Brown Sugar Carrot-Zucchini Bread

A fellow member of The Weekly Delicious, the wonderful Anna, shared a recipe with me recently that I had to try. It came from here at Food People Want originally, but merits its own post here due to my seeming inability to follow any recipe without making modifications. Hey, I have my preferences, and my spare ingredients that need using up.

The original recipe was for a carrot bread (okay, essentially carrot cake in a loaf pan without the frosting) with a little fresh ginger, lots of brown sugar, and orange zest. Mmm, tasty. But I didn't have quite enough carrots on hand, and I had some zucchini that needed using up, so I shredded in about half a medium zucchini along with the two carrots I had in the fridge. And I left out the white sugar, because I just won't use white if I can get away with using brown instead. And I subbed in some whole wheat flour because my mom does that for her fabulous-beyond-all-reason carrot cake, so I figured it couldn't hurt. And last, I used half applesauce, half oil instead of oil alone because I had just about a fourth of a cup of applesauce left in my fridge, and I was starting to worry I wouldn't use the rest before it went bad.

The recipe was a definite success. I brought it to my girlfriend's house hoping to impress her with my culinary prowess, and I think I did. We sliced it up for breakfast and it was lovely. We were especially impressed by how well it held together.

Make sure to include the orange zest, by the way. I could really taste it in each bite and it was...well, zesty.



Brown Sugar Carrot-Zucchini Bread
INGREDIENTS:

* 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
* 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
* 3/4 teaspoons baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 2 large eggs
* 3/4 cups packed brown sugar
* 1/4 cup canola oil
* 1/4 cup applesauce, unsweetened
* 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger (I used bottled minced ginger)
* Grated zest of 1/2 orange
* 1 heaping cup shredded carrots and/or zucchini (this was two medium carrots and half a zucchini for me)

METHOD:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Coat one 8 by 4" loaf pan with cooking spray or oil.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom and salt.
3. In a large bowl, beat the eggs with the brown sugar . Add the oil SLOWLY in a thin stream, beating constantly, until the batter has doubled in volume and oil is well-incorporated. Beat in the applesauce, vanilla, orange zest and ginger. Fold in the shredded carrots and zucchini. Beat in the dry ingredients in 3 batches, mixing well between additions.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake in the middle of the oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Makes 1 8 by 4" loaf

Espresso Brownies

Let me just start this by saying first and foremost that I consider myself a cook, not a baker. The irony in that is that lately I've been baking about as much as I've been cooking. Blue Velvet cupcakes for a movie showing for the film club I run, chocolate cake for a date, and now espresso brownies to satisfy a craving.

When figuring out exactly what you're craving, realize that sitting in the best coffee spot in the state might bias your tastebuds. You and your friends may have the conversation I had:

"Coffee cake."

"Mocha chip cookies."

"Espresso brownies."

"Latte flavored bacon."

"Wait wait wait, what was that second to last one? We should probably do that."

Ingredients:

• 2 heaping cups of dark chocolate chips (about 12-13 ounces)
• 8 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 Tablespoons finely ground coffee (Espresso grounds if you have them)
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
  
• 1/3 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Procedure:

.5. Preheat oven to 350°F and get out some cupcake papers. (You can use an 8x8 pan if you really want.)

1. Set up a double boiler. If you don't have a formal one, put a small pot of water on to boil and place a larger glass or metal bowl on top so that you can fill it (think upside down hat). In the double boiler, melt the chocolate and butter. Stir until well mixed. This step can be done while doing the next step, so get good at multitasking.

2. In a medium sized bowl, combine the sugar, ground coffee, and eggs. Mix them until it starts to thicken up and turn a lighter color, forming ribbons from the whisk when you pull it up. If you're like me and don't have a high speed mixer, this will be a pain. Just keep stirring vigorously and you'll get it. If you do have a high speed mixer, lucky you, just let it run for a minute or two.

3. When satisfied with your mixings, stir in the chocolate from step #1.

4. Sift/slowly pour in a tiny bit at a time your flour, salt, and baking powder. Mix until they're combined, but don't overmix.

5. Pour the batter into the cupcake papers about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up.

6. Place in the oven, checking after 15 minutes. I'm not going to give you a time set in stone, since everyone's ovens run differently. If it takes longer, just keep testing with a toothpick or sharp knife every few minutes. You'll want your testing tool to come out clean, if it isn't, back in the oven.

Notes:

1. I'm sorry, but I don't have a cooking time for if you were to attempt these in a traditional brownie pan. Try it for yourself and figure out which time works best for you and your oven.

2. You don't have to use star shaped cupcake molds. But I like them.

3. Alter them as you want. Chocolate chips, nuts, frosting, whatever you like.

4. Ideal serving accompaniments: A cup of coffee and a scoop of coffee ice cream.

Fennel and Onion Soup

I confess that every now and then I feel the need to completely make something up and try it out on my friends. More often than not, this happens when I'm trapped inside and running out of ingredients (like this week's meatball, onion, corn, and mashed potato pie. It turned out well, but not so much that I'll embarrass myself by posting it here.) I was grocery shopping with some friends a while back, and the fennel just jumped out at me as something I really wanted to cook again.

I've made a soup with fennel in it before, sure, but it was almost an afterthought in that case. I could barely taste it. If I was going to do another soup with fennel in it, fennel would be the star. People would ea and realize this what fennel actually tastes like.

So I figured out things I would want in a soup, relying heavily on what I hoped would be fairly good instincts from when I made french onion soup before. I have to say that it was an surprisingly good, after some on-the-fly improvisations.

Ingredients:

• 2 large, sweet onions
• 2 fennel bulbs
• 8 ounces of sliced baby bella mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
• 12 ounces of fresh baby spinach
• 1 cup of shredded or crumbled sharp white cheddar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon of fine ground herbes de provence
• About 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
• 8 to 10 cups water (or stock)
  

Procedure:

1. Cut onions and fennel (just use the bulb, no need to mess with the stalks here) into half-moon slivers as thin as you can manage. If you have particularly thick fennel, now would be when you break out the mandolin slicer if you have one. Basically, the thinner your cuts, the softer and easier this will all cook down into the soup. No one wants to bite into a huge chunk of crunchy fennel in their soup.

2. In a large, wide pot, melt the butter over medium high heat. Nonstick is your friend here, but if you have wine on hand and want to deglaze the pan later, be my guest.

3. When the butter is melted, put in your onions, fennel, salt, and pepper. Stir regularly or as needed to prevent burning. Let them get caramelized to a medium brown. You'll be waiting around for at least 45 minutes to an hour, so find a chair or something.

4. When the onions and fennel are appropriately brown, add the garlic, mushrooms, and herbes de provence. Stir frequently until mushrooms have browned as well.

5. Add water to the pot and stir thoroughly, making sure to scrape the bottom and mix well. If you want even more flavor, feel free to use stock. Use less water for fewer servings with more veggies, more water for more servings with more broth.

6. When the soup has come back up to a simmer, add ginger to taste. You may use more than I suggested, maybe less. It's all about giving that last bit of balance and fullness to the soup, so you know how much you want. Just keep adding, mixing, tasting, and repeating as needed.

7. When the soup has achieved a zen state of balance, add the spinach. It will reduce in a split second. Cook this for only a minute or two, you want the spinach to remain fresh and green tasting.

8. Ladle into bowls and finish with a sprinkling of the white cheddar.

Notes:

1. Your soup may be a different color and have different sized pieces of fennel/onion than mine. I was running out of time for this preparation and had to rush.

2. Adjust water as needed. Make as much or as little as needed. This batch fed five people two servings with a few meals worth of leftovers.

3. If you have wine on hand, deglaze the pan before adding the water. Enough white wine to coat the bottom of the pot should do it, and will do wonders for the soup.

4. This soup has a surprising flavor. It can have quite a kick to it between the pepper, ginger, and licorice-y fennel.

5. Bread goes really well with this soup, as pictured. Spring for a baugette, you won't regret it.

6. Don't be afraid to mess with things in this. Add meat. Add other veggies. Use different herbs. Serve it in a bread bowl. Just have fun with it.

Now Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding

This post is a little overdue.

During the holiday season I tend to become sentimental and nostalgic, craving those old-timey white Christmases of yore. I like to read Dickens and picture roast goose, roasted chestnuts, sugar plums and of course, figgy pudding.

I'm all about bringing back old traditions of Christmases long ago. Why make a figgy pudding? Why NOT?

I made this recipe twice: once for a pre-Christmas party, once for New Year's Day. Let me tell you, there is no better way to impress your guests than to set a figgy pudding alight and watch it blaze with purple-blue flames.



This recipe has been modified and adapted to suit my sensibilities, tastes, and inclinations against absurdly time-consuming processes such as steaming. This recipe is for a baked pudding, though if you have the time and patience to steam it, be my guest.

Old and New Figgy Pudding
* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 1 egg, beaten
* 1/2 cup molasses
* 1/2 cup honey or maple syrup
* ½ tsp lemon or orange peel, grated (although if you can get candied orange peel, that would be even better)
* 2 cups mixed chopped dried fruit, including figs (other suggestions include dates, apricots, plums, and raisins)
* 1 cup buttermilk
* 1 tsp brandy, plus more for dousing
* 1 tsp salt
* 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
* 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 2½ cups all-purpose flour


In a large bowl, cream the butter.
Add the egg, molasses and honey. Beat thoroughly.
Now, add dried fruit, lemon peel, brandy, and buttermilk. Blend for one minute.
In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together, then stir them into the wet ingredients. Blend thoroughly.

Pour batter into a large greased souffle dish. I would give more specific measurements, but I did this on the fly in unfamiliar kitchens both times, and just made my best guess at what would hold the batter. Err on the side of large for your baking dish. This pudding rises high.

Bake at 325 F for about one hour. Make sure it is baked all the way through. Don't just assume. You'll be sorry.

When ready to serve, douse it in brandy and set it on fire. For a more dramatic effect, turn out the lights beforehand. Don't worry about the flames; they should burn themselves out, but do have a lid on hand just in case. Enjoy, and bask in the awe of all your party guests.

Spice Cabinet

I've had a half dozen potential post ideas to make, but then I realize that fiarly often when I cook, I don't use exact enough measurements to allow these things to be recreated without me hovering over anyone trying to cook and tell them how much of this to put in and how long to cook that. And if I were to do all that for anyone making these recipes, it would be creepily invasive and too much of a demand on my time. So, to stall for another week, I'll talk about my go-to things in my spice cabinet.

I'm beyond lucky to have a new tea and spice store move in downtown in my university town. I could spend so much money in that place. But, since I am a college student and trying to be thrifty, I'm not about to go all out for my spices. I am, however, willing to seek quality spices for a good value if I know I'm going to be using them a lot. So, here's what gets used most in my kitchen:

1. Kosher Salt: Salt gets used in everything. Really. Just try and go into any functional kitchen and see if you can't find a pinch of salt. I use kosher salt for most of my cooking because I like the heft of it, for lack of a better word. I still have regular table salt for baking, brines, and table seasoning.

2. Coarse Black Pepper: Along with salt, pepper is one of those ubiquitous kitchen things that gets tossed in whenever you're seasoning something. It's good for just about anything that needs a bit of a bite, and has a home alongside the salt shaker on the table.

3. Garlic Powder: When you just need a hit of garlic flavor and don't want to bust out a clove and chop, just use a sprinkle.

4. Onion Powder: The same concept as garlic powder, this can add just the hint of onion to sauces, rubs, and savory sautés.

5. Bay Leaf: I used to not see the importance of this little leaf, I mean, what good is a something that you have to take out before you eat? But for broths and sauces, I haven't found a better way of adding a unique and earthy note of flavor that many people won't be able to place. If it's in something traditional, like a macaroni and cheese, people will wonder what your secret is for why yours is so deliciously different.

6. Allspice: This is another thing I didn't quite understand until a little while ago, but now this little berry is something I love to use with any meat and a variety of soups and sauces to give them a bit of a flavor kick. It's something like a cross between a peppercorn and a clove in flavor, and very versatile. I first used it in my Smoked Pork, Buccaneer Style from last year, and it's another one of those things that will give a mystery flavor to whatever you add it to.

7. Basil: This isn't just for Italian food any more. Branch out with some basil eggs for breakfast, or apply this herb to your Indian or Thai cooking. It's a distinctive herb, but try experimenting with it in unlikely places where you need another hit of flavor.

8. Poultry Seasoning: This is a bit of a cop out, since I also use thyme and rosemary fairly often by themselves, but this mix of several different traditionally savory herbs gets placed in a ton of my soups, gravies, sauces, meat seasonings, and a surprisingly large number pies and casseroles. I bet you haven't had a Thanksgiving dinner without at least a bit of poultry seasoning.

9. Cayenne Pepper: There's a ton of options for adding some heat to whatever you cook, but whenever I need to put some fire in my dish, I turn to cayenne pepper. Whether I'm working with a curry, chili, or cheese sauce, I love using this pepper. I have a really strong cayenne pepper, but even with regular cayenne pepper, be careful when handling it and keep it away from your eyes. Really, do be careful with it.

10. Cinnamon: I had to debate whether to put this one here or my honorable mention, but I think cinnamon deserves it. No, it's not just paired with sugar and sweet treats (though that's a good thing to do with it too). Cinnamon also thrives in a savory role, like when used in a rub with beef or in a slightly spicy sauce. Even in a traditionally sweet role, like a crust, cinnamon can complement a savory pie. When I ate at the oldest restaurant in Quebec, their meat pie had cinnamon in the crust that accented the filling so well you couldn't imagine it any other way.

Honorable Mention: Nutmeg: Another spice that tends to get type cast in the apple pie role, this too can find a place in your savory dishes. Sneak it into recipes with meats or sauces, though I tend to pair it with mushrooms whenever I cook with them.

An invaluable complement to these spices is a mortar and pestle. This allows me to buy whole spices and grind them up to smaller bits when I need them. It's really beyond helpful, especially when trying to release the flavor from the leafy herbs. If I'm doing anything where herbs/spices need to be ground in the same recipe that requires salt, I use the kosher salt as a sort of abrasive grit to help with grinding the spices in the mortar and pestle.

These are just a few of the things I use, and it's just an indication of what styles of food I cook most often. I also have curry powder, garam masala, cumin, herbes de provence, dill weed, and a slew of other things I use to make more specialty things. But while every spice cabinet is different and can act as a cook's fingerprint, sometimes you just need to know where to start when building up your first set.

Cheesy Broccoli and Rice Casserole

I believe in the power of the casserole. I actually began to construct an overly elaborate and delicious metaphor relating a casserole to life, but you aren't reading a food blog to hear me go on and on about that. But I will say that I'm on a one man crusade to revive the dying art of the casserole. It is for this reason that I've made a yearly tradition of throwing a dinner potluck called Night of 1000 Casseroles.

Some have called this a hipster party. I can kind of see where they get that from, since we are a large group of college-age people throwing a dinner party around something traditionally uncool and... well, weird. But I will be the first to say that our love for casserole is genuine, so the notes of ridicule and irony traditionally associated with hipster activities aren't even a blip on the radar.

And as I'm on this quest to bring life back into a dying casserole art, I'm not about to introduce something with canned soup mixes or prepackaged fried onion pieces. For this event, I saw a lot of nontraditional casseroles being made, so I decided to put my spin on a more homestyle sort of casserole. So was born the Cheesy Broccoli and Rice Casserole.

Ingredients:

• About 3 cups of cooked basmati rice
• 1/2 cup sliced (or diced) regular white mushrooms
• 1/2 cup diced onion (yellow, white, or any sweet variety)
  
• 1/2 cup vegetable stock (I cook for a lot of vegetarians. Use chicken stock if you want)
• 1 and 1/2 cups of heavy cream
• 12 ounces of broccoli, cut to bite sized pieces
  
• 4 tablespoons of butter
• About 2 cups of a shredded cheddar/jack blend (or just cheeses with a similar bite to them)
• About 1 and 1/2 cups of panko bread crumbs (or regular ones, of those are all you have)
  
• 2 tablespoons of flour
• 2 cloves of minced garlic (more if you like garlic, of course)
• 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  
• Salt and pepper

Procedure:

0.5. Cook your rice now. Please. You don't want to be waiting on it while everything else is cooking. Depending on your rice, if you begin this step just before finishing step #1, your rice should be ready just about when you need it.

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Coat a 1 and 1/2 quart (or similarly sized dish, go bigger if you have to) casserole/glass baking dish in a layer of the butter you have measured out. Melt the remaining butter in a medium sized pot.

2. When the butter is melted, put the onions in along with a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Sauté the onions until they become translucent (i.e., not opaque and pure white, but not fully brown yet... kinda see-through).

3. When the onions are transparent, add the mushrooms, garlic (if you add them any earlier, they might get overcooked), cayenne pepper, and nutmeg. Stir regularly until the mushrooms give up most of their moisture and turn a medium-dark brown.

4. Add in the flour and coat the veggies. Stir this pasty mess for about 2 minutes to get rid of the taste of raw flour. By the way, you're making a roux right now, it's what will thicken the sauce.

5. After 2 minutes, add the vegetable stock and then the cream to the pot. Stir until the sauce is well mixed and there are no chunks of floury roux floating around (there will with chunks of onion and mushroom left, of course). Bring this up to a simmer. You've just made soup much better than you could get out of a can.

6. When the sauce is simmering, add 1 and 1/2 cups of the cheese. Do this a handful or two at a time to allow the cheese to mix in evenly. Add in the broccoli, cooked rice, and 1 cup of the panko and mix well.

7. Take the mixture and put it in the buttered casserole dish, spreading the top to make an even surface. Sprinkle the remaining cheese evenly on the top, followed by sprinkling the remaining panko in a similar fashion.

8. Place the dish in the oven, uncovered, for about 20 minutes or until the top cheese is melted and the panko is a golden brown. Serve hot.

You'll be surprised with how simple this is to pull off compared to how many remarks of "Mmmmmm!" and "Thish ish sho gooad! [chewing noises]" you'll get. Feel free to make little alterations wherever you see fit. While there is some science to casseroles, much of it is an art that you use your instincts for when you feel confident enough about your culinary abilities. Stay tuned for some more of the top casseroles from Night of 1000 Casseroles.

Crockless French Onion Soup

It's been a while since I posted a recipe (mainly because I've been experimenting with things that are really hard to write about and recreate, curry among them). Anyway, because I love the film club I'm a president of so much, I decided that for our pot luck screening of La Reine Margot that I would make them french onion soup. This always sound more pretentious than I intend it to be, but I really haven't been able to eat french onion soup since I had soupe à l'oignon in Paris that I place on my list of the top five things I've ever eaten. So I realized that I was going to be disappointed no matter how good my soup ended up, but got over that fact pretty quickly.

Ingredients:

• 5 onions (Vidalia, mayan sweets, or just regular yellow or white onions)
• 3 tablespoons of butter (but more doesn't hurt...)
• Salt and pepper
  
• At least 2 cups of white wine
• 3 cups beef broth (can be made from bouillon)
• 2 cups chicken broth (can also be made from bouillon)
• A "bouquet garnis" of 1 tablespoon of herbes de provence and 1 bay leaf (see note)
• A baguette
  
• 1 cup of gruyere cheese (shredded)

Note: To make this "bouquet," I improvised... well, a lot. I put the herbs in a coffee filter and tied it off with kitchen string. The point is that you don't want little leafy bits floating around in your soup when it's done, so you use this little packet to get the flavors into the soup without having to skim the herbs off the top. I also toyed with the idea of putting them in my tea ball, so you might want to try one of those and just let the bay leaf go free in the soup (that's easy enough to pick out of anything).

Procedure:

1. Cut the tops and bottoms off the onions. With the bottom of the onion on the cutting board and the top facing up, make thin crescents out of the onion by cutting it as you would a pizza. But instead of making only a few "slices of pizza," make as many as you can manage (I averaged about 26 to 34 "slices" depending on how big the onion was. If you still have trouble visualizing what you're cutting, think of a bloomin' onion, but with smaller petals and cut all the way through.

2. Melt the butter in a large pot. When completely melted, add one layer of onion and lightly salt and pepper it. Add another layer of onion and salt and pepper it the same way, continuing until you run out of onion. Let sweat, covered, on medium low heat for 20 minutes without stirring them.

3. Remove lid and stir. Increase heat to medium and stir the onions occasionally until the onions are dark brown (not burnt, mind you, just really caramelized). This will take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour or beyond, depending on your stove, the onions, and the alignment of the planets, so just tend to them every couple of minutes.

3.5. While the onions are cooking, slice your bread into inch thick pieces. Lay those pieces out on a baking sheet and sprinkle with a layer of the gruyere cheese. Set them aside for now.

4. Once satisfied with the color of the onions, add enough white wine to the pot to cover the onions completely. Turn the heat on high and stir constantly until the wine turns syrupy in consistency (3 to 5 minutes, give or take, depending on how much wine you used).

Side note: The alcohol will cook out of this, that's pretty much what you're trying to do with the heat up so high. But as I learned, the alcohol cooking off goes somewhere, making billowing clouds of steam. Inhaling said steam is like breathing in vaporized alcohol. Just letting you benefit from my white wine facial experience a couple days ago.

5. When the wine has cooked down, lower the heat back down to a medium and add the beef and chicken broths, along with the bouquet garni. Once that's brought up to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer. Let simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

6. Turn your oven's broiler on, and put the sheet with the cheese covered bread underneath the broiler. The bread should only be under there long enough to toast the cheese, so keep an eye on them and remove them before they get burnt, of course.

Serving:

You can probably tell by now, but this recipe has been adapted to suit the general population that doesn't have a set of matching mini crocks for traditional french onion soup. Instead, just take out the bouquet garnis and ladle out individual portions of soup into bowls, then sprinkle with as much of the leftover gruyere cheese as you want. Then plop a piece of the toasted bread (cheese side up) in the bowl and serve.

This version has at least a dozen servings, and can be increased very easily just by adding more onion or more broth. Every component can be stored separately and recombined when ready for any leftovers you might have.

Tips:

• Thinner pieces of onion are easier to get on a spoon.
• I've had good experiences with the "Better Than Bouillon" brand bouillon paste, but those little cubes work well too. For premade broth, I like cartons better than cans.
• Don't stand right over the pan when you add the wine. Really. It will be hard to see during that step anyway, so be prepared.
• Don't forget to take out the bouquet garnis.
• Deeper bowls work better than shallower bowls when serving.
• Your entire living space will smell delicious for a good 24 to 48 hours. Sorry, unintentional side effect.

My film club pot luck contribution was a big success, and resulted in leftovers for quite a while. That was pretty convenient when watching Julie & Julia the day after, craving both french food and blogging about it. So now I've satisfied both parts of that need.