Category: COVID

Breakfast Cookies

My office window, viewed through a breakfast cookie filter.

I don’t know about where you live, but here in Maryland we have just gotten our first glimpse of fall.

This past week overnight temps hovered in the mid-60s, and daytime highs were just around the upper 70s. Dry, clear blue skies, and the beginnings of leaves drifting out of the tops of trees.

I am predicting it here, though: we are in for a big winter. Lots of cold and snow.

This may be dire news for you, but I am here to console you with breakfast cookies. I like a warm, good-smelling house in the fall, and I also like an easy and comforting breakfast in the morning. If we were all rushing off to work and school as in the past, these would be an ideal way to get some food in you on a busy morning, too.

You can also tell yourself that these are good for you – there is very little added sugar, and really, less than that doughnut or French toast you may have been having.

Plus, even though we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, these breakfast cookies are portable bundles of goodness. These days I like to take them with me on hikes. Quick and easy nutrition that’s not filled with preservatives.

And, in the spirit of my Depression-era grandmother, you can use whatever you have on hand for these, pretty much. Make your own granola (Best Granola Recipe included in Recipe Notes), or finish up the dregs of multiple boxes of breakfast cereal, whatever kind you like.

They are simple and ready in about 15 minutes, start to finish.

Breakfast Cookies

This recipe makes 12-14 cookies. I portion them with an ice cream scoop and freeze. Pop them in a preheated oven and you have fresh cookies in 12 minutes.

Ingredients

1/2 cup vegetable/canola oil

2/3 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 3/4 cups flour (see Recipe Notes)

3 cups cereal (granola, multigrain flakes, anything you like – see Recipe Notes)

Method

Preheat oven to 350. Line baking tray with parchment (or silicon sheet) and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine oil and brown sugar and whisk to combine.

Add baking soda and eggs and give it a sturdy whisking until the mixture lightens slightly.

Add flour and mix well with a spatula, the add cereal and mix well with same spatula until well-combined.

Scoop onto a cookie sheet (ice cream scoop works here, or use two heaping tablespoons per cookie). Flatten slightly.

Bake for 8-10 minutes until brown and set. Cool on the pan for one minute, then move to a wire rack and cool completely. OR eat them warm, which is what I do because they smell so good when they are cooking that I cannot wait.

Recipe Notes

Best Granola Ever: Preheat oven to 250. Line baking sheets with parchment. Combine 3 cups oats, 2 cups nuts, 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes in a bowl. In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1/4 cup maple syrup, and 3/4 teaspoon of salt, then pour over oat mixture and stir to combine. Spread on cookie sheets and bake for an hour, stirring every 20 minutes. Remove from oven and add 1 cup dried fruit, any kind, mixing well. THAT’S IT. Substitute any kind of nut or dried fruit, add spices (cinnamon, clove, pumpkin pie spice, etc). Whatever you like.

Feel free to use any flour that floats your boat here, literally. I use my gluten-free AP flour, but I have also used oat and, when still eating gluten, wheat flour. They all work.

As for cereal, use the Best Granola Ever from above, or add literally any other kind of cereal you can imagine. Go as trashy or as healthy as you like.

MAKE THESE VEGAN: Use whatever egg replacer you normally use to replace the two eggs here.

Let’s Just Make It Easy, Shall We? Mixed Citrus Drizzle Cake

Sliced citrus drizzle loaf cake with red grapefruit and orange wedges on a wooden cutting board
Go easy.

FRIENDS. The Great British Bake-Off (The Great British Baking Show in the U.S.) has finished filming their next season, and GOOD LORD do we ever need some GBBO camaraderie.

The Great British Bake-Off is the nicest competition on TV. If you have been living under a rock, you might not know that this show pits 12 or 13 bakers in three specific tasks, one weekend a month for two months until the final baker is crowned the winner and receives…

A cake plate.

That’s it. All the final contestants get the same bouquet of flowers, but the winner gets a cake plate.

Yes, the winning spot comes with some amount of prestige and visibility, but the relatively low stakes means that these genuinely nice-seeming folks are supportive and wonderful with each other. There have been some controversial moments, but in general, the show has maintained its lovely manner.

The Great British Baking Show also gave us Mary Berry.

She likes to drink, and she eats out the side of her mouth, biting the fork every. Single. Time.

Annoying as hell, but one of the things she does that is incredible and revolutionary (besides knowing more about baking than most people forget) she calls the “all-in-one” method.

When it comes to cake, Mary Berry doesn’t cream the butter and sugar and then fuss about alternating dry and wet ingredients. She dumps everything into the bowl and beats the shit out of it, and it all works out fine.

This method, my depleted state, and my belief that we all really need a fucking break, has inspired this cake.

Also, the fact that I have excess citrus in my ‘fridge even though I am not a fan of citrus. You can use whatever you have, to taste.

AND. This cake comes together in less than ten minutes. Seriously. So like the lovely people across the pond, you could theoretically have fresh cake ready by teatime. If you are currently entertaining children at your home or trying to figure out WTF to do with them, this is a great cake for them, too.

Mixed Citrus Drizzle Cake

I am a big fan of using what’s laying around, especially now that going to the store is not always possible. This recipe is all about pantry ingredients. If you choose to use gluten-filled flour, don’t beat the cake batter as much or it will be tough. Otherwise, have at it.

Ingredients

For the cake:

10 tablespoons butter, very soft

1 3/4 cups gluten-free AP flour

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 eggs

6 tablespoons milk (any kind – I used oat twice)

Zest of one grapefruit (see Recipe Notes)

Zest of one orange

For the drizzle:

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup citrus juice (see Recipe Notes)

Powdered sugar (see Recipe Notes)

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter (or spray with cooking spray) an 8″ x 4″ loaf pan and set aside.

Ready? Dump all cake ingredients in one bowl and beat with a hand mixer (or a whisk – your choice) until it becomes light and fluffy.

Pour/shovel/scoop into prepared tin and smooth the top.

Place in oven and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

While the cake is baking, dissolve sugar in the citrus juice. When the cake comes out of the oven, poke holes in the top with a skewer and brush, pour, or spoon the drizzle on top.

Let the cake cool completely in the tin, and then unmold. Sift powdered sugar on top before serving. If you’re fancy and want to be very British, melt chocolate (milk or dark) and drizzle on top instead of powdered sugar.

Recipe Notes

The citrus zest combo is all up to you. I used all grapefruit, one grapefruit and one orange, and lemon for this cake. Mix and match with whatever you have. You are looking for a tablespoon or two of zest for a nice punchy flavor.

Juice is also up to you. If you have straight orange juice, lower the sugar a tad to balance the sweetness. All lemon? Bump it up to make it sharp (as Paul Hollywood says) without searing off your tastebuds.

Thursday Links to Love: May 7, 2020

This was remarkably meditative, and I love it so much. #paperprawn

Well, so here we are in May. How are you?

Depending on where you live, you have been practicing social distancing for almost two months now. It’s unnerving to think of how we will interact with each other when this is sorted. I have a hard time imagining what that first dinner out will be like when the server comes over with gloves and a mask to take the order.

Ah, well. Baby steps.

Below are this week’s links. Take what you need, share this post if you are so inclined, and leave everything else.

Speaking of nothing, check out this trippy five-minute film that imagines what earth would look like as it’s swallowed into a black hole. This quote from the narration by Alan Watts seems particularly important: “Someday this will pass and there will be nothing left… That’s not something to fear because we come from nothing…and from nothing comes something new.”

Looking for something to fill the black hole of your days, those endless stretches of afternoon when you have done allofthethings but still have many hours until you can legit sit in bed with your laptop propped open, watching movies? Make your own paper prawn, then share it online (#paperprawn). I dare you.

The New Yorker (watch out for the stupid paywall) just published an excellent interview with Esther Perel, a Belgian therapist who specializes in intimacy and relationships. If you are new to her work, I also suggest this excellent TEDTalk on the secret to desire in long-term relationships and the book it relates to, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic (shop local – no more Amazon links here).

Seems like everyone has moved from bread to cookies these days, so here’s a recipe from just last year for Daim cookies. They use pantry ingredients  – toffee deliciousness, with or without chocolate. Or you could try these peanut butter sandwich cookies that taste just like Nutter Butters. I made them gluten-free, of course, and I swear to god they are one of the best things I have eaten all year.

Finally, six minutes that remind me of a time when we could, in fact, have nice things. This never fails to make me a little misty-eyed, in the good way that acknowledges the beauty that humans are capable of.

That’s it. What’s up with you this week? Have you made plans to honor thy mother this weekend?

 

Sunny Days = Delicious Lunch

So much deliciousness in one place.

So it’s about 70 degrees outside as I type this from my aerie facing 35th Street in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore.

Just now, I can hear a firetruck and, over that, my neighbor Clarence’s loud voice, booming from his front door as he drinks from a plastic cup that has invariably been filled with something of a high proof since the clock struck 12. He greets everyone, makes small talk, just to be outside in the neighborhood.

It’s a thing, that, the conviviality of a person you don’t know, hailing you from the street as you walk past. He gets louder as the day wears on, and what is now a bit muddy to hear will ring clear as day by the time the sun sets over the yardarm. He is as constant as the sun, out in all weather, and generally one of the things that make daily life in this era feel “normal.”

My day has been filled with an early hike through Druid Hill Park, COVID baking, and this delicious lunch – Warm Lentil and Potato Salad.

The recipe is not mine, but it needs sharing. I made a few changes – you should, too, based on whatever is in your pantry.

To wit:

  • Subbed red onion for shallot
  • Used French lentils (but I think caviar lentils would be incredible here)
  • Subbed kosher dill chips for capers AND gherkins (it’s what I had – spicy pickles would have been nice)
  • Used coarse ground mustard
  • Subbed chives for scallions
  • Used new potatoes that were getting long in the tooth

Fresh herbs may be challenging, but I used parsley, thyme, and chives from my back porch. I imagine you could use dried thyme if you needed to, but the fresh parsley was sort of key.

Serving sizes in the recipe are true. Makes four big dinner servings, especially with a dippy egg cracked on top (which I did not have – see aforementioned COVID baking). I warrant this will be good cold, too, but you could warm it up if you feel so inclined.

Sharp and salty, zingy from the vinegar, and creamy with the flesh of new potatoes, this lunch feels like a healthy hug. I highly recommend it.

What’s on your plate today?

 

Thursday Links To Love: April 23, 2020

Sunset behind clouds as viewed out a rowhouse window
Less pollution = less dramatic sunsets? Here for it. Happy Earth Day.

This week’s Links to Love, friends. I hope you are ignoring the idiot-in-chief’s stupid plans to re-open the country without any plans for widespread testing and no real hope of a vaccination. Please stay safe – stay home.

That said, as always, take what you need from this week’s links and ignore the rest.

“The best way to treat the common cold is with contempt“: only one thing actually works to treat the common cold, and it’s probably not what you think.

I am thinking that these sculptures look how time feels right now.

“Quarantine cooking”: since we are not actually under quarantine, this is a misnomer, but ti’s not going to stop me from making this roasted beet dip with Aleppo pepper crackers. Beets are especially delicious this time of year, and I am here for it.

And I may have missed making these buffalo and bleu deviled eggs for Easter, but since I don’t celebrate Easter it doesn’t really matter. Anything deviled surrounding an organized religion makes me laugh, and although I am not generally a fan of deviled eggs, these are delicious. 10/10 would recommend.

Everybody keeps talking about how much our dogs are going to miss us, but what about cats? I think they are eyeing us with contempt, coming so late as we are to operating on cat time.

Finally, maybe we can take this time to experience some post-traumatic growth. The linked article from The New York Times posits that it’s not the Pollyannas who make it through adversity with no lingering effects – it’s those who take a tragically optimistic outlook. The recommendation by an overwhelming majority of researchers who study this topic of resilience suggests that looking for meaning – not happiness, and especially not happiness via consumer goods –  is the way through this pandemic.

How’s your outlook this week?