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Blog: JoyTheBaker: Baked from Scratch. Made with Love.
This Los Angeles baker loves cooking from scratch with simple, fresh ingredients. Her mouthwatering oatmeal recipe makes only one serving--I'd recommend at least doubling it.
So fresh, so clean.
The source of life –
You cannot know what I mean
Until you are overcome with the strife
Of dehydration
And crave that liquid refresher,
That luscious libation.
It makes me smile like the cat of Cheshire
Unmatched is its versatility;
Drink it cold, drink it warm.
With a straw you have more ability
To imbibe its fluid form.
The most prized of all possession;
Without it, what would I do?
Fall into a great depression,
Oh, that day I would rue.
mini egg season
time for choco-ova to
slide over my tongue
(Picture from Candyblog)
dedicated to my best friends from the 'ford.
Last Friday, with the stress of conference planning bearing down on me and a nasty wintry mix coming down outside, some culinary therapy was in order. Soup was an obvious choice but since I could only take a short break from preparations for the PA/NJ Food Summit, it had to be a quick recipe. Fortunately, one of my favorites, red onion soup, takes very few ingredients and a short amount of time. The soup sounds odd, but it's similar to French onion soup except for the purple color!
A friend brought over crusty whole wheat bread and brie and we had ourselves a proper winter meal before getting back to business.
Red Onion Soup Recipe
Serves 4 to 6
Adapted from epicurious.com
The original recipe calls for beef broth, as does traditional French onion soup, but I prefer to substitute chicken broth and add some red wine to match the richness of beef broth.
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 pounds red onions, sliced
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
4 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup red wine
Parmesan cheese and scallions for garnish (optional)
Directions:
Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and sauté until brown, about 25 minutes. Sprinkle flour over onions; stir 2 minutes. Gradually mix in broth and wine, scraping up browned bits from pan bottom. Simmer 15 minutes. Working in batches and using on/off turns, blend soup in processor to coarse puree. Return soup to pot and bring just to simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with parmesan and scallions, if desired.
"Dim sum," in Cantonese, means "order to your heart's content." What better way to spend the morning after an '80s exercise party? After months of making abstract plans to go, my roommates and I finally ventured to Chinatown for dim sum. We ended up eating at the first restaurant we stumbled upon, Imperial Inn (located on 10th st. between Race and Cherry). The first thing that struck us was the delightfully tacky décor. A lit-up plastic landscape painting elicited an “Ooooo” from one of my roommates. Speakers, a TV, projectors, and a disco ball made the room ideal for a high school graduation party, which only added to the dive's charm. Though we were told we would have to wait fifteen minutes, our party of four was seated quickly.
Within minutes of being seated, the first cart rolled up to us and we tried rice noodles filled with beef and drowned in soy sauce. From then, it was hard to say no to any carts that rolled our w
ay. We had steamed barbecue pork buns, shrimp dumplings, crusty pork pie, vegetable egg rolls, roasted duck, calamari, and a steamed bun filled with custard -- all accompanied by a big pot of hot tea. We unanimously agreed the custard buns and barbeque pork buns were our favorites. Sweet, thick, and rich, the baked egg custard was a surprising treat; it was a nice compliment to the salty, savory dishes we had been eating to that point. The pork bun was satisfying because of its doughy thickness. Yet some dishes were sadly left untouched. The vegetable egg rolls had an unappealing crunchy texture and were filled with bland, watery vegetables. Also, the calamari tasted of MSG and little else.
The service is nothing to rave about but, at dim sum, I never expect much attention. For just $36 for four people, we left happy and filled to the brim with greasy Chinese food -- a welcome remedy to the Spandex debauchery of the night before. Though the restaurant itself is nothing to write home about, my roommates and I certainly enjoyed the pork and egg custard buns, and the whole unique dining experience. Perhaps dim sum may just be the new alternative to Hill's Sunday brunch.
MO
Once upon a Saturday night, in wonderful land called
After successfully making our purchase, we journeyed back to our tower. The first task in creating the crème was to dry the sugar. A slight misreading of the directions led to disaster. Minutes after we put sugar in the oven, we noticed smoke seeping out. Against our better judgment, we opened the door only to find a menacing cavern of flames. To vanquish the fiery beast, I shot it with my fire extinguisher. The foam suffocated it, leaving a billowing mound of blackened sugar. We were out of immediate danger, but in its dying breath, the beast enacted revenge and filled the room with smoke.
Our omnipotent fire alarm began to shriek, and we knew that unless we acted quickly, the whole building would flood, drowning all. We opened windows and grabbed whatever we could to fan the smoke. The longer the alarm screeched, the more we feared our imminent doom. With our eyes burning from the fiend’s smoky remnants, and our arms exhausted from trying to appease our alarm, we nearly accepted our fate. But then, a third friend came to save us. She had been locked away in her room but sensed that we needed her help. With another subject working to soothe him, the alarm quieted.
Cold, tired, and smelling of smoke, we were grateful for our survival, but still accepted our overall defeat. There would be no Crème Brulée. Whatever our downfall, be it hubris, or an unpredictable oven— it just was not meant to be.
MTP
All you need to make basic pancakes are flour, salt, eggs, baking soda, and some liquid with an acid – buttermilk, orange juice mixed with water, water and a squeeze of lemon, or even just water or milk with cocoa powder. The key is that baking soda needs to react with an acid in order to leaven.
But I want more than “your basic pancake.” I want a pancake that is a 
little sweet to satisfy the craving, but hearty and filling at the same time. It also has to be simple and doable within my time and budget constraints. My philosophy is that you can make pancakes with whatever you have on hand, and today I have bananas and a huge container of oats. Today is a whole wheat oatmeal banana day. I feel it.
1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/2 c. buttermilk
(These are the proportions I use when just making pancakes for myself. This recipe is easily doubled—but stick with one egg even in the doubled version.)
So here's the final recipe:
Whole-Wheat Oatmeal Banana Pancakes
Ingredients:
1/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. oats, soaked in warm wate
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/2 c. orange juice-water mixture (more water than orange juice)
Dash of sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg
1 banana
Butter or oil for pan
Directions:
Mix together all ingredients except the banana (don’t overmix or the pancakes will be tough). Drop it on your preheated (but not super-hot) skillet and slice the banana on top. Let it cook for a couple minutes until there are lots of bubbles, flip, and cook for another two or so minutes. I topped mine with more sliced banana and brown sugar. They were delicious! All gone. :-)
I headed down to Reading Terminal Market today to check out the Souper Bowl and International Comfort Food Festival. Most of the action was centered around the open space in front of Flying Monkey, where Reading Terminal vendors were dispensing their comfort food specialties: Pennsylvania Dutch waffles and ice cream, chicken korma and lassi, Polish sausage and sauerkraut... I got there around 12:45pm, just in time to catch the results of the soup competition: won by Down Home Diner’s New England Clam Chowder.
A tasting station for the plebs was set up in front of the judges’ table (from which I stole an abandoned blank scoring sheet). A jazz band was playing, the aisles were jam-packed, and winter blues-afflicted Philadelphians were out in force. I heard one particularly grumpy gent fighting his way through the tasting queue yell, “Do you have excuse-me deficiency?!”
Anyway, here’s my rundown of the soups:
1. Italian Wedding: too salty, too greasy, and the ingredients were indistinct and overcooked. Meh.
2. Pasta Fagioli: good tomato-ey flavour, but too much cream and salt.
3. Matzoh Ball: wonderful wonderful wonderful. Until today, the only good matzoh ball soups I’ve eaten have come from the kitchens of people I know. But this one was enormously satisfying as a comfort food: sliced carrots cooked to a melt-in-your-mouth consistency, tasty shreds of chicken, a nourishing broth that didn’t rely on sodium for flavor, and a superlative matzoh ball to top it all off.
4. Sweet and Sour Cabbage: chopped cabbage in a spicy broth – excellent! Well-balanced, visually appealing, flavor-packed but not greasy. I’m a fan of intelligently-prepared cabbage (one of my favorite savory comfort foods), so I loved this one.
5. Turkey Chili: salty, heavy, greasy – altogether too rich. On the plus side, the beans were well-cooked and the turkey was nicely tender. Could’ve used a little more spice.
6. Lobster & Crab Bisque: blegh. Too creamy. I couldn’t discern the presence of either lobster or crab – the soup just imparted a generic sense of ‘seafood’. You know what I’m talking about.
7. Golden Potato: yum. Thickly grated potato bits in a slightly peppery, creamy soup with just a hint of sweetness. Like potato rosti in a cup. Mm mmm.
8. New England Clam Chowder: this one wasn’t at all what I was expecting – lighter and paler than other clam chowders I’ve tasted, and it seems to have been made with a different mix of flavors as well.
Final Verdict: Matzoh Ball as the hands-down winner, followed closely by the Sweet and Sour Cabbage in second place, with the Golden Potato a more distant third.
JP
Blog: running with tweezers: tales from the frontlines of food
This Atlanta food stylist cooks and bakes from a variety of recipes. Her twist on the classic guacamole dish as adapted from Cooking Light is healthy, scrumptious and only takes about 5 minutes to prepare.
Note: Click on the photo to see Tami Hardeman's original post.
