Chai, My Way

On cold, wet afternoons, I'll ask M. if he wants a little something warm to drink. Usually the choices are coffee or tea, but he invariably asks for chai.

My chai isn't particularly authentic, but it's easy, tasty and low in fat and sugar. Think of it as an easy way to get in a little extra calcium. Drinking it in front of the fire makes a lazy weekend afternoon extra relaxing.

Chai
Printer friendly recipe

12 ounces 1% milk (use what you have, but I don't recommend fat free)
4 ounces water
1 teaspoon black tea
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon (heaping) cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

Put the milk and water in a medium saucepan over low heat and bring the milk up to a simmer, stirring (as it gets hot, watch it carefully as it will well up and over the side of your pan very suddenly). When it reaches the welling-up stage, stir in the remaining ingredients and let it simmer for two minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour through a strainer into a 2 cup measuring cup (I use the one I measured the milk in) and pour into two mugs. Serve immediately.  Makes two servings.

Barefoot Bloggers - Creme Brulee

Ack! This Barefoot Bloggers post is so late I'm barely posting it in the correct MONTH!

Ina' s creme brulee was picked by Suzie at Munch+Nibble. I have a creme brulee recipe I've been making since, well, a long time ago. It came from an old (not then) Jim Dodge cookbook and it was perfect every time. So I was pretty skeptical I would like this one because, well, it's not the one I usually make. It uses whole eggs, and I was conflicted about whole eggs in a custard.

I decided to make 1/4 of the recipe, since M. was traveling. Since Ina's recipe calls for using 8 ounce ramekins and I use 4 ounce, I figured I'd still have plenty to enjoy.

The recipe was super easy. I used vanilla bean paste instead of extract because I love the vanilla speckles. I ate one of them slightly warm and it was delicious. The others were enjoyed chilled, and I do mean enjoyed. I was glad I didn't have to share this one!

If you'd like the recipe, you can find it here.

CEiMB Catch Up - Peach French Toast Bake AND Carrot, Green Apple and Mint Salad

Where has the month gone???

I had the horrifying realization yesterday that Thanksgiving is next week. Next week! I thought I still had two weeks left. When I was at Trader Joe's this weekend, I noticed the interest around the turkey case, and wondered what the rush was. Now I understand.

For Craving Ellie in My Belly this week, Liz of The Not So Skinny Kitchen chose Ellie's Peach French Toast Bake. I read the discussion about this recipe and noted that the egg mixture needed some doctoring since it was bland. Did I remember to do that? No. I read the recipe, which said to use cooking spray on your baking dish. Did I do that? No. It said to serve it with maple syrup and non-fat yogurt. Did I remember that? No. So what I ended up with was a bland, glued-to-the-dish breakfast that left a lot to be desired. But I could tell this one could be really great IF I followed the recipe, spiced up the eggs, and maybe grated in some orange zest. And the clean up would be easier if I sprayed the pan.

I had never made baked french toast before, and Ellie's recipe was so ridiculously easy that I'll definitely make it again with the changes noted. Thanks, Liz, for picking a recipe I never would have thought of trying!

*******

Last week, Jessica of A Singleton in the Kitchen chose Ellie's Carrot, Green Apple and Mint Salad. Now, if you aren't already a follower of Jessica's blog, you really need to be. She is funny and real, and has a creative way with the recipes she makes. She participates in a number of cooking groups while pursuing her masters degree and working as a teaching assistant.

When I saw Jessica had chosen this recipe, I tried to wrap my head around it and couldn't. I wasn't sure how it would taste, but I trust Jessica and her palate, so I went for it. I used the food processor to shred the carrots and apple, mixed the dressing (mayo, non-fat Greek yogurt, cider vinegar, lemon juice and honey) in a bowl, did a quick chiffonade of fresh mint, and threw it all together. It took 5 minutes. OK, maybe 8. And it was DELISH. I tossed on some roasted salted peanuts, and it added a nice salty note. We had this with adobo chicken and brown rice, and it made a nice flavor profile. I will definitely make it again, but as Jessica suggested, I would increase the apple and decrease the carrot...I wasn't getting enough of the apple flavor, and I would use the julienne blade to get larger pieces of apple and carrot. In my opinion, the two elements that make this dish are the mint and the cider vinegar. Don't even think of using white vinegar in this one.

Thanks, Jessica, for picking a recipe that might have never been picked. We loved it! It lasted for several days, and was just as good on day 3 as it was the night I made it.

If you'd like the recipe, you can find it here.

TWD - Caramel Swirl and Coconut Macadamia Ice Creams

Lynne of Cafe LynnyLu chose this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, vanilla ice cream. When the recipes were announced, I thought the bookends of the month, the first and last recipes, were a natural together. I planned to make the Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies and serve them with scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Then peer pressure took over.

I started thinking, what will my fellow TWD-ers do with this recipe? It's practically a blank canvas, and Dorie's playing around suggestions encourage us to take off in many directions, including mix ins and swirl ins. I could have done one of those, but I had to do something different so that maybe you would stop here and go "Wow! Look what Leslie did with this! I never thought of making it with sriracha."

OK, maybe not that different. So I decided to make my caramel sauce (recipe to come), which is ridiculously easy, and swirl it in after the ice cream chilled some.

I made this ice cream on the same day I made the brownies. The high that day was 102, we don't have air conditioning, and I appreciated this one didn't require turning the oven on.

Until I decided toasted macadamias and toasted coconut would be perfect compliments to the rich vanilla base. The oven went back on.

The custard base was super simple. The star players were heavy cream and whole milk with a vanilla bean (its vanilla caviar, as Gail Gand would say, stripped out and added to the mixture). Egg yolks added richness and stabilized the mixture; the custard was cooked until it thickened slightly. Once cooled, the custard is churned in an ice cream maker.

As I poured the churned mixture, still soft and bursting with flecks of vanilla, into two separate containers, I put aside the dasher to taste once the ice cream was safely in the freezer.

Oh. My. I wanted to climb in the freezer and be with it, it was that good. Better, yes indeed, than the Bouchon vanilla ice cream I made a few years ago. So good, I didn't want to serve it with the brownies. Or add anything that would take away from its pure vanilla flavor. But I did.

The caramel was swirled in after the ice cream froze for a half hour. I may have been a little heavy handed with the caramel, but I knew the vanilla base could stand up to the aggressive bite of the bitter caramel sauce.

Then I chopped the toasted macadamias and added them and the toasted coconut to the other half of the base. Mix lightly and back in the freezer for both flavors.

Then wait. Waiting is hard.

Sneak a bite...

After tasting the caramel swirl, I knew the coconut macadamia could never live up to it. The caramel was rich and almost bitter from being taken practically to the edge of burning before the cream was added. No namby pamby sweet caramel for me. It lends a complexity that the vanilla plays up without competing with it. This ice cream is some of the best I have ever eaten.

Sneak a bite of the other flavor...

Impossible. The saltiness of the macadamias (which I accidentally left in the oven a bit too long, until they were brown) and the sweet toasted coconut with the rich vanilla backdrop made a flavor as subtle and complex as the caramel was in-your-face.

Not to overstate it, but this recipe blew me away. As written, it's the very best vanilla ice cream you could ever hope to eat or make. But when you let your imagination carry you away, it's transformed from the star to a supporting role. Your flavors can shine because the foundation is solid.

I never thought I could make great ice cream, but Dorie has taught me I can make a lot of great things. All it takes is the right teacher, and letting your mind wander until you find the flavors that speak to you.

If you'd like the recipe, check out Lynne's blog. Or better yet, buy the book. We're cooking from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. It's filled with amazing, fun and even some challenging recipes that will increase your baking repertoire.

TWD - Raspberry Blanc-Manger

Dorie continues to test our limits and teach us to appreciate the untried. I never ever would have picked this recipe out of a cookbook and said "This one sounds great! I can't wait to make it!" That's the beauty of participating in a group like Tuesdays with Dorie. Someone different picks the recipe each week, and we get to try making (and eating) things we're not familiar with. One thing I've learned is that the weeks where I "don't feel like" making the recipe is the week I absolutely need to make it. Those are the recipes that surprise me the most--in a good way.

My first question this week was "What the heck is a blanc-manger??" It is reminiscent of a coeur a la creme, but has whipping cream and milk with gelatin to stabilize it. This was such an easy recipe to put together. I made it the night before I served it and parked it in the refrigerator overnight.

I went back and forth on whether I should grind blanched almonds or just use my Trader Joe's ground almonds (which are ground with the skins on). It was obvious from the photo that Dorie used blanched almonds, but I was feeling lazy and decided to go for that rustic look.

The recipe came together very quickly and easily. It took longer to pick through the two baskets of raspberries to trash the ones that were mushy than it did to make the blanc-manger. I smoothed the top diligently, wrapped it with plastic wrap and put it in a drawer of the fridge, away from strong odors. When it was time to unmold it, I soaked it in hot (OK, boiling hot) water, and it popped right out, but the top was very shiny. In the future, I'd use hot tap water and I think I'd get the effect the picture in the book shows.

The raspberry coulis was easier than the blanc-manger (picking through the raspberries again took more time). I forgot to reserve some berries to decorate the top, so I decided to make an amoeba-like design on the top with the coulis. Well, I decided to make a design, but my design skills are pathetic.

This was a hit at work. Once people got over the "What is it?" and had a slice, it disappeared in record time.

This is a not a dessert for anyone watching their weight as its predominant ingredient is whipping cream, but it's an impressive and refreshing summer dessert. I used the suggested raspberries, but peaches, apricots, strawberries or cantaloupe would all work.

Thanks go to Susan of Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy. She picked this dessert for us to make this week, and she's something of a visionary in my mind. If you'd like the recipe, please visit Susan, or better yet, buy the book and join us in our odyssey to bake our way through it, one recipe at a time.

CSA - One week, one box, many opportunities

I have been getting a box from J&P Organics, a local CSA, for a couple of months now. For those of you who haven't heard of CSA, it stands for community supported agriculture. Farmers grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and sell them directly to consumers in what is basically a variety pack each week. For those of us who are idealistic, it's a way of helping family farmers survive in a nation of mega factory farms.

I like belonging to a CSA not just because we're helping to preserve family farms, but because you get to have a personal relationship with the farmer, in addition to having organic fruits and vegetables picked at their peak.

I'm not always good about finishing all of the bounty that comes to me in my box each week (and I don't always order weekly, I usually order every other week--because the produce was picked that day, it generally lasts two weeks). In order to spur myself to finish all of the box this week, I'm going to post the contents of this week's box, and post updates daily on how I'm using my veggies (we get less fruit, so I generally don't have a problem finishing that!)

Here's what we got this week:

eggs (available if we want to order them with our box)

golden raspberries

strawberries

yellow globe squash

green squash (maybe tatuma?)

sweet potatoes

new potatoes

red spring onion

Swiss chard

oranges

broccoli

carrots

green leaf lettuce

spinach

M. is gone for a couple of weeks, so it's up to me to finish off this week's box! I'd love to hear your suggestions especially for the swiss chard as I've not cooked with it much before.

For my A.M. pick-me-up, I'm having a Green Monster with about a cup each of chard and spinach, a banana, unsweetened Almond Breeze and a T of flax seeds. Since I'm not yet sure how I'll cook the chard, I decided to add it to a Green Monster to take advantage of its nutritional benefits (it's high in folate, thiamin and zinc, plus lots of vitamins). I first learned about Green Monsters on Caitlin's blog Healthy Tipping Point, and although I thought anything with pureed greens would be revolting, the banana and Almond Breeze add great flavor so you don't even taste the greens. I loved GMs from the very first one I made. It feels virtuous to get in 2 cups of leafy greens without even tasting them!

My usual summer breakfast is muesli:

1/2 cup oatmeal (NOT steel cut)

1/2 cup 1% milk

1/2 cup fat free yogurt (I'm using plain, but I usually use vanilla)

1 T maple syrup

Combine ingredients in a bowl, refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight.

Today, I'm topping my muesli with strawberries and golden raspberries from my CSA and a couple of toasted pecans.

I usually get up around 5:00 AM and have a small snack then eat breakfast at my desk around 8-ish, so this will be all ready for me when I get hungry. With a breakfast this yummy, I'll be ready to face whatever problems crop up (the last couple of days have been insane at work!)

TWD - Honey Peach Ice Cream

We're well into our June recipes with Tuesdays with Dorie, and this week we're making ice cream. This week's recipe was chosen by Tommi of Brown Interior, and I think a lot of us were jumping for joy when we saw this one. Ice cream! Peaches! Honey! OK, when can I start?

I found nice organic yellow peaches at Whole Foods, and their perfume fragranced the house as they ripened on the counter. Welcome, summer!

As with many of Dorie's recipes, this one was easy and lent itself to preparing in stages. I made the custard and peach puree before leaving for work in the morning, and put it in the ice cream maker when I got home from work. Now, I'm not always functioning at 100% while I'm getting ready for work, and I not only heated the custard too much, but I also didn't combine the custard and peach puree before refrigerating.

But it all worked out in the end. The freshness of the peaches, paired with my favorite vanilla bean paste, gave this ice cream the heady scent of summer. Be sure to DICE or puree your peaches, instead of cutting them in chunks as I did, because they are rather icy when you chew on them. In fact, my ice cream was a bit icy if I didn't let it soften somewhat. Softened slightly, it was creamy and delicious, and a sprinkling of chopped candied ginger give it a nice bite. Another winner from Dorie!

TWD - Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding

That's right. Not just any chocolate bread pudding. Four star chocolate bread pudding. This week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection was chosen for us by Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle. I didn't make last week's recipe, 15 Minute Magic Chocolate Amaretti Torte, but this one seemed very fast and magical in its own way. I hurried to make it as I had whole milk and whipping cream left over from other baking. I looked for challah at my neighborhood grocery store, but there wasn't any so I settled for a sweet batard.

Fortunately, the P&Q was posted on the day I made this, so I benefitted from several of the comments. I learned the chocolate flavor wasn't very strong using 60% bittersweet and it was a bit custardy, so I used 70% and added a few extra cubes of bread after 15 minutes of soaking. Love the P&Q!! 

Dorie has you heat the milk, combine the sugar with the eggs and egg yolks, and then temper the egg mixture with some of the hot milk before slowly adding it while whisking like mad. Dorie, it goes without saying, is a MUCH better baker than I am. By a lot. So even though she doesn't need to, I always strain my custards. And I always have little egg bits in the strainer. This lovely chocolate bread pudding was no exception. And maybe it wouldn't have mattered, but I don't like microscopic scrambled egg bits to mar a transcendent chocolate experience.

I licked the spoon after putting the pan in the oven and it was deeply chocolate. I lurked by the oven door, checking its progress through the glass. The house smelled amazing while it was baking, which isn't a bad thing. One time I was looking at houses and one of the sellers had brownies baking during the open house. Multiple offers. I was one of them.

After 35 minutes, it tested done. I let it cool on a rack and waited impatiently for M. to come home from work. I rationalized that we would have salad for dinner so we could eat a lot of bread pudding for dessert. He sniffed it when he got home and was on board with my plan. 

When we dug into it, I felt like Dorie had mislead us a bit. This really isn't four star chocolate bread pudding. Fourteen star, forty star, maybe. Four stars aren't enough. I both regretted and was relieved that I made a half recipe of this. 

This is by no means health food, so do what we did. Eat a salad, and save room for dessert.

Random notes:

A denser bread will give you a breadier pudding; I used a very hearty bread, and the crunch of the crusts with the creaminess of the custard was really nice.

I scraped all the chocolate remnants at the bottom of the bowl onto the bread pudding and I could really taste those tiny pockets of pure chocolate. They were so sublime, I would consider adding the smallest amount of very very finely chopped chocolate next time, maybe just some shavings.

I had a small serving with creme fraiche and my advice is don't bother, unless intense chocolate is a turnoff for you. It distracted from the flavor of the chocolate, and I missed it.

Yogurt, elevated

One of my biggest obstacles to losing the last 10 20 pounds is my love of all things dairy. I have friends with varying degrees of lactose intolerance, and I am sincerely sorry whenever I think about what they are missing.

When I crave something creamy and delicious, I often reach for yogurt in one form or another. I lean to fat free and low fat, and fat free Greek yogurt is frequently the one I go for. It's thick and creamy, and good with both sweet and savory adornment. This week, I got to indulge my love of lemon and my love of yogurt by utilizing some left over lemon curd. Yes, I made my own lemon yogurt. Here's how you do it:

Put desired amount of yogurt (I used low-fat Stonyfield Farms Organic Vanilla) in a bowl. Pour leftover lemon curd over yogurt to taste. Sprinkle with toasted nuts or granola. Eat. Repeat. Lick bowl (only if no one is looking). Feel virtuous for using up leftovers AND getting in a calcium serving.

CEiMB - Nutty Granola aka Hide the Milk

This week's recipe for Craving Ellie in My Belly is Nutty Granola. Amazingly, I had everything I needed in my pantry for this one. This is all you need...

I chopped the nuts and dried cherries (which I subbed for the raisins). I dumped everything in a glass bowl (I like to be able to peek at the bottom to see if I thoroughly mixed everything together). Then I poured on the maple syrup...

Stir, stir, stir.

Ellie says to spray a baking sheet with cooking spray before spreading the granola evenly on the baking sheet. This had me very conflicted. I still have some post traumatic stress from spending two days cleaning my broiler pan after the sesame-teriyaki chicken thighs. I pondered using a silicone mat to ease clean up, but I was worried that the granola wouldn't brown properly. I ended up using cooking spray, which worked fine.

The granola baked for 30 minutes, filling the house with a wonderful aroma. When it came out of the oven it looked amazing...

I waited (impatiently) for it to cool enough to have it for breakfast. Finally, I spooned some in a bowl and anointed it with milk. Mmm...delicious! It's not overly sweet like most commercial granolas, nor is it so hard my jaw hurt after eating it. The maple and cinnamon are subtle and don't overpower the nuts. Yum. This is so good...have another small bowl. I mean, I do plan to work out today. No, really.

This week was my turn to pick the recipe. I found it to be a humbling experience. I wanted to pick something that didn't have expensive ingredients, wouldn't take a lot of time or be overly complicated, and was family friendly. I enjoyed making this, and I hope you will, too! Here's the recipe:

Nutty Granola - Serves 9

You can't buy granola this good, and it couldn't be simpler to make. All the flavors come through crisp and clear: crunchy toasted nuts, chewy oats, and caramelized raisins perfectly sweetened with the unmistakable flavor of real maple syrup and humming with cinnamon.

Cooking spray

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup chopped almonds

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup raisins (optional, I used dried cherries instead)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients, mixing well to coat everything with the maple syrup. Spread on the baking sheet and bake until golden brown, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.

Transfer the sheet to the wire rack and let cool completely. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container for about 2 weeks.

I will definitely make this one again. I would like to try it with some pumpkin seeds, dried apple, orange zest, vanilla caviar, but not all at the same time. Check out what the other CEiMB cooks did here. If you like this recipe, I urge you to check out the book The Foods You Crave, by Ellie Krieger.