It's a Dutch Baby, Baby!

I recently watched Ina Garten,

of Barefoot Contessa fame,

make Tri-Berry Oven Pancakes on

her Food Network show.

However, her recipe requires one to have

four individual gratin dishes,

which I don't.

I did know that what she made

were essentially individual Dutch Babies,

or oven pancakes,

so I turned to Alton Brown's recipe for a Dutch Baby.

 The players:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and divided
2 3/8 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 1/2 cup
3 tablespoons vanilla sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup half and half, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature

Toppings, not shown:
strawberries, macerated with granulated sugar
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Place 2 tablespoons of the melted butter into a 10-inch cast iron skillet and place in the oven.  Set the remaining tablespoon of melted butter aside to cool slightly.  Wait 10 minutes before assembling the other ingredients.

Place the flour, vanilla sugar, salt, milk eggs, and remaining tablespoon of melted butter into the bowl of a food processor or blender and process for 30 seconds.  Carefully pour the batter into the preheated skillet.  Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until the edges are puffed and brown.  Cut, and serve with the macerated strawberries and a sprinkling of powdered sugar.

 If you have a digital kitchen scale, now is the time to use it.  If you don't, then go out and buy one!

 Follow the recipe and carefully pour the batter into the very hot skillet.

 After 30 minutes the Dutch Baby was finished baking.

Serve with strawberries and a sprinkling of powdered sugar.*

This was a hit in the Foodie Household.

*Your favorite berries can be substituted, or maple syrup can even be drizzled over the top.

Enjoy.

I still think I'm going to try to find those individual gratin dishes, though.

Fudging the Facts

After finally learning after nearly 26 years of marriage that my husband adores peanut butter fudge, I decided to indulge Mr. I-Have-a-Secret by making some.

After verifying that my husband didn't want chocolate in his peanut butter fudge, I set about finding a recipe. I settled on Alton Brown's recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge. As a added bonus, I even had all the ingredients on hand. Here I have powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 cup creamy peanut butter and 2 sticks unsalted butter.

Following the directions, I heated the butter and peanut butter in the microwave. After three and a half minutes, I stirred the melted butter mixture.



Alton Brown's recipe calls for one pound of confectioners' sugar, but I only had an open two-pound bag of sugar on hand, so some research was needed to discover what measurement one pound equals. I discovered that different sources disagreed on the exact measurement, so I opted to go with 3-1/2 cups as an equivalent for one pound of powdered sugar. In the end that seemed to be the correct amount.




Stir with a sturdy spoon until everything is incorporated.



I buttered an 8" x 8" baking dish and lined it with a sheet of parchment paper. I then spread the peanut butter fudge in the pan.




The directions call for another piece of paper to cover the fudge and this went into the refrigerator to chill.





I pulled the fudge out of the fridge a few hours later and cut it into cubes with a large pizza cutter. This is good stuff and my husband loves it. Alton, your peanut butter fudge rocks.

By then it was time to think about dinner. What to make, what to make? Let's see, it's dreary outside, the temperature is dropping and it's trying to rain/sleet. I think soup sounds about right. Potato soup sounds really good, so I set about looking for a recipe.

Hmm, I'm not finding any recipes that are to my liking, so it looks like I'll have to make up my own. What, are you surprised?

My mise en place. Here I have Half and Half, salt, black pepper, hot sauce, Old Bay Seasoning, dried basil, turkey consomme, Yukon Gold potatoes, onion, leftover mashed potatoes, and bacon and sharp cheddar cheese for garnish.

I peeled the potatoes and cut them into cubes, about 1 centimeter in size. They went into a microwave-safe dish and I added a splash of water before covering and microwaving on high for about 5 minutes.

I cut up and sauteed the bacon over medium-high heat in a large pot. I removed the cooked bacon and set aside to drain on a paper towel. At this point I decided to forgo the butter and just use the bacon grease in the dish. I left about two tablespoons of the bacon grease in the pot and sauteed 1/4 cup diced onion over medium heat until softened. I then added 2 tablespoons of flour to the pot and stirred while cooking.

I added 2 cups of turkey consomme to the mix. Stir well.

Then I added about 2 cups of the mashed potatoes, a dash of hot sauce, 1/2 teaspoon dry basil, 1/4 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste.

The cooked, diced potatoes were added to the pot and then I poured in some Half and Half. This soup slowly cooked over low heat for about 30 minutes while we waited for my husband to come home from work.

I topped the soup with some grated sharp cheddar cheese and crisp bacon. Sadly, I had no green onions on hand, so I had to do without.

My daughter assembled salads for me while I cooked the soup and made my salad dressing. Tonight's dressing was a Raspberry Vinaigrette, made with raspberry jam, honey, white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of black pepper.

I was right. Soup was just the thing for a cold, grey day.

Changes in a Family Favorite

After reading Alton Brown's latest book, Feasting on Asphalt, the River Run, I was tempted to try his take on the classic (and top secret) Maid Rite sandwich. This is a loose meat sandwich. The only correct way to eat this is with yellow mustard, dill pickle slices and chopped white onions on a white sandwich bun. My husband's family has had their own version of this recipe, which I have then altered through the years. But still, Alton actually gets paid to cook, so I thought it was worth trying his recipe. Since this recipe comes from a book, I will not give you the exact formula, but will instead tell you what worked for us and what didn't.

Some of the additional ingredients that are added to the cooked and drained beef/onion mixture.

Alton suggested using a hand mixer to break up the meat mixture. I had this handy dandy chopper which worked beautifully.

Oops, you blinked and we ate already. Here is the remaining mixture before it heads to the fridge.

Now this is my recipe for Maid Rite sandwiches:

1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
Add: ½ tbs. pepper
1 tbs. sugar
2 tbs. prepared mustard
1/2 cup beer
1 tsp. Salt

Simmer one hour or more. This can be prepared in the microwave oven instead if time is tight. Serve on a bun with yellow mustard, chopped onion, and pickles.

Now, what I would keep from Alton's version: I will add 1/3 cup finely minced onion to the meat mixture and cook both together. Do not use a food processor to chop the onion. I will also use the food chopper to finely chop the meat mixture after cooking and draining. I will also add 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce to the ingredients.

If you do not wish to use beer, I would suggest adding 1/2 cup of chicken, turkey or vegetable stock instead.

I guess even the pros have off days.

Now, off to dessert.

I cut fresh strawberries and added 1/2 cup white sugar.

Stir to mix and cover with plastic wrap before refrigerating for a couple of hours. This allows the sugar to draw out the natural juices of the strawberries. This is called macerating the fruit.

A few hours later and the strawberries are ready to eat.

This is my husband's favorite way to eat strawberries, and as it was his birthday this past week, I bought vanilla bean ice cream for him.

A Dinner and a Low Carb Snack

Tired of trying to find a turkey burger recipe that would please three separate palates, I turned instead to Ina Garten's Turkey Meatloaf recipe. After reducing it by a factor of 5, I tweaked the ingredient list a bit.

Here we have 1 pound of ground turkey, 1/3 cup panko bread crumbs, 1 clove garlic (just because I felt like adding it), 2/3 cup chopped yellow onion, 1/2 tablespoon good olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme (I kept this amount the same as the original recipe), 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, 1 teaspoon water (to replace the chicken stock), 1/4 teaspoon catsup (to replace the tomato paste), 1 large egg, and catsup to drizzle over the top of the formed loaf.

After cooking the onion and other ingredients per the instructions, the mixture is cooled before adding to the meat, egg and bread crumbs. Remember: De-bling before digging in with clean hands.

I drizzled olive oil in the dish and then placed the loaf in the pan. I couldn't bring myself to douse the loaf with catsup as Ina directed. This went into a 325 degree oven. I also found that it cooked much more quickly than the 1 1/2 hours given in the recipe. I had to turn the oven down so that it wasn't done long before my husband found his way home from the bank.

While I was waiting for the onion mixture to cool, I turned to the jicama slaw ingredients. I found that pre-sliced cole slaw was much cheaper than a head of cabbage at my grocery store, so that and the fact that some man was jealously guarding the cabbages led me to buy the bagged, shredded slaw mix. One half of a jicama and some red onion complete the mix. A pinch of salt was added and light salad dressing , rice wine vinegar and sugar created the dressing.

And we have a finished jicama slaw.

Just in case you have gotten the idea that I am a food snob, I will gladly admit that I often will use packaged foods. I am just very picky about which products I will use. A good quality can of baked beans is one such indulgence. My daughter asked that I add cooked bacon to the dish today. Diced onion, brown sugar, catsup and mustard round out the flavors.

After frying the bacon, I added the onion.

I add catsup, mustard and brown sugar to taste. Then the bacon and onion are stirred in and it bakes for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

The turkey loaf comes out of the oven.

The jicama slaw was good and even my picky family admitted that it was edible. Those kidders.

We liked the turkey loaf, but I will work on adding more flavor to the dish. My dear husband commented that perhaps it needed maple syrup, a la Sandra Lee. The traitor. My daughter and I worry that he might be a closet Fandra.

Proof that watching Food Network can lead to hunger pains: while watching Alton Brown of Good Eats talk about cheese this evening, I was tempted to make Parmesan crisps for a quick and low carb snack.

Inspired by Alton, I grabbed my wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano and the grater I got for Christmas.

I placed one tablespoon of cheese in each heap on parchment paper

One round has been left plain, while another has been sprinkled with paprika and the last with black pepper.

After just a few minutes in a 350 degree oven (I baked them in my toaster oven), they come out and are carefully pried off the parchment. These were very good and I will be making them again.

So, despite the fact that yet another winter storm is heading our way, I have had a very good day. Any day in the kitchen is a good day in my books.