Category: dessert

Cleaning Out The Pantry: Chocolate Covered Stuffed Dates (With Smoked Salt)

Snow day snacks for DAYS.

Happy 2019. I’m back.

While you guys have been busy blowing off your resolutions and scraping snow off your cars, I have been making money moves. Taking care of business. Planning ahead. Reaching for the stars. Attaining goals.

Ha. Just kidding. That isn’t even remotely close.

I have been doing what I do every January since I became an adult: spending zero cash dollars, watching lots of movies, and cleaning out the pantry.

In December, I stock up on food goods like the apocalypse is pending (which it very well may be, but this is not a political blog only just sometimes, but I am trying to write something nice, so I am not going to go there because if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all, but, by the way, fuck 45, and why is this country not in full-scale revolution yet? And also I am glad I am not flying anytime soon, because those TSA workers and ATC are about to not give a rat’s ass about that gun in your luggage and landing your little old plane. But I digress.).

Something about the short days and cold nights makes me fill the freezer and pantry beyond all rational use for a house that now consists of two people, one of whom would rather scrape change from the couch cushions for UberEats souvlaki than spend ten minutes actually cooking herself something, and the other one of whom (me) eats maybe once a day and mostly snacks all the other times.

So because I am pathologically incapable of throwing anything out, I force myself to eat in all of January and only buy fresh veg and household necessities. I have a box of frozen gluten-free pizza from Costco (three pizzas), and if I am careful I will make it to February with those (#priorities), but otherwise, everything else is straight from the pantry.

We have had some epic meals already, starting with spicy lentils over cornbread, topped with a fried egg, for New Year’s Day, and braised spinach with chickpeas, sun-dried tomatoes, and lemon over rice for this recent snow day. I have made three batches of scones, each one better than the last, and I am thinking of going for another in the next few days (except my gluten-free AP flour is running out and cannot be replaced until February 1, and I might want waffles at some point).

I have also added the wrinkle of not buying any sugar, but that’s not going great. Scratch that. It’s going fine, except I had a lot of sugar in the house to begin with, so we’re set and buying extra wasn’t necessary. But I have eaten less sugar this month than normal in general (minus the three candy bars I had this weekend but that doesn’t count because it was a snow day anyway, and I was not at my house).

Today, I wanted something sweet but not too complex to make and fairly immediately gratifying. Something I could justify making and writing about instead of actually doing work I get paid for because today I don’t really feel like writing, but I have to anyway, so if I write and then take a little break that seems fair, right?

RIGHT.

So this is that. I have a bag of pitted Deglet Noor dates (also from Costco. Damn you, Costco!), a jar of honey peanut butter, some vegan chocolate chips, and some applewood smoked salt.

COME AT ME, BRO. These bitches are incredible. And it’s easy to make them with whatever you have. Medjool dates are bigger and sweeter but would be easier to stuff. Almond butter would be delicious (or any kind of nut butter – I toyed with the idea of making some homemade pistachio butter for this, but nixed it due to lack of motivation and the aforementioned immediate gratification). If dark chocolate is your jam, have at it; same with white chocolate, but also how dare you. Salt makes it better, so try different kinds.

All measurements are guesses. I used just enough peanut butter to leave some for toast if I felt like it later in the month.

Chocolate Covered Stuffed Dates With Smoked Salt

Ingredients
15 dates, pitted (fewer if the dates are bigger)
Peanut butter
1 cup chocolate chips (see Recipe Notes)
2 teaspoons coconut oil
Smoked salt (or flaky fleur de sel)

Method
Using a spoon or a clean finger (naughty), stuff each date with about 1/2 teaspoon peanut butter and place in freezer to chill for about 15 minutes.

While the dates chill, melt chocolate chips and coconut oil in a saucepan, stirring until smooth.

Use a toothpick to dip each date into the chocolate until covered. Place on parchment paper and set in the fridge for a couple minutes before sprinkling each with salt (to taste).

Eat immediately, or keep sealed in the fridge for a couple days.

Recipe Notes
*You could say, for the sake of argument, that if you had melted chocolate chips left, that adding the same volume of coconut oil and stirring to combine would be a good idea. Pour this into a jar and leave on the kitchen counter, then come down late at night when you want some ice cream in bed, and pour that over the ice cream, and you have homemade Magic Shell that is pretty much the best thing ever. You could definitely say that.

Deconstructed Nutella Biscotti

 

Hello, lover.

As is my regular custom, I am examining the contents of my brain and the manner of my creative practice.

Perhaps it’s seasonal or cyclical; whichever the case may be, I seem to routinely look around for something – anything – to explain why a creative brain works the way it works. I am reading Creativity: How the Brain Works by Jonah Lehrer right now, mixing it up between trashy novels and books on NaNoWriMo (No Plot? No Problem! is a mainstay these days).

Turns out, I am writing a novel in November.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo mentioned above) challenges people with no prior experience and no good sense to crank out 50,000 words of fiction in 30 short days (1,667 words a day for those keeping track). You may not know this about me, but my fiction writing is crap. However, I see this as a writing exercise, a way to stretch my creative writing muscles and perhaps come up with something different from what I have been doing –  a new approach, genre, or entree into something expansive and good.

To kick off this process, I am deconstructing my creative practice and the manner in which I express myself through this blog and in other ways (e.g., cooking, photography, the occasional painting). I am intensely curious about why people do what they do, most specifically in this case creative people. In Imagine, there is a lot of research about how one of the mechanisms of our brain, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPC), is responsible for impulse control (as well as cognitive function and flexibility). These mechanisms are not quite formed in children and teenagers, which is why we want to push their faces in so much of the time.

In adults, impulse control is perhaps too well-established. We have forgotten how to “dance as if no one is watching.” While everyday people have no real issues with this, for creatives types, this is highly problematic. It is impossible to let go and write paint draw dance sing play if you continually run up against the wall of your own self every time you pick up the instrument of your art.

The good news is that when we take ourselves out of everyday life, not only does our impulse control loosen a wee bit (think the excessive amount of drinking and cavorting that occurs on your average vacation versus everyday life), but we also become more innovative and creative. But you don’t need to fly across the globe to responsibly (and affordably) shut off your impulse control. Novel experiences (get it? NOVEL experiences?) can inspire your brain to lighten up a bit. This could be as simple as walking down a different street or looking at a piece of art. Additionally, boring and mundane tasks allow us to relax a bit in the prefrontal cortex. It is true that some of the best ideas occur in the shower – your brain is not so busy monitoring and dissecting every little piece of sensory input and can relax into new thoughts and ideas.

Side note: The majority of this blog was dictated into my phone on the way down to Virginia from Baltimore to take my mom out to lunch for her 75th birthday. Turns out, long road trips are also a good tool to relax the brain’s firm grip on reality. Just ask Jack Kerouac.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is, of course, a novel at the end, but that’s it. Quantity over quality in this case. Imagine also points out that in terms of quality, the most creative people are also the most prolific, producing vast quantities of insufferable crap for each polished gem. So that is encouraging for two reasons:

  1. It does not have to be good, which releases me from any kind of judgment as far as ability goes, which is nice because I have that creativity-stifling characteristic in spades.
  2. Also, Imagine notes that when you think too much about what you are doing the ideas stop flowing and creativity suffers. This is also positive because in addition to the 50,000 words of the crap novel I am about to write, I also have to write my standard 35,000-50,000 words of non-crap that I actually get paid for. So the goal of 1,667 words every day just has to come, loose and easy.

One of the suggestions the NaNoWriMo people make (presumably for people with full-time jobs and multiple young children running around) is to stock up on snacks and treats with which to fortify yourself. This is not, they say, the month to get fancy or complicated with your nourishment. So in honor of the month, and the deconstruction, again, of my creative practice, I present these amazing morsels that just get better as they sit.

It’s fashionable to badmouth Nutella, I think. It reminds me about how people talk shit about Obamacare but when each part of it is broken down they love it. So if I call these toasted hazelnut and chocolate biscotti, I bet haters would convert because they are far more delicious than they perhaps have any right to be. They taste like a big spoonful of Nutella, minus the rainforest-killing palm oil and questionable texture.

See you in December!

Deconstructed Nutella Biscotti

(makes between 12 and 17)

Ingredients

1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

1 1/2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour

1 cup almond flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup olive oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, chopped (get fancier if you like; this is what I had in the house)

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Toast whole hazelnuts in a dry skillet over medium heat until they begin to smell nutty (and maybe brown slightly). Remove from heat and let cool. Rub as much of the papery skin off as you can, then coarsely chop and set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine flours, salt, and baking powder and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine sugars, olive oil, and eggs and mix thoroughly. Use a spatula to add flour, completely incorporating both mixtures.

Add hazelnuts and chopped chocolate and mix completely.

Divide dough into two and place on parchment paper. Shape into six-inch logs that are about three inches wide.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until firm and golden brown.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 200 degrees.

Using a serrated knife, slice each log into one-inch slices. Place sliced side down on the parchment paper and bake again until fully crisped, turning over once, for a total of about 30 minutes – maybe more. Some days I slice the biscotti too thick and it takes longer, or I don’t cook them enough the first time and it takes longer. You are looking for a dry texture. They will continue to dry out as they cool. You can even bake for 30 minutes and then turn the oven off, leaving the biscotti in there to continue to dry out.

Let cool thoroughly. Store in airtight container, or give away. You can’t really go wrong.

Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

I like sweet things, and I cannot lie.

Don’t get me wrong; I can cook the hell out of some savory food. Enchiladas, arepas, ramen: I know it doesn’t seem like I ever cook dinner, but I totally do. But I love sweet things. I love to make them and eat them and give them away.

It seems fitting for the last three days of summer to feature just one more ice cream recipe, and this one is a doozy. The Honey-Hopped Ice Cream of last month came about when I got fresh Cascade hops from Redwing Farm in West Virginia. This month’s ice cream is also straight outta the Pacific Northwest. The Kid visited relatives in Washington State last August and came back with contraband: chocolate mint clippings, wrapped in a soggy paper towel and sealed in a Ziploc for the trip. I tossed them in some soil and sort of forgot about them. Fast forward over a year to a lush window box filled with fresh chocolate mint, a little leggy but bursting with chocolatey flavor.

Add a big carton of heavy cream about to turn and some leftover chocolate, and good lord. This ice cream is deeply chocolate, not too sweet, and richly flavored and scented with mint.

Served with Frank’s Holy Bundt, which was quite unnecessary and yet somehow very necessary at the exact same time. A fitting goodbye to a busy summer.

Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Tons of variations here. You can use plain mint. You can vary the type of dairy. You can eliminate the cocoa powder (but reduce the sugar to 3/4 cup). If you cannot find chocolate mint, plain will do just fine.

Ingredients

3 cups heavy cream

1 cup whole milk

1 packed cup fresh chocolate mint leaves

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

6 egg yolks

pinch salt

3/4 cup chopped chocolate (see Recipe Notes)

Method

Heat heavy cream and milk in a saucepan over medium heat until bubble form around the sides. Add fresh mint leaves and cover. Steep for at least 45 minutes.

While the mint is steeping, whisk together sugar, cocoa powder, egg yolks, and salt in a large bowl. It will form a paste (which is fine. Don’t panic.).

Strain mint leaves out of the cream/milk mixture and then back into the saucepan. Heat again until bubbles form. Remove from heat.

Here is the tricky part. Go slowly.

Pour a thin, trickling stream of cream/milk into the egg/sugar/cocoa mixture, whisking constantly as you do. It may be challenging to loosen up the egg/sugar/cocoa paste at first, but continue to go slowly. You don’t want to scramble your eggs.

Once all of the cream/milk is incorporate, place strainer over the saucepan and strain mixture through. This will catch any stray scrambled egg bits if you have them.

Turn heat to low, and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens (about ten minutes). Take this step slowly as well or your eggs will scramble.

Remove from heat and strain once more into a clean bowl. Cover the surface of the mixture with plastic wrap and chill thoroughly, at least four hours (but overnight is fine, too).

Once your mixture is chilled, process according to your ice cream maker’s directions. Add the chopped chocolate in for the last five minutes.

Freeze for a couple of hours, then share with people you love.

Recipe Notes

  • If you eliminate the cocoa, cut the sugar to 3/4 cup as noted above or your final product will be way too sweet.
  • For the chopped chocolate, I used a combination of 3/4 of an old bar of Ikea dark chocolate and a handful of Hershey’s Special Dark Kisses. It’s what was on hand, and I am all about that life.

You Are For Me: Honey Hopped Ice Cream With Salted Almond Toffee

beer ice cream
“Isn’t beer the holy libation of sincerity? The potion that dispels all hypocrisy, any charade of fine manners?” ~Milan Kundera~

I have always felt like I am too much and just not enough at the same time.

Perhaps not best to be writing this on the 11th anniversary of my father’s death, the 12th anniversary of my cousin Teddy’s death, and the day I am driving to a memorial for my uncle Jim who died late last week. Oh, and the last day of my daughter’s high school career (thank god), heading towards the first big milestone her father will miss (graduation).

But there you have it. The words come when they come.

As my friend Corey’s daughter J said to her the other day, “Oh my God, mom. Your feelings. They’re so big and there are so many of them. It’s exhausting.”

It is exhausting. For not only people around me but for me as well.

The constant background understanding that I am taking up too much space.

That my highs and lows are inconvenient and need to be explained away or apologized for.

That I can’t allow these strong feelings to pass through me or be processed out loud in the presence of anyone who might conceivably be offended, so I have to remove myself from people, even when it’s the exact opposite of what I need.

That sometimes I feel crushingly lonely, and the “just not enough” part kicks in to remind me exactly how worthless and unworthy I am in the first place, so what else did I expect?

Jesus. First-world, overprivileged, white-people problems, but goddamn. They still are real to me, daily present, and require constant negotiation and mediation in a brain that is already chock-a-block full of recriminations against its owner.

I have always felt outside of things – my family, my friends, the people I work with – and I don’t expect that to go away anytime soon.

I understand that I am not for everyone. Mostly it’s ok. The people I am for are with me for life. They get it.

This past weekend Khristian and I fled to the hills of West Virginia to our friends at Redwing Farm. I have known these people for nearly three decades. They have seen me through all of my iterations – safe to say they are for me. They were hosting a sleepover for their daughter’s birthday, a previously low-key affair that swelled from two kids to eight kids and potentially 20 adults staying for dinner in the space of just a few hours. One desperate text and 12 hours later, we were cresting the wooded driveway that leads to their house, there to offer moral support and help where we could.

We meant to come back in late summer anyway, not only for the company of Luke, Keveney, and Casey but also to pick the hops that twine their way up their porch railing. It had been a hard summer for the hops; although plentiful, many of them never quite opened. Still, as we left for home less than 24 hours after we arrived, I tucked a grocery bag full of them away in the car to play with at home.

Like me, this ice cream is not for everyone. It’s an unusual mix of flavors, and care must be taken to get the balance right. The first iteration was delicious but so bitter on the finish that it was impossible to eat, but this one manages to be smooth, sweet, and creamy, with a touch of citrus and salt and a definite hoppy vibe.

Honey Hopped Ice Cream With Salted Almond Toffee

Ingredients

Honey Hopped Ice Cream

2 cups whole milk

2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup fresh Cascade hops

6 egg yolks

pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Salted Almond Toffee

(Annoying sidebar: you need a candy thermometer for this.)

1 1/2 cups unsalted toasted almonds, roughly chopped

1/2 stick butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon lemon juice

big pinch salt

Method

Make the ice cream: Heat milk, heavy cream, and honey in a heavy saucepan over medium heat until warm (look for small bubbles to appear around the edges of the pan). Remove from heat, add the hops, and cover. Steep for at least 20 minutes (taste. You should be able to taste the hops, but they should not make the back of your throat pucker.).

Strain hops out and return the milk to the saucepan. Bring back to a simmer (not boiling – look for the bubbles again).

Place egg yolks, lemon zest, and salt in a separate bowl and whisk well to combine.

Here is the tricky part, so go slow.

In a thin stream, gradually and slowly add the hot milk mixture to the egg, whisking vigorously. If you add it all at once you will end up with honey hopped scrambled eggs, which is truly disgusting.

Once the milk is added to the egg, place a strainer over the heavy saucepan and pour the mixture back into the saucepan. This catches any stray hop flowers (or scrambled egg).

Over low heat and stirring constantly, cook the mixture until it begins to thicken. You will know it is ready when it coats the back of a spoon (about ten minutes).

Remove from heat and strain again into a clean bowl, covering with plastic wrap that rests on the surface (so no skin forms). You can refrigerate this overnight (which Serious Eats says is best for flavor), or you can just cool it completely (about four hours) before churning according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Make the toffee: While your ice cream custard is chilling, make your salted almond toffee. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Toast your almonds in a pan (or the oven) over low heat (or 350 degrees) until they begin to release their delicious, nutty aroma (between five and seven minutes, ish). Remove from pan (or oven) and allow to cool before chopping them roughly.

Place butter, sugar, water, lemon juice, and salt in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Clip your candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan. DO NOT STIR. Swirl gently as the ingredients melt, then watch carefully as the thermometer climbs to 300 degrees. NO MORE NO LESS.

Do not wander off. You will go from barely bubbling to burnt and bitter within seconds. #AskMeHowIKnow

Once you reach that temperature, remove from heat and add your chopped toasted almonds. Work quickly to combine, then pour onto parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Spread to about 1/4″ thick (or whatever. It doesn’t really matter, but it cools faster when it’s thinner). Allow to cool completely.

Place in a sealed plastic bag and beat the toffee with a rolling pin to break it up into little bits.

PUT THAT SHIT TOGETHER: In the last five minutes of churning, add the salted almond toffee to the ice cream.

Don’t overchurn, and allow to freeze following your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Enjoy with people who TOTALLY GET YOU.

 

 

Just Ten More Strokes – Truly Citrony Lemon Bars

 

lemon tart gluten-free
“See, Red? When life hands you lemons, you know what you gotta do?” “Wow,” Lauren said. “Yes, Mr. Cliché, I know what I have to do. I make lemonade.” “No,” he said. “You scream, ‘Fuck you, lemons!” “And then you throw those goddamn lemons into oncoming traffic, and you go do what you want to do.” ― Priscilla Glenn, Back to You

I cook when I am sad.

I cook when I am happy.

I cook to comfort people.

I have, at times, and much to my chagrin and embarrassment at my passive aggression, not cooked when someone made me angry.

I cook when I have no thoughts in my head.

I cook when there are so many thoughts in my head that my ears are ringing to the beat of my heart and my jaw is tense and I wake myself up in the night, grinding my teeth flat.

I cook when I don’t want to write and also when I do and also when I have things to write that I cannot put down on paper just in case I die and someone goes through my papers and it’s not something that anyone should be reading.

The only time I don’t cook is when I am can’t figure out who to cook for and making anything would waste food.

Except for the only other time that I don’t cook, which is when despair sets in.

Despair is a big word, like “disappointment.” I try to use my words carefully; I am critical in my head (and sometimes out of my mouth) when people toss words around in cavalier fashion. They matter, words do, even in this age of grunting and listicles and pictures.

So. Despair.

The dictionary defines it as “the complete loss or absence of hope.”

On all but my worst days, it’s possible for me to avoid this word. There is always something to reach for. Or even just to pin my mind to, just for a little while until the feeling passes.

My dad told me the story once of a guy who swam the English Channel. He (my dad) said the guy was interviewed, and one of the questions was, “How did you make it across?” Which is a really DUMB QUESTION, but many of my father’s stories and jokes featured dumb shit prominently.

The swimmer replied, “I just told myself to swim ten more strokes. And after I swam ten strokes, I thought, well, I can just swim ten more. So I swam across the Channel, ten strokes at a time.”

Frankly, this story is so neat and tidy and fits his long-forgotten point so well that I am pretty sure my dad made it up. Which was also part of his M.O.

But it works for many different aspects of my life.

On this day, I am trying to keep the English Channel in mind. There have been three deaths in and around my life in the past four weeks: two friends of my daughter’s and yesterday, my uncle. I don’t feel much like baking today, and despite the unutterably gorgeous weather of the past two days, I don’t feel much like going outside. But today I will force myself out of the bed. I will wash some laundry, and then some dogs, and maybe I will write for money and drag myself out for a little walk.

And I will definitely dig out my mother’s recipe for Truly Citrony Lemon Bars, which I will turn into a tart and bring to a friend who maybe might appreciate them. This uses plain, simple ingredients that you have lying around, which makes it easy because there is very little actual effort involved.

It’s the whole when life hands you lemons thing. Ten more strokes.

Truly Citrony Lemon Tart

Ingredients

1 stick butter, softened

1/4 cup powdered sugar (plus more for dusting)

1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour (regular works here, too)

1 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup lemon juice (I used three lemons, but they were very juicy)

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 heaping tablespoons gluten-free all-purpose flour (regular works here, too)

Method

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream butter and sugar together, then add flour. Continue to beat until mixture clumps like dough.

Press dough on the bottom and slightly up the sides of a round tart pan (or 9×9″ glass baking dish).

Bake for 15 minutes.

While the crust is baking, mix together all remaining ingredients.

Pour filling over hot crust and bake again for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar to serve.