Don’t sleep on this delicious, versatile snack/breakfast/garnish.
Look, I’m not gonna say that this is the best thing you’ll put in your mouth all week. I don’t know how you live your life. But if you want a strong contender for that title, this crispy quinoa granola is it.
Packed with protein, filling, slightly sweet, salty, versatile AF. As at home on top of a curried squash soup as it is in a vat of that extra fatty Scandinavian yogurt. Excellent with plain old (non-dairy) milk or eaten dry out of a coffee mug with a spoon as you lie in bed watching cooking shows. #AskMeHowIKnow
Take 30 minutes (largely hands-off) and make yourself happy. You’ll be glad you did.
Crispy Quinoa Granola
(makes about four cups)
Nuts, seeds, and fruit can be subbed in any combination you like. Just keep amounts the same and you’re all good.
Ingredients
1 cup almonds, chopped
1 1/2 cups uncooked quinoa
1 cup pumpkin seeds (I used salted)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup honey (see Recipe Notes)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup dried fruit (I used cranberries)
Method
Preheat oven to 300 and line a large rimmed baking tray with parchment paper.
Combine almonds, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, and salt in a large bowl and stir to combine.
Add honey and oil and mix completely. Pour onto baking tray and spread evenly. Use two baking sheets if the mix is more than 1/4″ thick.
Now the fun part, where you need be mildly diligent. Cook for a total of 25 minutes on 300, stirring every 8 minutes or so, then turn the oven temperature up to 350 and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes.
Be careful here. Your quinoa will go from a lovely brown to a charred cinder very quickly.
When the quinoa is a nice deep brown, remove from oven. I like to take it off the baking sheet (still on parchment) and set it on my cool marble counters to cool completely.
DO NOT SAMPLE WHEN HOT. The quinoa will cling to your fingertips and lips and burn the shit out of you. Be patient.
Store in an airtight container. This might last longer than a week, but I doubt I will try that out.
Recipe Notes
If you are eliminating added sugar, you can use apple cider syrup instead of honey. Reduce any quantity of apple cider (not juice) by half and use that instead of honey. You can also substitute maple syrup here. If you like a slightly clumpy, sticky granola, honey is your best bet.
The picture above is made with almonds and cranberries. I can imagine that cashew/apricot and walnut/cherry would be delicious.
This is unspiced, but I also imagine that cinnamon would do well here.
Khristian Weeks (l.), the birthday boy, pictured here with his collaborative partner, Peter.
So it’s October 1st, and it’s Khristian’s birthday.
This is a short blog with something delicious, easy, and celebratory. I like to make Bon Appetit’s seedy oat crackers to serve this with, but seriously. You could eat this any old way and be perfectly happy.
And in other news, this will be the last post here for a bit. I have some other things to focus on, and I may shift away from maintaining a food blog. I will keep cooking and posting recipes on Instagram (@charmcityedibles), so go on over there and follow along.
In the meantime, make this for someone you love.
Blistered Shishito Pimento Cheese Use this as a dip with crackers or vegetables, or make a grilled cheese with it. Or any other way you might use an insanely delicious cheese dip.
Ingredients 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (see Recipe Notes) 8 ounces cream cheese, softened ¼ to ½ cup mayonnaise (NOT Miracle Whip, for chrissakes) ½ teaspoon dry mustard ¼ to ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper ½ teaspoon onion powder ½ cup chopped blistered (and cooled) shishito peppers (see Recipe Notes) 1 jalapeño pepper, diced fine ½ teaspoon celery seed
Method Couldn’t be easier. Mix all of the above together and taste. Add more of what you like, going slowly with the spice.
Chill for at least a couple of hours before serving. Keeps for at least a week in the ‘fridge if it lasts that long.
Recipe Notes • I like to shred my cheeses fine using a food processor, and I use a mix of white and orange cheddar, one extra sharp and one just sharp. This is largely a matter of preference, and I would actually prefer all white cheddar but most people think bright orange when they think of pimento cheese, and I like to give the people what they want.
• To blister shishito peppers, a cast-iron skillet is the tool of choice but not strictly necessary. Over medium-high heat, heat a tablespoon of oil in the frying pan of choice (I used non-stick), then toss the peppers (intact, with the stems on) in the oil. Season with salt and pepper and give a stir to coat with oil, then leave them alone for minutes at a time. You are looking for charring in spots, so let them sit. Toss after a couple of minutes, then let them sit. Peppers are done when they are tender-crisp with burnt looking parts. Remove from heat and squeeze a little lemon juice on them. Eat a bunch of them, but save six or seven for pimento cheese.
• You can also use a jar of pimentos, drained and chopped. I just happened to have shishitos.
In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.
Good morning. Indeed.
Yeah, I made gluten-free Pop-tarts today.
Two fillings – blackberry and chocolate – largely due to poor filling planning and my belief that they probably wouldn’t work so why bother making/procuring something special. #ohmeoflittlefaith
I used this recipe for gluten-free Pop-tarts, only with my gluten-free flour blend, and I frosted both flavors with a simple icing made with milk, powdered sugar, and vanilla bean paste. I also made them 3″ x 4″, because who eats a Pop-tart that is 2″ wide? #noone
I won’t say they were perfect, but they were pretty freaking delicious. Next time I will maybe chill the dough, but it’s not strictly necessary.
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:
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.
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.
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.
