great company dish.  Elegant, tasty and you can make it
easily and forget it.

Tuscan White Bean Waffles (or waffle chips)

Dorie Greenspan recipe from “Waffles From Morning to Midnight”

The Waffles

• 1 c all purpose flour
• 2 t double-acting baking powder
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 c garlicky bean puree (see below)
• 1 1/4 c chicken broth (we have used veggie and chicken, both good)
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
• fresh thyme, parsley sprigs, or small cubes of tomato for garnish

Preheat iron.  If you want to hold finished waffles till serving time
or to crisp them, preheat oven to 200.

In large bowl, whisk together flour, powder, salt, pepper.  Stir in
bean puree (I found this worked better if i had warmed the puree
slightly).
In another bowl, whisk together broth, egg, and olive oil until very
well mixed.  Pour liquid ingredients into bowl with puree mixture and
stir with fork until just blended.  Mixture will be liquidy.

Grease grids of waffle iron if needed.  Brush or spray again only if
subsequent waffles stick.

Spoon out 1/2 c of batter (or amount recommended by waffler’s
manufacturer) – we found that 1/2 c worked with the smaller waffler,
more for belgian – onto hot grids.  Spread evenly over grids with a
metal spatula or wooden spoon.  Close lid and bake until very lightly
browned (this waffle stays pale) and set.  (We liked it crispy.) If
you plan to serve the waffles warmed and uncrisped, serve them
immediately or place them in a single layer on a rack in the preheated
oven while you make the rest of the batch.  (We put them on a cookie
sheet and discovered why this is no good… the underside gets soggy.
just put directly on the rack.)  If you want to serve the waffles a s
chips, separate them into hearts or cut them into whatever shape you
wish, and bake them in the preheated oven for 1 to 1.5  hours.  Serve
when cool.

Topping/filling:  Garlicky Bean Puree

2 19-oz cans cannellini (we used dried great northern beans and cooked
before doing this)
1 c chicken broth (we used veggie)
4 large plump garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1/2 small yellow onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1/2 t salt
1/4 t dried thyme (1 tbsp fresh)
1 small bay leaf
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Rinse and drain cannellini.  Put all the ingredients except olive oil
in 2-quart saucepan and cook over medium-low heat for 20 minutes,
stirring often, until the beans are very soft and can be mashed with
the back of a spoon.  Remove from the heat and pour into the workbowl
of a food processor or blender.  Add olive oil and process until
satiny, scraping down sides as needed.  Turn into a small bowl, press
a piece of plastic wrap against surface, and allow to come to room
temperature.  Puree can be made up to 4 days in advance, covered well,
kept refrigerated.

Goat Cheese Quiche with Hash Brown Crust

Roasted Ratatouille with Lentils

Creamy Sweet Potato and Rosemary Soup

A few weeks ago we went on a Saturday morning cake-tasting adventure.  Given my work schedule I did not schedule formal tastings.  Instead, we showed up and bought slices of cake to taste at various bakeries in St. Louis.  Stop number one was La Bonne Bouchee, a French bakery in Creve Couer.  We sampled their white cake with mocha frosting.  The cake was a bit wet (that is the bad side of moist) and fairly tasteless. The thin (not globbed on) layer of frosting had a nice mocha flavor.  I appreciated that the cake did not involve a mix; it was clearly a genoise.  The staff was helpful and the case contained a variety of delicious looking French pastries, including tarts mounded with fresh fruit and galettes de rois topped with crowns and filled with pastry cream.

Next stop was Clayton’s Bakery.  I had been in before and thought it looked like a bakery:  not fancy, piles of party cookies in the case.  We found a square cake prepackaged on the counter and took it to the car to try.  Yes, we tried the cakes in the privacy of our own car, so we could get a sugar rush quickly and be free to criticize the cakes at will.  The cake was moist and crumbly, soggy toward the top.  It was indistinguishable from grocery store cake.  There was a thick layer of butter cream (more likely crisco cream) scented with almond extract on top.  Yes, we asked, this cake is the basis of their wedding cakes.  We continued on our drive.

McArthur’s in Kirkwood was stop 3.  We bought a cupcake after being admonished about the importance of arranging a formal hour long tasting.  The vanilla cupcake had a decent crumb, although the frosting was a bit too fluffy and crisco-tasting.  I decided to schedule a formal tasting a few days later.  This involved going to their South City wedding show room.  The selection at the South City location was generally much better than the Kirkwood location.  A friendly wedding cake attendant showed me their cake portfolio.  I sampled white, yellow, and amaretto cakes with vanilla frosting, chocolate filling, and cream cheese filling.  The yellow cake was dead on for any grocery store-made cake that holds center stage at a five year old’s birthday party.  The amaretto flavoring addition to the white cake had potential, although I still disliked the frosting.  I left with an estimate for a cake to feed fifty (their smallest size) and a vow that if I ended up with their cake, I would just buy it from the general bakery side, forgoing a bit of decorations and saving 50%.  Then I called Dan, and he told me he does not particularly like amaretto.  Game over.

I went back to googling St. Louis bakeries.  Sugaree came with a strong recommendation, but it was closed for a few weeks.  Wedding Wonderland in Florissant is near my clinic and welcomes people to walk-in and taste their cakes and fillings at any time.  Styrofoam cakes and a looped video advertising their cakes fill their showroom.  I tasted three varieties of cake, vanilla frosting, and cream cheese, raspberry, and chocolate fillings.  I left with belly ache from the cheap fats and preservatives.  Carrot cake had only tiny flecks of carrot.  Raspberry filling was the goo that comes in a bag at the bakery supply store.  While the bakery employee got tastings for the next customer, I snuck out the front door.

I do have a few more bakeries to try in St. Louis.  I’ll post about those as I experience them.  In the interim, I have occupied myself test-baking cakes.  Yes, if all else fails I’ll bake my own cake.  Last weekend my friends threw a gathering in celebration of my marriage (Dan was out of town).  I brought some test cake.  My baking started with getting educated on types of cake.  There are two broad categories of cakes:  foam and butter.  Foam cakes involve small quantities of fat and have a spongy texture.  They include the likes of sponge, genoise, chiffon, and angel food.  I made 3 recipes:  Julia Child’s genoise, Julia Child’s butter sponge cake, and Cook’s Illustrated sponge cake.  The genoise recipe involves melted butter and whole eggs beaten with sugar for an extended period of time.  Proteins from whipped egg whites line the bubbles of foam cakes and egg yolks emulsify, adding moisture and flavor.  The sponge cake recipes involve whipped whites with creamed yolks or whole eggs, respectively.  I followed the directions for all three cakes, perhaps only faulting by opening the oven in the middle of baking to rotate the cakes and using pans slightly bigger than called for.  Julia’s recipes produced thin dense cakes; the genoise more so than the sponge.  Cook’s Illustrated sponge cake had nice big air bubbles and was generally light and fluffy; the addition of baking powder undoubtedly helps it.  I made one cake out of the several recipes, stacking them in the aforementioned order (Cook’s Illustrated recipe produced two layers).  Despite using Nielsen-Massey Madagascar vanilla, the cake layers were all bland.

My theoretical tasty wedding cake equation includes frosting and filling components.  I went with thin layers of strained raspberry jam and frosting for the filling.  For frosting I first made an Swiss buttercream, which involves whipping butter into cooked egg whites and sugar.  It tasted too buttery.  This led me to read up on buttercreams.  French involves egg yolks, Italian a sugar syrup, and German a custard.  As explained in this article, German buttercream is the way to go for an unrefined American palate.  I still found the result a bit buttery tasting, but it was better than the Swiss version.  Adding extra vanilla (I skipped the vanilla bean in order to avoid a flecked frosting) helped the flavor and resulted in a cream color.  It spread well, especially because I actually did a crumb layer, a top coat, and a final smoothing with a bench scraper (chilling the cake between all three steps).  Don’t get me wrong, the final cake still has imperfections in the frosting as well as the decorations, but I think the white chocolate cake topper covers up my flaws a tad.

About that unrefined American palate, next I’ll be trying butter cake recipes.  These involve creaming fats and adding leavening agents to the dry ingredients.

Here is a copy of the recipe, typed by someone else.  I got it out of the Cook’s Illustrated Best Recipe Cookbook.

1.  Canning

Two subcategories here.  First, I roasted red peppers and canned them.  They taste and look good.  Took about two hours to make 7 pints.  Peppers cost $5.  Recipe borrowed from here.

Second topic is drying herbs and putting them in cans.  No boiling step needed here.  Sage took about 3 days at 95-110F to dry (despite dehydrator cookbook saying it would take like 8-12 hours).  I picked the leaves off the stems after drying. That was easy to do.  On the other hand, the pile of mint I dried on the dining room table was annoying to pull off the stems.  I ended up with two jars:  Grade A really lacks stems and flowers; B has plenty of flowers and some stems.

2.  Italian Butter/Party/Bar Mitzvah Cookies.  I try to master these every few years.  I’m on my 3rd cookie press.  Goal is to make the picture shown of bakery cookies.

This recipe (it’s about 3/4 of the way down the page) resulted in super tasty butter cookies, but the consistency was wrong (too moist, not sandy enough).  So then tonight I tried this recipe (the final one with white sugar and powdered sugar), but mine melted in the oven and came out way too moist.  Oven temp could be the cause for the melting…not that I can find my oven thermometer to double check the temp.  More attempts to follow…

The garden was prolific with tomatoes…for about 3 weeks.  Using tomatoes and herbs from the garden, I made marinara in the crock pot and on the stove to freeze.  Most of the tomatoes were yellow, so the sauce is an interesting yellow-ish brown color.  Whatever, it tastes fabulous.  I tried it hot and cold with a spoon.  It seems that only the amount of blending determines if it is really marinara, tomato soup, or gazpacho to my palate.

Recipe:

1.  Food process a bunch of onions (3-4 large), garlic (1/2 a head), celery, carrot.  Saute in olive oil a while.  Add salt and pepper.  Deglaze with wine (white would make more since with orange tomatoes but I had red).  Oh well

2.  Crock pot method:  Fill crock pot with sauteed mixture and as many cored tomatoes (~8 pounds) as you can squish in.  Keep squishing.  Leave on low 8 hours.  Apply stick blender.  Strain out peel.

3. Stove method:  Simmer an hour or three, otherwise same as above.

4. Remove the peel ahead of time method:  Score bottoms of tomatoes, boil 30 sec or so, drop in ice water, peel.  Add tomatoes to onion mixture as above.  (I have no interest in removing seeds, so I didn’t try that method.)

5. Freeze.  Canning would involve pH issues.

I still had a million tomatoes.  I peeled them and squished them into jars.  Adding bottled lemon juice to jars (tablespoon per quart) prior to boiling for 45 minutes avoids botulism.  No more buying canned tomatoes.

About 15 pounds of tomatoes met the food dehydrator.  I sliced them in quarters and dried them for 18 hours.  Then I store them in the freezer in bags or in the fridge in olive oil.  Sundried, oil-cured tomatoes are pretty amazing.

There is corn growing in the garden, but I’m not sure when to pick it.  So I bought some at (gasp) the grocery.  It tasted watery.  I cut the kernels of the cobbs and used them in corn muffins.  Crunchy and delicious.  Topped some kernel-lacking corn muffins with roasted peach slices, after adding ginger to the batter.  Big hit at work; never tasted one myself.

Here is the recipe for zucchini, spinach, onion, basil breakfast pie tart pizza w/ cornbread crust.  I actually think it’s pretty awesome.  It is very high in calories, fat, dairy, and veggies.

Recipes are modified from Gourmet Cookbook (the big yellow book that I adore).  Filling is a modification of fresh fig, mascarpone, and pesto torte on page 17.  Crust adapted from deep-dish sausage and tomato pizza on page 200.  Hmm, it looks like recipes in cookbook are not the same as those on website.  Then again, I made too many modifications to send you to the originals.

Crust (triple batch of recipe from cookbook, with some sourdough starter)

• 3/4 tsp sugar
• 1 c warm water
• 5 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 cup sourdough starter refreshed overnight
• 3 1/2-4 cups flour (approximately, depends on consistency of starter)
• 3/4 c cornmeal
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tblsp salt

• Mix sugar, warm water, and yeast.  Let stand five minutes.  It should froth.
• Add sourdough starter.  Mix well.
• Add flour, salt, cornmeal, olive oil.  Mix.  Change to dough hook when it’s thick (or just start with it if you’re too lazy to get 2 things dirty like me).
• Let the mixer do the kneading work for 5-10 minutes, adding more flour as necessary to make an elastic, not sticky dough.
• Let rise until doubled in bulk.  It’s summer; this took about 30 minutes.
• Punch down.
• Spray a 9×13 inch brownie pan with oil.
• Spread dough across bottom and up sides.  Just push it out with your hands.
• Preheat oven to 350F while dough is rising slightly.
• Bake crust 10 minutes.
• At this point I left crust on counter for the night.

Filling

• 1 large onion, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 medium zucchini, sliced crosswise about 1/4 in thick
• 1 box frozen, thawed, drained chopped spinach
• 3 tblsp chopped fresh (ok frozen in my case) basil
• EVOO
• salt
• pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds cream cheese (3 bricks)
• 5 eggs

• Heat large frying pan on medium high with EVOO to cover bottom.  Sautee onions with salt and pepper until slightly brown.  Don’t be stingy with the salt.  Add garlic.  Saute an additional minute.  Remove from pan
• Add more oil if needed.  Saute zucchini until just limp. Remember to salt it.  Add to bowl with onions.
• Beat cream cheese with mixer.  Add eggs.  Scrape sides of bowl.  Add salt and pepper, but not too generously.
• Mix cream cheese mixture, vegetable mixture, spinach, basil.  Taste (yup, taste the raw egg mixture); adjust salt and pepper.
• Refrigerate in bowl until ready to bake pie.
• Preheat oven 350F.
• Dump filling into crust (it will rise a little, not a ton).  If there is extra filling dump into an extra ramekin.  Bake large pie about 30 minutes.  It should rise and be golden brown on top.  Cool slightly.  Cut with pizza cutter.  Serve.