Failed attempt 1 at Peach Nirvana

I am working on developing a recipe for "Peach Nirvana" as a sort of cobbler for a science fiction story my wife and I are writing. Long story. At least so far, but we aren't done writing it yet. The cook in the story makes a cobbler for the crew that is a hit.

My first attempt was to adapt the Lemon Wedges over Shortbread recipe with the peach syrup and peaches in place of the lemon juice and zest. I cut the sugar in half since there is a lot of sweetness in the syrup and peaches and none of the sour of the lemon to contend with.

Little known fact, peaches are bigger and juicier than shavings of lemon zest. Word.

FAIL

But there were some lessons learned.

Never give up. Never surrender. 

Lemon wedges on shortbread

Wanted to bring a little something to a party and realized I hadn't had lemon squares in a long while. Dug around for a recipe, and didn't see anything familiar, so I decided to try the one from The New Best Recipe Cookbook.

It was quite rich but very flavorful with good balance between the filling and the crust.

Spring scramble: sausage potato spinach

My lady asked for potatoes and sausage. This is what I came up with. 

This time I pulled out my cast iron. I like the way it turned out. I often make something similar in stainless steel. So, to your own liking I suppose.

Steam quartered potatoes until tender.
Fry up sausage, chopped green onion in butter and bacon drippings. Add chopped apple, prepared potatoes, roasted carrots (previously frozen).
Set the oven on low heat 150º-200º F and put tortillas on an oven safe plate with another upside down on top as a cover.

French bread pudding

I got this recipe from my good friend Dawn who says it is a combination of ones she found in The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Book of Desserts and one from a Better Homes & Gardens recipe.

Bread Pudding recipe needed

I had some fantastic bread pudding last night. If you have a recipe that you like for bread pudding that you are willing to share, please do so in the comments. It seems like there is a tremendous variety of approaches to bread pudding so I am interested in doing some exploring of the space of possibilities. So even if you don't have a favorite recipe, what do you think makes a good bread pudding?

The one I had last night tasted like a combination of boiled custard and french toast and was really delightful, light, moist, and comforting. Seemed like an excellent summer desert or decadent breakfast. I suspect that later in the year when things turn cold again, it would be nice to have something a little more substantial. Maybe with some dried cranberries and more spices and a little denser.

Some recipes on line I may explore:

• Wikibooks: has a straightforward recipe that looks a little dry in the photo
• Pioneer Woman: Bread Puddding with sourdough bread cubes and pecan topping and a Whiskey Cream Sauce
• There look to be a lot of recipes at Betty Crocker
• Traditional recipes for amish bread pudding, and english bread and butter pudding

Any thoughts welcome ...

Apple Bacon German Pancake

Another take on one of my favorite breakfast foods, the german pancake, but this time with bacon!

Hazelnut Almond Cookies

I had rather a lot of egg whites to turn into almond cookies. Rather more in fact than I had almond meal on hand in the fridge. So I experimented with replacing 1/3 of the almond meal with hazelnut meal. I like the look and texture that resulted. Gave the cookies a little more depth.

For 3 egg whites, use 1 1/3 cups almond meal 2/3 cup hazelnut meal, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, and a pinch of salt.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees -- low and slow.

Whip the egg whites with a little cream of tartar to stiff peaks. Whip in sugar and vanilla. Fold in nut meals.

Scoop batter onto lined baking sheets. I like to use an scoop. You could spoon them on for a more irregular surface.

Bake at 300 degrees until set and just starting to brown. About 30 minutes, but times vary.

I have noticed a lot of variation from batch to batch depending on the ratios of eggs to meal to sugar. You can get something more like a meringue or more like a cookie.

Chocolate Pudding from scratch

Pudding didn't used to come from a box.

I like chocolate.
I like eggs, and have a steady supply.
I like cream.

Let us combine these to make pudding, but what to do with the leftover whites ...?

The almond cookies use egg whites.
This pudding uses egg yolks.
A match made, well, in the kitchen.

Vorax Egg Muffin

A friend brought us some sourdough English muffins from the Bay Area. So, we had to come up with some special way to enjoy them. I had some leftover lunchmeat and cheese so I decided to make a breakfast sandwich.

This is not gluten-free, vegetarian, locavore, paleo, low-carb, low-fat, or raw food. But it is quite tasty and satisfying. And maybe every once in a while, life should just be tasty and satisfying.

First assemble the ingredients. Then realize you forgot the turkey after you took the picture. I had some nice pastrami from Grocery Outlet that were the ends from large deli rolls.

Pancakes from scratch

I was in a "no recipe" mood this morning, and my wonderful wife asked for pancakes. (Go ahead, twist my arm.... OK, you can stop now. You had me at "pancakes").

Today I wanted to go with something a little eggier and to experiment with whipping the egg whites.

Ham and cheese potato pancakes

I have a steady stream of potatoes coming in from our CSA so we cooked up our backlog into mashed potatoes. I have been trying to come up with some new ways to incorporate them into other meals as an ingredient.

Today's experiment: potato pancakes with ham, cheese, and leeks.

Pi-tato pi-ttata for Pi Day

In honor of Pi Day I wanted some pi themed lunch. With mashed potatoes staring me in the face as I opened he fridge I wondered about a potato frittata, or rather, a pi-tato pi-ttata!

Apple Butter Thick German Pancake

When a Thin German Pancake just won't cut it, it is time to break out the thick german pancake.

The original recipe called for apples browned in butter and brown sugar.  I often make them with peaches. We don't have any apples at the moment, but do have the memories of applies ensconced as apple butter. So, with a healthy dose of "What could happen?" opened the apple butter and this is what happened ....

Thin German Pancake

I make two different dishes that are each called a German Pancake, but are quite different. One is a thick cake, baked with fruit in the bottom and flipped when served. That is not what I am talking about today. Today I am talking about the thin cake that I used to love to get at Elmer's before a good friend gave me a lovely kit with the ingredients and a recipe so I could make one myself.

These are similar to the ones I blogged about in muffin tins last year.

The 30-minute scrambled egg

In my reading through Cooking for Geeks, I have been inspired to do a lot of experimenting with eggs.

One technique that sounded interesting was for a 30-minute scrambled egg that ends up with the consistency of cream cheese. It took a couple tries to get it since care needs to be taken to keep the pan from going over 160 degrees (when the yolks start to form curds) but if you are much below that temperature it takes forever. So I ended up trying a couple different double boiler systems. Using a regular double boiler was easiest, but trying to clean it after was quite a chore. I like the setup best (pictured) with a small pan in a pan of water with an upside-down plate between.

Next time: In the end, I'm not sure it is worth the work, but I'll keep thinking about where I would use this as an ingredient in something else. Anything I make with cream cheese will be a tempting target.

Zucchini experiments

I have been trying to cook at least one zucchini a day since it is that-time-of-year. I also seem to have rather a lot of onions on hand, so I have been delighted to discover how well zucchini and onion play together. And in a fit of madness I added some BBQ sauce because that seemed like a good idea at the time -- and I love the way it worked out.

Saute with eggs, topped with gouda, sungold tomatoes, red pepper

Saute in progress with browned sausage, roasted red pepper

Zucchata Frittini

The Master Gardeners had zucchini themed snacks at a recent tour of Zenger Farms and I decided to make a zucchini frittata. I followed my basic formula for a greens frittata but without the leafy greens. I also though they would make better finger food if I made them in a rectangular pyrex pan rather than the round pie pan I usually use. I liked how that worked out.

Signing up for a Meat CSA

I'm defrosting the freezer right now so we can stock up on the summer harvest. And so we can get some more meat.

We are soon going to get our first box from Deck Family Farms with:

• 10lbs of Grass fed beef; 50% ground, 12% steaks, 38% everything else; ribs, roasts, stir-fry, & stew
• 5lbs of Pasture Raised Pork; bacon, sausages, shoulder, chops, ham.
• 2lbs of Pasture Raised Spring Lamb
• 8lbs of Pasture Raised No Soy! Roasters
• 1 dozen eggs

Looking forward to the variety.
Need to figure out what to do with lamb...

Almond Cookies Gluten Free

In the interest of experimenting with Gluten Free baking, for my GF friends, I hunted for an almond cookie recipe. This is the one I came up with for today's experiment from http://www.gluten-free-around-the-world.com:

I thought they turned out pretty nice. A little chewy, a little nutty.