It’s the weekend. Which means, of course, that you have time to relax. Or to spend time with your family, spend time with your friends, clean your house, water your plants, and also cram in sixty million errands into two short days (and people who do not have to be in an office on weekdays, can you do your errands then? Thanks.) Weekend time, much like weekday time, is to be treasured, and sometimes I treasure that time by spending it cooking, one of my favorite activities. I lovingly research recipes, and plan meals, and braise and roll and bake and chop. Sometimes, I do not.
Last weekend, though, I had six women (the lovely ladies of my book club) coming over for an early brunch, which means I had to clean my place like a madwoman (I have a toddler, aka a storm of destruction and chaos in my home) and, oh, cook something brunchy. I’m not great at brunchy. And I didn’t have the time to lovingly pore through my eight thousand cookbooks and find something.
Fortunately, I remembered the “recipe” for quick bread in Michael Ruhlman’s book, Ratio, which I’ve mentioned before. It’s a great resource for “pantry” cooking, because it allows for infinite substitutions, which means pantry cooking at its finest.
Entries from April 29th, 2009
Sometimes a quickie hits the spot — Pineapple Bread
April 29th, 2009 · 8 Comments · Baked Goods and Desserts, Entertaining, Make Ahead, Quick, Recipes
Tags: baking·brunch·fruit·Kid Friendly
Tea and Cookies — Earl Grey Cheesecake
April 27th, 2009 · 13 Comments · Baked Goods and Desserts, Make Ahead, Recipes
It’s the end of the month which means it’s time for the Daring Bakers’ Challenge. If you don’t know about this group of intrepid, take-no-prisoners bakers, you can find out more at their brand new website, The Daring Kitchen.
The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.
Now cheesecake and I don’t have the best history. You see, my father makes terrific cheesecake — huge, New York style cheesecake with a creamy filling and sour cream topping. He makes them every year at Christmas time for his students, and his fame as a cheesecake baker is widely acclaimed. I wouldn’t dare make traditional cheesecake for fear of being accused of trying to steal his thunder or worse, having my cheesecake come up terribly, terribly short. The one time I did try to make a cheesecake — pumpkin cheesecake, for Thanksgiving, it was roundly dismissed in favor of pumpkin pie.
So you see, I needed a little daring.
Fortunately, Jenny gave us lots of leeway with this cheesecake, allowing us to get creative with the crust, the flavoring of the cheesecake, and the topping, so I didn’t have to worry about stepping on my dad’s cheesecake toes (it also helps that he’s currently out of the country and can’t challenge my cheesecake). Always loving slightly unusual flavorings, I elected to go with an earl grey tea flavored cheesecake, and to complement the lemony flavor of the bergamot, the crust is made from animal cookies, which have a slight lemon flavor, which I boosted with lemon zest.
Tags: baking·cheese·Daring Bakers·dessert·sweets
Homemade Hummus
April 26th, 2009 · 10 Comments · Entertaining, Make Ahead, Quick, Recipes, Soups and Starters
Every night on my way home from work, I drive through Little Ethiopia and fantasize about Ethiopian food. Ethiopian food, if you’ve never had it, is usually made of a variety of fantastically spicy stews served on this spongy flat sourdough bread called injera, which is kind of a cross between a pancake and bread. I started thinking about making Ethiopian food at home, and since injera is integral to the Ethiopian food experience, I started scheming as to how to make my own injera too. It’s made from a grain called teff, and you need your own teff based starter that captures wild yeast, and you need to make it over at least three days and …
Do you see where I’m going with this? I literally DRIVE THROUGH LITTLE ETHIOPIA ON MY WAY HOME EVERY DAY. How much easier would it be to just stop one night and pick up some Ethiopian food and injera than it would be to go through the whole rigmarole of finding teff, getting a starter going, making the injera, making the stew not having it taste nearly as good AND then doing the dishes? I’m a big believer in jumping into cooking projects, because homemade is usually better and easy to make, but some culinary escapades just don’t make sense.
Hummus, however, is not one of those escapades. Yes, you can buy about sixteen varieties of hummus at nearly every grocery store, but it is totally worth making at home, since it is 1) a snap to make 2) inexpensive and 3) infinitely customizable.
