Crockpot Baked Beans

"Baked" beans, technically, I guess.

Last summer I started experimenting with baked bean recipes for the Hot Dish barbecue. There are tons of recipes online, using everything from coffee to bourbon to beer, but after a lot of trial and error I think this one is just about perfect. 

Crockpot Baked Beans

Ingredients:

3 14.5-oz. cans Great Northern or other white beans, or 1 lb. dried, pre-soaked white beans
6 slices bacon, cut into pieces (optional for vegetarians)
1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 c. barbecue sauce
1/8 c. apple cider vinegar
1/4 c. molasses
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 tbl. Dijon mustard
1 tbl. maple syrup
1 tsp. salt
2 tbl. Worcestershire sauce

1. Combine all the ingredients; stir.  If you're using dried, presoaked beans, add 1 cup of water; for canned beans, you don't need any additional water.

2. With dried beans, cook around 6 hours on High or 12 hours on Low.  With canned beans, cook around 3 hours on High or 5 hours on Low.

Apple Pear Butter

 

This year I made 24 jars of Apple Pear Butter for neighbors, teachers, and friends.  I started with this recipe for 24-hour Crock Pot Apple Butter from Daring Gourmet, then made a few changes like reducing the sugar and adding nutmeg.  Next time I might try adding allspice, too.

 

Ingredients

- 3 pounds apples, stemmed, cored, cut into quarters (but leave the peels on)

- 3 pounds pears, stemmed, cored, cut into quarters (but leave the peels on)

- 1/2 cup brown sugar

- 1 cup white sugar

- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

- 2 1/2 cups apple cider

- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

 

Instructions

1. Put the apples and pears into a large crock pot, then top with the remaining ingredients and stir.

2. Cook on low for 20 hours, covered, stirring occasionally.

3. Use an immersion blender or other appliance to puree the apple butter to desired consistency.

4. Cook for another 4 hours on low, uncovered, or until at desired thickness.

5. Can in a water bath according to standard canning practices, or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer.

 

Makes about 5 pints.

The Best Cookies of All Time

I made these caramel-stuffed chocolate chip cookies from the blog Table for Two and they are seriously the best cookies I have ever made. 

But most importantly, I made them one week ago, stored them in an airtight container on the counter, and today they are still completely soft.  Apparently the secret is replacing baking powder with cornstarch.  Now I want to try and apply this cornstarch trick to other things, like sugar cookies. 

(These oatmeal cookies from Smitten Kitchen also stay soft a really long time, but I've never gotten it to work with chocolate chip cookies before.)

Favorite Recipes, 2011-2013

In 2011, my mom gave me a weekly meal planning notebook as a Christmas stocking stuffer.  I loved it so much that I asked her for another one in 2012.

I just filled up my first book and before I throw it out, I wanted to make a list of some of our favorite family recipes from that book. 

I'm posting them here in case anyone wants to check them out, but also because I often go to this blog myself when looking for an old recipe (I also keep all my favorite recipes in a binder, but often the laptop is more handy than the binder). 

BREAKFAST AND BRUNCH*

1. Baked oatmeal.  I got this great recipe from my friend Lynley.

Ingredients:
 
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk
2 large eggs
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 apple, grated
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 
Preparation:
 
1.  Preheat oven to 325F.
2. In a large bowl, mix oats, baking powder, and salt.
3. In another bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, brown sugar, grated apple, and cinnamon.  Pour over the dry mixture and stir to combine.
4. Pour mixture into a buttered 8-inch square baking pan.  Bake until liquid is absorbed and top is light golden, about 45 minutes.  

2. Mini Vegetable Frittatas (made in a muffin pan)
3. Raspberry Buttermilk Cake
4. Cauliflower and Caramelized Onion Tart
5. Crumb Cake
6. Strata (using various recipes, including this one and this one)
7. Classic Cinnamon Rolls
8. Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

SOUP AND SALAD

1. Sweet Potato Cauliflower Soup
2. Cauliflower Kale Soup
3. Hearty Pea and Spinach Soup
4. Carrot Soup with Tahini and Crisped Chickpeas
5. Warm Goat Cheese Salad (a combination of this recipe and this one)
6. Kale Salad with Pecorino and Lemon
7. Pickled Beets and Arugula Salad
8. Caramelized Tofu with Sautéed Brussels Sprouts
9. Pork Ramen Soup
10. Italian White Bean and Mustard Greens Soup
11. Tuscan White Bean Soup with Pancetta and Rosemary
12. French Onion Soup
13. Roasted Tomato Soup with Broiled Cheddar

MAIN DISHES

1. Gnocchi, Sweet Corn, and Arugula in Cream Sauce
2. Whiskey and Triple Pork Black Bean Chili
3. Slow-Cooker Asian Baby-Back Ribs with Udon Salad
4. Pan-Seared Scallops with Corn Coulis
5. Tuna and White Bean Salad, usually as a sandwich
6. Slow-Cooker Coffee-Braised Brisket with Potatoes and Carrots
7. Chicken Pot Pie Empanadas
8. Beef Potato Hand Pies
9. Spicy Rainbow Chard with Bacon and Polenta
10. Shredded Pork Tacos
11. Spring Risotto with Peas and Zucchini
12. Sloppy Joe's
13. Fish Tacos (a combination of this recipe and this one)
14. Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce
15. Crab cakes from Trader Joe's, with tomato salad and biscuits

SIDES

1. Cauliflower Puree with Chickpeas
2. Roman-Style Artichokes
3. Small Whole Green Lentils from Trader Joe's, following the recipe on the back of the bag. A lot of times we top these lentils with a poached egg for a complete dinner. Also great with the Trader Joe's Balsamic Glaze.
4. Southern Greens Blend from Trader Joe's, following the recipe on the back of the bag
5. Cole Slaw (courtesy of Mina)

DESSERTS

1. Peach Blueberry Buckle
2. Smores Treats
3. Pink Lemonade Bars
4. Coconut Thumbprint Cookies with Salted Caramel Centers
5. Pumpkin Bread Pudding
6. Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting
7. Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies
8. Pumpkin Cookies (I leave off the chocolate glaze)
9. Oatmeal Cookies
10. Roasted Chestnut Cookies

(I should also give a shout out to Mango Chicken, the absolute worst thing I've made in the past two years, and maybe the only dinner so bad that we immediately threw it away without eating it.)

Now to fill up book #2...

* I especially like breakfasts that are make-ahead and portable, things like baked oatmeal squares and mini frittatas, because on school days the kids eat breakfast in the car.

 

Making grape jelly

Fancy grape photography

Last week I harvested about ten pounds of grapes from the vines in our side yard (eight pounds of which were from a single super-productive vine).  We ate a few pounds, gave the shriveled or damaged ones to the chickens, and still had six pounds left to make into grape jelly.

Honestly, I've never really liked grape jelly that much, but I wasn't sure what else to do with grapes besides jelly, raisins, or wine, so we gave it a try.  I used the recipe from this awesome cookbook, which I highly recommend - it's also where I got my unbeatable recipe for pickled beets.

Essentially, we started by cleaning, sorting, and stemming all the grapes (Beatrice helped me with this part).  Then we added water and boiled them down to a mushy pulp.  Then we strained that mushy pulp overnight in little cheesecloth bags tied over a colander. 

In the morning, we had this:

Then we boiled that grape syrup with sugar and lemon juice until it thickened, canned it, and let it rest for about 24 hours to set.  Of course, I'm skipping the many, many arduous steps involved in sterilizing and sealing the jars.

It took about four hours overall, but most of that time was just waiting for 32 quarts of water to boil. 

Sterilizing the jars

In the end, it turned out pretty well.  I like the flavor more than commercial grape jelly, or maybe I'm telling myself that because I spent a total of two days working on it.  But it's tart, not too sweet, with a nice lemony aftertaste.  Unfortunately it didn't set up firmly enough. I was going to give some jars away to friends, but I think it's too runny to make a nice gift, so we'll just keep this batch at home.  All eight jars of it.

Runny jelly

Maybe next year we'll try raisins...

*A friend suggested I try adding chia seeds to firm it up - I think I'll try that tonight and see if it works.

I made paneer!

Using this recipe and it turned out great.

I added this batch to some baingan bharta inspired by a dinner Naresh made for us in Dallas last week.

Shrubs!

I am obsessed with this cranberry shrub (recipe from Sunset).  I've been making it almost every week since November and mixing it with sparkling water, vodka, or gin.  It's absolutely wonderful.

 

Ingredients

 

12 ounces fresh or frozen cranberries
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions

1. Bring all ingredients to a simmer with 2 cups water in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring often. Reduce heat to low and cook 5 minutes until most of the cranberries have burst.

2. Strain mixture, pressing liquid out of pulp using the back of a spoon. Discard pulp. Chill at least 1 hour. Store for up to 3 months.

Tonight I made what will probably be my last batch.  Now that it's already in the 70s here, cranberries seem a little too wintery, so I'm going to experimenting with spring shrubs instead, maybe something with pomegranate, apricots, or berries.

Winter Recipes

 

Carrot soup with lemon-tahini and toasted chickpeas

Apparently all I've been making lately is soup and cookies.

1. Caramelized tofu with shredded Brussels sprouts 

2. Cauliflower sweet potato soup

3. Lemony lentil soup

4. Caramelized shallots

5. Carrot soup with lemon-tahini and toasted chickpeas

6.  Italian white bean and mustard greens soup

7. This is absolutely the best recipe for oatmeal cookies you will find.

8. Roasted chestnut cookies (I've mentioned these before.)

Coconut thumbprint cookies with salted caramel centers

9. Mexican hot chocolate cookies (These too.)

10. Vanilla bean cupcakes with salted caramel frosting

Christmas Gifts: Limoncello

Every Christmas I tell myself, "next year I'm going to make all of my gifts in June, so when the holidays roll around again I can relax," and every June I completely fail to do so.  Well, I didn't make all my gifts in June this year, but I did make some of them.

Dev and I started making limoncello this summer using a recipe from our friend Mike Pruett.

We started by zesting 144 lemons from our wonderful backyard tree (or about two-thirds of the total number of ripe lemons on the tree at that time). 

Then we soaked all the zest in 12 liters of Everclear 151-proof grain alcohol and let it sit in a cool, dark place for a little over two months, occasionally shaking up the jars to keep them mixed.  (Dev also juiced the zested lemons to make lemonade for Beatrice and Arthur's birthday party.)

In early August we strained out all the zest and refrigerated the liquid. 

Then we combined 36 cups of sugar and 36 cups of water (in four large pots, one on each burner) and placed them over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar was completely dissolved.  Then we cooled and refrigerated the syrup.

When the syrup and the alcohol were both cold, we mixed them together and left them in the refrigerator for another four months.  This week we filled and labeled 72 pint jars and started distributing them to everyone we know.  Merry Christmas!

Summer Baking

 

Now that it's more or less fall here in L.A, I wanted to round-up the best desserts I made over the past summer.

1. Peach pie*

I know I'm bragging here, but this was the best pie I've ever made and one of the best I've had.  I used the full five-hour Baking Illustrated recipe.  Some of their recipes are needlessly complicated (I'm thinking here of their Dutch apple pie recipe, where they add a lot of time-consuming extra steps that actually make the pie worse) but this time, it was really worth doing it the hard way.  I think one of the key things was using potato starch as a thickener instead of the usual tapioca, the consistency was really good.

2. Smores bars
By contrast, these are incredibly easy, and great for summer because they don't require baking.  It's just a Rice Krispy treat only made with Golden Grahams, marshmallows, and chocolate chips, perfect for parties and bake sales.  The recipe I linked to suggests dark chocolate chips but I prefer milk chocolate - I love dark chocolate but it overpowers these bars and besides, milk chocolate comes closer to the classic original Smores.

3. Pink lemonade bars
I loved these bars from Smitten Kitchen - the pink color comes from pureed raspberries.

4. Coconut thumbprint cookies with salted caramel centers
I made these for Hot Dish and they were a big hit.  I made the first batch way too big, though, they are very rich and a little goes a long way.

Now on to fall!  Tonight I'm making pumpkin cinnamon rolls.

* Page 193.  I'm too lazy to type it all out but if you want the recipe let me know and I can scan it for you.

Cooking from the Garden

My first experiment with pickling! I made these pickled beets from beets we grew in our garden and I have to say, they turned out wonderfully! Even Dev, who doesn't usually like beets, liked these.  We've already eaten the entire first crop of beets but I'm starting a second round so we'll have more opportunities to experiment with pickling recipes in the fall. 

(This is the pickle recipe I used, and we also used some of the pickled beets to make the Pickled Beet and Arugula Salad mentioned on the same page.  Both are from The Art of Preserving, a cookbook I've been wanting to buy.)

I also turned six pounds of our tomatoes into pasta sauce using a combination of this recipe and this one.  Specifically,

Ingredients
Olive oil
6 pounds fresh tomatoes
3 heads garlic, peeled and minced
12 tablespoons salted butter
1 cup vermouth
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Spray the baking dish with baking spray, or rub lightly with olive oil. (I used olive oil spray.)

Chop the tomatoes roughly but evenly. Spread them on the baking sheet. Top with minced garlic, a drizzle of olive oil, and some kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cut the butter into small cubes and scatter evenly over the tomatoes.

Bake the tomatoes for 2 to 3 hours. (I baked mine about 2.5 hours but probably could have gone longer.)

Remove the tomatoes from the oven and process them through a food mill to remove seeds and skins. If you don't have a food mill, try pressing the tomatoes through a mesh sieve using a rubber spatula.  (I used the sieve technique and it worked very easily.)

Pour tomato pulp into a large saucepan and add vermouth, then add water to reach desired consistency.  Bring this to a boil, reduce to simmer, and cook for an hour.

The sauce turned out great but didn't make nearly as much as I'd envisioned it would - I had planned to freeze what was left over but it really only made enough for one meal.  I had been inspired by Mina canning 40 pounds (!) of tomatoes but unfortunately even though I can generate forty pounds of tomatoes over the course of the summer, I can't do so all at once, so 5-6 pound batches are about my limit.

I started out the summer with the laughable fear that I would have so many vegetables that I'd have to pickle them, can them, or give them away just to keep up, but the reality is a bit different. Some things, like tomatoes, are pretty abundant, and for other things, like zucchini, we were lucky to get a single serving's worth of produce. The garden is so much fun, but I don't think it will replace the grocery store any time soon.  Still, it's a great hobby and it's certainly been very educational for Beatrice to follow a tomato all the way from seed to spaghetti sauce.

Tomatoes, peppers, and okra from the garden (it's not as much as it looks)

Recent Recipes

(Martha Stewart)

On Sunday afternoons I write out the dinner menu for the coming week (using the wonderful meal planning notebook my mom got me for Christmas), usually incorporating two or three new recipes I get from magazines or cooking blogs. Since they're new recipes, it's hit or miss - most are enjoyable enough to eat for one meal but not good enough to make again, and a few are actually pretty bad - but I've found some real winners in the last few months:


1. The already-extolled Cauliflower Kale Soup (Martha Stewart)
2. Slow-Cooker Asian Baby-Back Ribs With Udon Salad (Real Simple)
3. Whiskey and Triple Pork Black Bean Chili (Sunset)
4. Hearty Pea and Spinach Soup (Martha Stewart)

(Real Simple)

(Sunset)

Looking over these now, I notice they are all fairly heavy winter foods; it's time to change gears and start looking for hot weather dinners instead.

Also, I've been making Thai curries every week for months now but so far none of them have been particularly good - any recipe suggestions would be much appreciated.

Christmas Gifts: Bread Jars

Best idea ever, from Sunset magazine:

We gave these to Beatrice's teachers this year - each jar is filled with all the dry ingredients to make Chocolate Chip & Oatmeal Quick Bread.

It's pretty much the easiest gift ever - you don't even bake anything - just buy glass jars, fill them, and package them with the accompanying recipe. I am definitely doing this every year.

Cauliflower Kale Soup

I just made the most wonderful soup, from the January 2012 edition of Martha Stewart Living. It's fast, cheap, easy, and healthy - perfect for my current post-holiday-excess-New-Year's-Resolution-fueled vegetable binge.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped (I used more like 6 cloves)

Sea salt

1 medium head of cauliflower, cut into one-inch pieces

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill (I omitted this because I didn't have any)

5 large kale or collard leaves, roughly chopped (I used kale, maybe more like 6 leaves)

(Very slightly edited) Directions:

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat; cook onion until soft, 4 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and salt, and cook for 3 minutes more. Add cauliflower, and pour in water until it just covers the cauliflower.

2. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer until cauliflower is just tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in greens and simmer about 3 more minutes. (I also added more salt here.)

3. Puree soup in a blender until smooth.

And that's it! 5 ingredients and 3 steps.

I was pretty skeptical about using only water instead of stock and/or cream but the soup is incredibly rich and flavorful, you would never know it's vegan. And it doesn't have any of the bitterness sometimes associated with kale, it's very creamy and slightly sweet. Even Dev liked it.

A New Favorite Soup

I used our last four pounds of this year's garden tomatoes* to make Roasted Tomato Soup with Broiled Cheddar (from Smitten Kitchen, my favorite cooking blog) and it was incredibly good, perfect for late summer/early fall. I made it almost exactly as directed except I doubled the amount of garlic. Highly recommended!

*We didn't grow plum or Roma tomatoes this year so I used Early Girl tomatoes instead; it turned out just great, though probably with a slightly different texture than you would have gotten with plum tomatoes.

Boxing Day Party

I'm lucky enough to still be in close touch with my best friends from elementary school, junior high, and high school: Summer, Lynley, Stephanie, Amy Turner, and Amy Robb. I've known them for more than two decades.

Every year we try to get together when everyone is in town for Christmas; this year I hosted a cookie exchange party.

Everyone baked or bought cookies, brownies, or candy (plus a few savory appetizers) and we enjoyed them with mulled wine and cider.

I made my new favorite cookie recipe, roasted chestnut cookies, as well as Mexican hot chocolate cookies.

Any cookies we didn't finish tonight we exchanged and boxed up to bring home.

Boxes to bring home cookies

This year I also made terrarium ornaments for all my friends.

great greens

I just made greens tonight with a recipe from the back of the Trader Joe's mixed cooking greens bag and they were really wonderful. The mix is collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, and spinach.

The (slightly modified) recipe:

1 lb. of mixed cooking greens
1 white onion, chopped
1/2 cup green onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup V8 juice (the original recipe called for tomato juice)
1 cup chicken broth (the original recipe called for vegetable broth)
salt, pepper, and marjoram to taste

1. Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until the onions are translucent.
2. Add the V8 juice and broth, bring to a boil.
3. Add the greens and simmer, covered, for about 30 mins.

That's it! Very easy and very, very good. I've rarely been this excited about mustard greens.