Grains - Its Not Easy Eating Green

Babycakes – Gluten Free Mini Oat Scones

May 29, 2013 - 11:23 am | Baking, Breads and Doughs, Breakfast, Gluten-Free, Grains, kid-friendly, Recipe

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The twins are at the perfect age: the perfect age to make a mess out of anything. Too old for most baby foods, but too young for fork and spoon, they eat with their hands, and much of it ends up all over them and the floor. A good meal has a 30/70 ratio with 30 % of the food in their mouths and 70% on the floor and all over them. Breakfast is particularly messy. I’m not a big fan of most traditional breakfast cereals, oatmeal and grits are so messy and pre-made cereal bars are packed with sugar.

I wanted to make my own, so I started by making a bar based on baked oatmeal. The result was too spongy, wet and pretty gross to everyone except the babies. They devoured the flabby globs of ick like I was feeding them candy. I realized that pretty accurately described it since the recipe was loaded with sugar. I needed a new recipe.

Inspiration came while I was making the Fluffy Buttermilk Drop Biscuit recipe from the May 2013 issue of Cooking Light on Saturday morning. It was easy, and Squisy Delishy attacked it like he had the sugar-soaked baked oatmeal bars. I decided to tinker around with that recipe to get the baby breakfast I wanted. I replaced the white flour with oat flour and the whole wheat flour with rolled oats. Then I added a little cinnamon and cut back on the baking powder. To give the oatcakes a sweet finish, I sprinkled them with a little cinnamon sugar before baking. To make them easy for the twins to eat, I dropped them in small balls. They are a lot like scones, but without all the fat.

The finished product is a hit with the twins.

While still crumbly and not mess-free, they are so much less messy than sticky gloppy oatmeal. They are also the perfect size for little hands.

They are also a hit with everyone else. If you use gluten-free oat flour and oats, you have a gluten-free product. These oat cakes are delicious as they are, especially right from the oven, but are over-the-top good with jam. Enjoy!

Babycakes – Gluten Free Mini Oat Scones
makes 24 mini oat cakes

Inspired by this recipe from Cooking Light, May 2013 for Fluffy Buttermilk Drop Biscuits

1 1/4 cup oat flour
1 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup buttermilk, cold
cinnamon and sugar for dusting the tops

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line a baking pan with parchment paper or a non-stick baking mat. Mix oat flour, oats, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a large mixing bowl.

Melt the butter and cool slightly. Pour the butter into the cold buttermilk. Pour the butter and buttermilk mixture into the oats and mix until just combined.

Use a tablespoon or cookie scoop to drop the dough in 24 heaping spoonfuls onto the baking pan.

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Sprinkle the tops of each oatcake with a little cinnamon and sugar.

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Bake for 12 minutes, or until the tops are lightly browned. Serve warm.

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Note: Not all oat products are gluten free. If you need this recipe to be gluten-free, then be sure you are using a gluten-free product. Below are links to gluten-free oat products from Amazon.

Rustic Sweet Onion Tart

May 15, 2013 - 10:42 pm | Appetizers, Baking, Breads and Doughs, Cheese, Grains, Main Dish, Meatless Meals, Recipe, Sides, Summer, Vegetables, Vegetarian

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I was a childhood cooking-show junkie. On sick days at home, while other children would spend their days watching music videos on MTV and “You Can’t Do That on Television” on Nickelodeon, I watched PBS. Hours spent watching Jeff Smith, Martin Yan, Justin Wilson and “The Great Chefs” series. “The Great Chefs” series made me want to become a chef; Martin Yan made me want to be an entertainer, and Justin Wilson just reminded me of my family (not at all cajun but they were a bit of a wacky southern group).

I hated most vegetables though, so I would watch the cooks make recipe after recipe looking for something wonderful that was free of onions, tomatoes, celery and peppers. There was a show I cannot remember the name of with a cook whose name and face are a distant memory; I distinctly remember watching him make a chicken fricassee. It looked so good, and I remember thinking that I would eat it, regardless of onions or no onions. Watching him make this dish made me realize that if I wanted to be a professional cook, that I was going to have to eat the things I did not like.

I’ve written before about teaching myself to like vegetables, one vegetable at a time, by learning how to properly prepare each one. To like onions, I started by teaching myself to make good caramelized onions; not just browned onions, but good and properly melty, gooey, sweet and sticky caramelized onions. Once I had that down, I was in love. Onions show up in just about everything of mine. I think my childhood self would H-A-T-E having me as their parent; and I think I would get really annoyed with my childhood self because the little brat wouldn’t eat anything I made for her. While not little kid-friendly, this tart will agree with older kids and pretty much everyone else. Sweet Vidalia onions, which are in season right now, are the onion of choice, but other sweet onions will work as well.

This recipe is all about balancing flavors. The sweet onions are balanced by briny feta, tangy balsamic vinegar, spicy black pepper and herby thyme. The crust is part of the flavor, not just a shell to hold it. It becomes part of the whole picture, so don’t cut corners and use a pre-made crust. The crust can be a little crumbly, but a rustic look works here, so just work with it until you have a roundish shape and it’s okay if it isn’t perfect; because that is perfect. Enjoy!

Caramelized Onion Tart with Feta and Balsamic
Serves 6

This tart is a fantastic snack, but also makes a wonderful meal when paired with a salad. I love the sheen of the egg wash on the crust, but you could easily leave that out to make this egg free.

1 Recipe Savory Pastry Dough
2 pounds Vidalia Onion (or other sweet onion)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, plus another 1/2 teaspoon to garnish
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1 egg yolk

Peel the onions and slice very thin; I used a food processor. Heat olive oil in a large skillet with a lid over medium-high heat. When the oil starts to shimmer add the onions and salt. Cover the onions and let cook until they release their liquid, about five minutes, stirring occasionally.

Uncover and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook slowly, stirring frequently until evenly brown and greatly reduced; about another 25 minutes.

Add the thyme and balsamic vinegar and cook another two minutes to let the thyme release its flavor. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Preheat oven to 375. Roll out the dough to form a roughly 15 inch circle.

Transfer the dough to a piece of parchment paper and spread the onion in a 12 inch circle in the middle of the dough. Sprinkle the feta on to the exposed onion filling.

Turn the edges of the dough over, tucking under any uneven edges to form a 1 1/2 inch edge over the top of the onion filling.

Brush the edges with a light coating of egg wash. Move the tart to a baking pan and bake for 30 minutes or until the crust is a nice even brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool for five minutes. Serve warm or room temperature.

Bulgur Pilaf and a Spring Feast for Mother’s Day

May 8, 2013 - 11:09 am | Entertaining, Grains, Holiday, Main Dish, Meat, Menu, Recipe, Sides, Spring, Uncategorized

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My favorite poem about spring is In Just by e.e. cummings. Besides the freaky and slightly scary little lame balloonman, this poem sums up everything I love about spring. Are you familiar with it? Here it is as quoted from Poetry.org:

[in Just-]
By E. E. Cummings

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

Yeah, I told you the balloonman was a little freaky. But that aside, just reading this poem reminds me of the smell of spring mud and light breezes. It transports me back to my childhood and that great feeling I used to get playing outside on those first magnificent warm sunny days of spring, of jumping in mud puddles, and of birds singing and bees buzzing.

Yup, spring is here and it has been S-P-E-C-T-A-C-U-L-A-R! We’ve spent the better part of the past two weeks outside inhaling as much spring as we can get our lungs around. After a long and particularly cold and snowy winter we are reveling in it. You too?

Of course between Easter, Mother’s Day and the Twin’s birthday celebration, there’s a lot of time to cook for a crowd this spring. We’ve been doing our share of that too. All this nice weather has us working up appetites for grilled food and spring fare. With Mother’s day this weekend, I thought I’d share the whole menu for a spring feast. This feast was our Easter dinner this year, but I saved it because I thought it would make a wonderful Mother’s day meal too.

The bulgur pilaf is my own recipe. If your not familiar with bulgur then your are missing out. You may remember my recipe for whole pumpkin stuffed with lamb and bulgur. This recipe is a basic pilaf that goes with anything. You can build onto the flavors here to customize this pilaf in the same way you might for a rice pilaf. Add saffron for a more middle-eastern flavor or oregano, rosemary and thyme for a more Mediterranean flavor. We eat this with chicken, lamb and fish; its just plain tasty.

The rest of the menu is from various places. The absolutely fantastic Leg of Lamb with Herbs and Mustard recipe is from Cooking Light and is some of the best lamb I’ve ever had. The only changes I made to the recipe were to use whole bay leaves instead of ground, a couple extra cloves of garlic and whole grain mustard instead of traditional Dijon. With the lamb and bulgur pilaf, I also served simple steamed green beans topped with sauteed mushrooms.

Another amazing recipe was the dessert. Glissade Chocolate Pudding from 101 Cookbooks isn’t typical chocolate pudding. On the chocolate dessert spectrum it falls somewhere between chocolate pudding and chocolate mousse, but it is all delicious! My mother-in-law discovered this recipe for Passover, and we’ve enjoyed it several times since then. If you are a chocolate fan you are going to be all over this. Make this exactly by the recipe. Don’t make one single change. The importance of the quality of the ingredients cannot be understated here; there are so few ingredients that there is nowhere to hide. Have lots of fresh real whipped cream on hand to gild the chocolate lily.

To make this meal as easy as possible, I’ve included a timeline for preparing the meal. The timeline can be found below the bulgur pilaf recipe. Happy Mother’s Day to all the other mom’s out there and happy spring to everyone! Enjoy!

Basic Bulgur Pilaf
Serves 4-6

I call this recipe “Basic” because it’s the perfect platform for all sorts of enhancements. You can get creative with this recipe by adding different ingredients. Add a pinch of saffron to the broth, or diced sauteed zucchini before serving.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped fine (about 1 cup)
3 large cloves garlic, minced (about 1 tablespoon)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon paprika
1 cup wheat bulgur
2 cups chicken, beef or vegetable broth

Garnish:
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
1/4 cup parsley, chopped

Heat the oil in a large sauce pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent and soft, about 7 minutes.

Add the garlic, tomato paste, paprika, salt and pepper and cook for another minute.

Add the bulgur and stir until the grains are coated in the onion and tomato paste.

Add the broth and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the bulgar rest for ten minutes. Fluff the pilaf with a fork and season to taste with additional salt and pepper. Garnish the pilaf with the parsley and toasted pine nuts before serving.

A Spring Celebration Menu

Roast Boneless Leg of Lamb with Mustard and Herbs (Cooking Light)

Bulgar Pilaf

Steamed Green Beans with Sauteed Mushrooms

Glissade Chocolate Pudding (101 Cookbooks) with Whipped Cream

Timeline:

Up to one day ahead:

Prepare bulgur pilaf (without garnish), refrigerate when cool.

Blanch and shock green beans.
Make Glissade Chocolate Pudding

Night before: trim lamb, tie and spread with mustard marinade.

2 hours before service:

Prepare lamb for oven by placing on broiler rack with rosemary. Pre-heat oven.
Whip cream for dessert. Refrigerate.

1 1/2 hours before service:

Place lamb in oven to cook. Test temp after 40 minutes.
Saute Mushrooms

1/2 hour before service:

Remove lamb from roasting pan (I cooked to 130 not the 145 suggested in the recipe), but keep covered to continue to rest. Discard rosemary and remove potatoes (if using). Make sauce for lamb (keep sauce warm in oven).
Reheat green beans and top with mushrooms (keep warm in oven)
Reheat bulgur pilaf (keep warm in oven)
Toast pine nuts and chop parsley

Right before service:

Slice lamb
Garnish Bulgur Pilaf with pine nuts and parsley

Banana Bread Pancakes

April 10, 2013 - 6:00 am | Baking, Breads and Doughs, Breakfast, Fruit, Grains, kid-friendly, Recipe, Southern

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Before I even begin to tell you about this week’s post, I have exciting news to share with you.

It’s Not Easy Eating Green is now part of the Cooking Light Bloggers’ Connection. Joining this community of talented bloggers is a huge honor, and I am delighted that It’s Not Easy Eating Green was chosen to be part of this group.

Two years ago, when I first quit my job to stay at home with Little Guy I went through a phase where I did not know quite what to do. After two years of working long hours and then coming home to take care of my family, I found myself lost in a sea of free time. Eventually I started this blog that was not only satisfying, but it also filled my time nicely and kept me thinking.

I had tried rigorous house cleaning (which is really funny if you know just how much I cannot stand cleaning house), and then I settled in to cooking – a lot! Those first few months I found myself making banana bread all the time. I cooked loaf after loaf (and yes, I gained a few pounds those months). Slowly a recipe emerged which I deemed healthy yet tasty enough to eat without loads of butter. I published that recipe on Food.com and it still can be found there. More importantly, it was the beginning of my journey to take my family from too many convenience foods to homemade and wholesome, earth-friendly foods.

Fast forward two years. I don’t bake banana bread anymore. It’s not that I have anything against banana bread, but I have a personal goal to be the healthiest I’ve ever been when I turn 40 this year. While I certainly don’t deprive myself of anything, I do try to control my access to foods I know I’ll overeat, like baked goods. These days I avoid making a whole loaf of banana bread, which is likely to become nothing more than a prolonged, gluttonous, banana-bread-eating frenzy. Instead, I opt for making smaller portions of things, or different versions.

Maybe its a dream of slathering on gobs of butter, or addictive sweet flavor, but banana bread is on my mind a lot lately. Not wanting to give in to my evil carb-loving sugar cravings, I decided to turn my banana-bread fixation into something more useful; a new recipe. Starting with my banana bread recipe and tweaking it, I came up with banana nut bread pancakes. They taste just like a super moist banana bread, but with less sugar and they are gone in one meal with nothing to gorge on later. I’m safe!

Beside these pancakes there are two other pancake recipes I make frequently. One is the Whole Wheat Blueberry Pancakes which I posted ages ago (my fifth post of all time so if you click the link ignore the terrible photography). The other is the spelt pancakes from The King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook.

I highly recommend both. My banana bread pancakes borrows ideas from both recipes. As in the yogurt pancakes, I use yogurt to add acid and flavor to the cakes. This replaces the buttermilk in my original banana bread recipe. From the King Arthur pancakes recipe I take the spelt flour. Spelt flour makes the best pancakes I have ever had. You can get it anywhere they sell Bob’s Red Mill products, and I buy it by the case! You do need to let spelt flour sit for awhile before cooking so that it has time to absorb the liquid.

One of the biggest advantages to making banana bread as pancakes is that if part of your family likes nuts, and the other part does not, you can add nuts only to the pancakes of the nut lovers. That means I get my nuts, and Hubby doesn’t have to suffer the nutty pancakes that he hates!

My life is full of things to do, and there is certainly no excess time to schedule cleaning my house, but I’m happy knowing I can still enjoy banana bread, one meal at a time. Enjoy!

Banana Bread Pancakes
makes 12-5 inch pancakes

These super moist pancakes need to cook longer and at a lower temperature than normal pancakes. Keep your pan on medium-low and let them stay on the griddle as long as possible without letting them get too dark. Use only two bananas if you prefer a drier texture.

1 1/2 cups spelt flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup non-fat Greek yogurt
1 cup milk (I use low fat)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
3 ripe bananas
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

In one bowl combine flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas.

Add the yogurt, brown sugar, milk, vanilla, eggs and butter.

Stir in the flour mixture.

Let the pancake batter rest for 15 minutes to allow the spelt flour to expand and soften.

While the batter is resting, toast the chopped nuts (if using) in a 400 degree oven for four minutes (I use a toaster oven set to the light toast setting, stirring the nuts twice during the time. After 15 minutes of resting, the batter will be thick. Heat a large skillet or griddle on medium-low heat. Brush with oil or spray with non-stick cooking spray. Pour the pancake batter onto the hot griddle in about 1/3 cup circles.

Allow to cook until the bubbles break and do not re-fill and the edges start to dry slightly.

If you are using nuts, sprinkle a tablespoon of nuts on the pancake before flipping.

Use a large spatula to flip the pancakes over. Cook for about an additional three minutes or until the bottom is deep brown but not burned. Keep warm in an oven until ready to serve. Serve with syrup and additional toasted nuts.

Quinoa Turkey Meatloaf (Gluten-Free)

April 3, 2013 - 10:25 pm | Gluten-Free, Grains, kid-friendly, Main Dish, Poultry, Recipe, Retro Recipes

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I have made my turkey meatloaf recipe constantly over the years. It wasn’t so long ago that this was Little Guy’s favorite, but now, sadly he is going through a phase where he would rather live on chicken nuggets and pizza. This recipe is my adaptation of a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen’s The Best Light Recipe cookbook. However, I recently discovered another recipe for turkey meatloaf that used Quinoa instead of breadcrumbs as a binder. Not only does this make the recipe gluten-free, but loads the meatloaf with healthy whole-grain. I liked the quinoa recipe, but it lacked the flavor and veggies that my turkey meatloaf had. So I combined my well loved recipe with the quinoa, and the result was the best of both.

This meatloaf is packed with everything needed for a healthy meal; lean protein, healthy grains, veggies, lean dairy and lots of flavor. So, even if the little ones eat nothing else, they are still getting a full meal. Little Guy is on board too. At first it was begrudgingly, but he kept eating after his requisite four bites. That’s a major success in my house.

As usual, I disguise the veggies by chopping them up very fine. The carrots (an addition of my own) help lighten the texture, add an additional sweetness to the meatloaf and also add even more veggies to the dish. I use around three carrots for a two pound recipe, and pulse them and onions in a food processor until very fine before sautéing them in a tiny bit of oil until tender. I know that purists out there will argue that chopping the onions in a food processor will make them bitter, but I can’t tell and I don’t have time to Bruniose onions and carrots these days, so the food processor handles the job for me.

I don’t have problems getting my son to eat the green specks of parsley and thyme in this dish because when he was less opinionated I explained that the Italian seasoning on his pizza were magic sprinkles that made everything taste good. Ever since then, when he sees me adding fresh green herbs to things, he just asks if the magic sprinkles are going to make it taste good. I highly recommend this approach! However, if your kid is of the nothing-green ilk, then you can leave the herbs out.

This recipe calls for two pounds of ground turkey and makes either one large loaf or two smaller ones. With all my kids still small, we only need half of this recipe for our family. I always use fresh, never-frozen ground turkey when I make this so I can freeze half and have a freshly baked meatloaf for another night. I do not add the sauce before I freeze it, and thaw it thoroughly before baking. Then when I’m ready to bake it off, I mix up a half recipe of the sauce and bake as normal.

If you are using previously frozen turkey and you still want to make a full recipe of meatloaf and freeze half, just bake it before refreezing (although I think the rule about never refreezing meat is a bit silly if you are careful with the way the meat was thawed and handled). You can also half this recipe and just make up one pound of turkey.

It’s healthy, it tastes good, its gluten-free and full of healthy grains. Your kid will like it, so just make it already. ’nuff said! Enjoy.

Kid Friendly Veggie-Full Quinoa Turkey Meatloaf
Adapted from The Best Light Recipe and this Turkey Quinoa Meatloaf Recipe found on allrecipes.com

Serves 6-8

This recipe splits and doubles very well. The baking times I list are for two loafs per recipe, but this bakes very nicely as a full two pound loaf as well. Baking times will increase to 45 minutes for the first bake, then add the second half of the glaze and bake for about another 15 minutes. Always cook the meatloaf until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.

1/2 cup quinoa
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup carrots, peeled and rough chopped (about 1/2 pound)
1 medium onion, peeled and rough chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme
1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce, such as Crystal
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, finely ground
1 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
2 pounds 93% ground lean turkey
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons cider vinegar

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Bring one cup of water and the quinoa to a boil in a small pan.

Cover, reduce heat to low and cook for twenty minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool fully. While the quinoa is cooking pulse the onion and carrots separately in a food processor until very finely chopped but not pureed.

Heat a skillet over medium heat with one teaspoon of olive oil. Add the chopped onions and carrots with 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Cook, stirring frequently until the onions and carrots are soft, but not brown, about ten minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook for an additional minute. Turn off the heat and allow the vegetables to cool.

While the quinoa and carrot and onion mixture are cooling, combine the yogurt, eggs, thyme, parsley, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, hot pepper sauce, black pepper, and 1 teaspoon salt in large mixing bowl.

When cool, add the quinoa and vegetable mixture and combine everything together.

Mix in the ground turkey and mix until uniformly combined. Separate the mixture into two even amounts and form each one into a loaf about 9”x5”x1” on a lined baking sheet.

Combine the ketchup, brown sugar and cider vinegar in a small bowl and coat each meatloaf with about 1/4 of the sauce leaving the other 1/2 for later in the baking process. If you are only baking one meatloaf and freezing the other, only make a half recipe of sauce with 1/4 cup of ketchup, two tablespoons brown sugar and one tablespoon of cider vinegar.

Bake the meatloaf for about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and coat with the remaining sauce. Return to the oven and cook until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees, about 15 minutes more. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for ten minutes before serving.

Chicken and Dumplings

March 20, 2013 - 6:00 am | Grains, kid-friendly, Main Dish, Pasta, Poultry, Recipe, Retro Recipes, Soup, Winter

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“You have your hands full!” It’s the one comment I hear more than any other when people see me with all three kids. I hear this most at the grocery store when I am wearing one twin, have the second in the front of the grocery cart, and my four year old in the main part of the cart. As the mom of 11-month old twins and a four year old, I suppose I do have my hands full. However, I am always amused and perplexed when I hear this. What does my commentator really mean? That I am busy from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed? Yes, that’s certainly true. But in today’s over-scheduled life, don’t all moms? I don’t know of a single one that sits on the couch eating bonbons all day. One kid or five, every mom I know has almost every minute of their day spoken for. We all watch the clock for the moment when that last little lock of hair settles on a pillow for the night (and not the first time, but that second or third time, after the drink of water, the monster search and the little speech on why they couldn’t possibly go to sleep).
Why does the number of children I have deem me more deserving of the hands-full title than the career mom with one or two kids? I’ve done it both ways, and as tiring and trying as my current life is, I would take it over the stress and guilt of the working mom. In truth, I lead a charmed life. I might not admit to it when I look down to see my clothes polka-dotted in unknown substances, or try to figure out the last time I got a decent shower, but at the end of the day I know I have it good.
Did moms hear this at the grocery store fifty years ago when the average woman had four children? I do wonder how they managed at the store. How did they maneuver around the store before the days of the carts with the cars at the front or fantastic hard-to-find carts with room for two kids at the front (room for a child was introduced in shopping carts in 1947). What inventions will my children enjoy that will make it even easier for them?
We may all have our hands full these days, but that doesn’t mean that we have to rely on heavily processed convenience foods. In fact, providing healthy foods free of preservatives, coloring and additives actually makes life easier. I’m not the only mom to notice the difference in my kid’s behavior when they eat over-processed foods and when they eat meals made from scratch. Making dinner is one of the best forms of entertainment in our home. Not only can I entertain them by having them help make the meal (the twins watch from their high-chairs), but Little Guy is more willing to try foods that he helped to make.
Chicken and Dumplings is probably the one meal I make more than any other during the cold months. It is my grandmother, Martha Kornegay’s, recipe. Now nobody will deny that Martha Kornegay was truly a woman with her hands full. The mother of six, and a working mom, she had her hands full for decades! When she was raising her children, she did not have all the convenience foods available today. Meals like chicken and dumplings were her convenience foods because they provided a wholesome meal all in one pot and because it is an inexpensive meal.

Martha Kornegay’s Chicken and Dumpling Recipe in her handwriting

I have changed her original recipe a little to improve it nutritionally but make it taste just as good as her original. I tried just adding whole-grain flour, but that didn’t work. The dumplings were heavy and tough with the bitter flavors that whole-grains can sometimes have. I used buttermilk to balance the flavors and a pinch of baking soda to help lighten the heaviness of the whole wheat. Using the correct type of whole-grain flour helps too. Like with so many other recipes, I have the best results with spelt flour, but you could also use a white whole-wheat flour here too.
Whatever flour you use, the dough will be VERY wet. There will come a point, when you are making the dumplings, when you will think there has to be a typo in the recipe, and you will think that you really need to add more flour, that there is no way this will roll out and turn into dumplings. When you do, just ignore your thoughts and follow the recipe. As long as you roll this out on a pastry mat, waxed paper or parchment, you will be fine. In the finished product, the flour you use on which to roll this out is just as important as the flour in the dumplings. It creates a thick stewy broth. If you stir it well while you put in the dumplings, it will not clump. Trust me.
It pays to use your own chicken stock in this recipe. Your finished product will only be as good as the stock you use. I usually make a roast chicken one night, then take the left-over meat off the bones and use the bones to make my slow-cooker chicken stock over-night. Then the next night I already have my broth and chicken done and only have to chop some carrots, make the dumplings and cook some peas. A little planning provides dinner for two nights plus leftovers, and even better – EVERYONE will like it. Enjoy!

Chicken and Dumplings
Serves 6-8
The dumpling dough is very wet when when it is mixed together. Adding extra flour to the dough makes the dumplings tough. You need a lot of flour when rolling out the dough, and that flour is then used to thicken the broth into a stew.
You can make this with any type of whole-grain flour or use only all-purpose flour. Traditionally this would be served very peppery. Adding the pepper several minutes before serving will allow the pepper flavor to strengthen.

8-10 cups Slow-cooker Poultry Broth (chicken) or any low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon butter or chicken fat
1 cup whole grain spelt flour whole-wheat flour
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 pinch baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
3 cups cooked, boned, skinned and shredded chicken – a mixture of white and dark meat (about 1/2 chicken)
1 1/2 cups carrots, peeled and sliced (about 4 medium)
salt and pepper to taste

Bring the broth and butter to a boil in a large soup pot or dutch oven. While the broth comes to a boil, make the dumplings.

In a medium bowl combine the whole-grain flour, 1 1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper; set aside.

In another bowl mix the egg, buttermilk and baking soda.

Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and stir until well combined; the dough will be very wet.

On a pastry mat or waxed paper, spread 1/2 cup of flour. Scrape the dough onto the floured surface and cover the top with another 1/4 cup of flour.

Using your hands, spread the dough out to 1/3” inch thick. Use a knife or pizza cutter to cut the dough into 1”X3” pieces.

When the broth has come to a rapid boil, slide the dumplings, one at a time, and the extra flour into the broth. It is okay if some of the dumplings break while moving them into the broth. Use a pastry scraper or knife to get off any dumplings that stick. Immediately stir the mixture until the dumplings are separated and the flour has mixed into the broth. A few small lumps of flour are fine and will cook themselves out in time. Add the chicken and carrots and return to a simmer. Reduce the heat and cook, stirring frequently but gently until the dumplings and carrots are tender and the broth has thickened, about 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper and cook for another ten minutes before serving. Serve with green peas.

Fun with Real Yams and Pancit Noodles

February 21, 2013 - 3:43 pm | Caribbean, Field Trips, Grains, kid-friendly, Main Dish, Meatless Meals, Pasta, Recipe, Sauces/Condiments, Sides, travel, Vacation, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian

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The easiest way to save money and control the sustainability of your food on vacation is to do your own cooking. Renting a condo with a kitchen can save a lot of money and usually give you prime locations that would cost substantially more in a resort. After doing a lot of searching, we booked a week at The Atlantic Beach Front Villas on Grace Bay in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos. The villa was very comfortable and as close to the water’s edge as I can imagine ever being. The sands of Grace Bay Beach were quite literally our backyard. We had everything you needed to make a good vacation: a nice place to sleep, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world at our feet, and a kitchen so I could have fun exploring Caribbean ingredients. If you are ever looking to book a Turks and Caicos vacation, I highly recommend our villa.

The view from our beautiful condo

For months before leaving for Turks and Caicos, I researched Caribbean food. A particular highlight of my research was reading An Embarrassment of Mangoes, by Anne Vanderhoof. If you have any interest in food and the Caribbean, then you will enjoy this book. She cooks her way through the Caribbean in a tiny galley kitchen with wonderful stories that make you feel like you are on vacation with her (and make you think twice about buying a boat and sailing the islands). Her book gave me the courage to try my hand at cooking local food from my sparse condo rental kitchen.

I decided to try cooking ground provisions, the Caribbean term for starches cooked in any variety of ways. Provisions include cassava, plantains, yams, sweet potatoes and many, many others. This article from the St. John, USVI restaurant, “Sweet Plantains,” talks in depth about provisions and is an interesting read (with several typos so I feel a real connection to it). So, when I found real yams (as opposed to sweet potatoes) at the store, I jumped at the chance to serve ground provisions with our jerk chicken at dinner. Never-mind that I didn’t know what type of yams they were or how best to serve them. I just wanted to make provisions for dinner; I can be stubborn that way.

Real yams are very different from sweet potatoes. Real yams are also a starchy root vegetables, but that is where the similarity ends. The yams I found were sold in big chunks and were hairy. They looked like a cross between an overgrown horseradish and a tree stump. My insufficient research had not informed me about this type of yam or how best to prepare it. I decided to roast it like a normal sweet potato. Well, I’m going to make a really long story short. It didn’t work out so well. After fighting with the slimy beast and finally roasting it, I tasted it only to find out it was so bitter we couldn’t eat it. In fact, a much-too-late internet search suggested that bitter yams can be toxic. The garbage can enjoyed my roasted yams that night, and that ended my adventure in yam cooking. I guess I lucked out too because the slimy juice is also supposed to itch terribly if you get it on your skin. Well, I was dripping with it but didn’t itch at all. Later in the week I had much more success with another provision, plantains. I’ll share my recipe for plantains with you soon.

With the bitter, possibly toxic, itchy yams in the garbage I was stuck with a grill full of jerk chicken and nothing to serve with it. For someone that likes for the meat to be the flavor and not the center of the meal, this was a problem in a rental kitchen with exactly one days worth of food and no convenience foods to fall-back on. At home I would pull out a bag of frozen fries, chop up a big salad and be done with it. I checked the cabinets and found two boxes of cereal, a tub of peanut butter, two bottles of rum (ummmm), a head of garlic, and a package of unusual Asian noodles called Pancit noodles. They caught my attention at the IGA because the recipe on the back of the package did not require boiling the noodles prior to stir-frying them. I’m a big fan of cutting out a few steps. Jamaican jerk chicken over Asian noodles: I could make that work! I LOVE Pancit noodles; you need to find these suckers! They are a gift to the busy vacationing mom-on-the-go (or anyone so lazy that they are bothered by having to cook pasta before tossing it with the sauce. Yeah, that’s me). Just throw these noodles in the pan with some stir-fry sauce and a little water, and ten minutes later you have saucy noodles full of flavor and only one pan to clean up. That’s especially helpful when you have exactly one pan in the kitchen.

Caribbean cuisine is highly identified with peas & rice, jerk seasoning and plantains, but other aspects of the cuisine hint at an Asian/Pan-Pacific influence as well. Both Indian and Chinese workers came to the islands to work on the sugar cane plantations and left their imprint on the local cuisine. Traditionally Filipino, Pancit noodles can be wheat or rice and are used in many different recipes. Pancit is just a form of lo mein or chow mein and if you can’t find the Pancit noodles then you can use the slightly thinner chow mein Chinese wheat noodles they sell in the store. The Cook’s Thesaurus website has a handy page that lists different type of asian noodles and what can be substituted. The noodles I bought in Turks & Caicos were wheat and included a recipe for “Pancit Canton.” I didn’t follow this recipe, but I did cook the noodles right in the pan with the sauce to form chewy noodles in a thick sauce that was very slurp-able and tasty. I had a little onion, a carrot, a red bell pepper and some stir-fry sauce (and lots of garlic) on hand and that is all it needed. You can make this with any veggies you wanted, and it would be wonderful stir-fried with a little tofu. We had this with Jerk chicken the first night I made it. We all liked it so much that we had it again the very next night with grilled snapper.

These chow mein noodles were similar to the pancit noodles I used

On most Caribbean islands, almost everything is imported which drives up the price (as well as the carbon footprint). Stir-fry sauce that I usually make at home, I bought pre-made to keep costs down and convenience a priority. One jar of sesame stir-fry sauce eliminated the need for soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, brown sugar, sesame oil and chili paste. You could use pretty much any sauce you want. I could see this working with hoisin sauce, oyster sauce or any stir-fry sauce you have on hand. I’ve included a recipe for an approximation of the sauce I used, and you can use either your own homemade or store-bought sauce to make these. Enjoy!

Pancit Noodle Stir-fry
Serves 4 as a side dish or two as an entree

Pancit noodles usually come in either flour or rice versions. This version uses wheat flour noodles, sometimes called flour stick. They can be difficult to find. If you cannot find Pancit you can substitute Chinese wheat noodles or chow mein noodles. Just don’t make the mistake and buy the cooked chip-like product intended to be eaten as-is and not cooked.

1 tablespoon oil (vegetable oil such as canola or coconut)
1/2 sweet onion, sliced (I used red onion in the Caribbean and Spanish onion at home)
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons ginger, minced
6 oz package Pancit Noodles or chow mein noodles
1/4 cup stir fry sauce (pre-made or recipe below)
1 3/4 cup water
1/2 red bell pepper, sliced
1 cup carrot, julienned
2 tablespoon cilantro, chopped
1/2 lime, cut in wedges

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil and heat until it shimmers. Add the onion and cook until the edges start to brown.

Add the garlic and ginger and cook for about thirty seconds or until it is fragrant.

Add the noodles, sauce and water. Cover and cook, stirring frequently until the noodles are almost tender and the liquid has turned into a thick sauce. You may need to add a little bit more water.

Add the vegetables, stir everything together and continue to cook for about four minutes or until the vegetables are crisp-tender and the noodles are done.

Remove from the heat and top with chopped cilantro and lime wedges.

Basic Stir-fry Sauce
If you are using this in a stir-fry (as opposed to noodle sauce) add 1 teaspoon corn starch to the mixture to help thicken your sauce.

2 tablespoon Soy Sauce
1 tablespoon Brown Sugar
2 teaspoons dry sherry or white wine
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (or to taste)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir. Use in any stir-fry or noodle dish.

Chili Tamale Pie

January 30, 2013 - 7:14 am | Breads and Doughs, Gluten-Free, Grains, kid-friendly, Main Dish, Meat, Recipe, Southern, Tex-Mex, Uncategorized

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Tuesday was the last night in a week long freeze that had the whole family (and much of the Northeast) cooped up in the house. It’s too cold to play outside and too cold to take the twins out at all. The one time I did venture out for anything more than a grocery run or a trip to Ama and Papa’s house was a disaster. That’s when I discovered the hard way that it was so cold that even the baby wipes I keep in the car were frozen. Trust me when I say that you are very happy you were not with us at that moment.

When it’s this cold we all crave comfort food. To me comfort food equals casseroles. My love for casseroles has many reasons. I love that the effort in making them is front loaded so that you have time to clean up the kitchen while the casserole bakes, and I love that you can easily hide lots of veggies in them which makes them kid-friendly as well as mom-friendly. But I mostly love casseroles because they are warm and comforting; that’s a good thing when you are as cold as a penguin with male-pattern baldness.

Of course, I also love casseroles because many of them fall into the category of “retro” food. Most of us grew up familiar with all sorts of casseroles, and many of us have had more than our fare share of bad casseroles. Very few things are as bad as a casserole thrown together with canned soup, frozen overcooked veggies and huge tough boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I don’t think that casseroles deserve their lazy housewife image. Many good casseroles take lots of attention, skill and quality ingredients to turn out just right. Cassoulet is certainly not a simple weeknight meal, and even a good macaroni and cheese requires that the cook know just the right blend of cheeses, milk, pasta and other ingredients to provide a finished product bursting with the right blend of cheese and creaminess.

This casserole checks all my boxes. It’s warm, I’ve hidden in a decent amount of veggies, it’s full of cheese, chili and yummy cornbread. It’s my take on the classic Tex-Mex casserole; tamale pie.

Tamale pie recipes vary all over the place. They are in theory a meat filling with a cornbread topping. Unlike last week’s recipe, I’m not terribly concerned with being authentic here. I just like something that tastes good, stretches the chili out across more meals and warms me up.

This basic recipe is wonderful just as is it, but it’s also has all sorts of potential for adding new things to it. If you really want to warm up, switch out the peppers for hotter ones: use pasillas, a serrano or even a little chipotles for a smokey flavor. Adding beans to the chili here would not be frowned on, and you could chop up any sort of veggie you want it. You can do what you want with this casserole, but I’m a big fan of simple. It’s cheesy, it’s warm, it’s good. So, enjoy!

Beef Chili Tamale Pie
serves 6
This is a simple casserole which combines the classic flavors of chili, cheese and cornbread. Because it is easily warmed up in the microwave, it can be made ahead of time.

Cornbread Topping:
1 cup corn meal
1-1 pound package frozen corn, thawed
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
3 tablespoons vegetable oil or bacon drippings
1 tablespoon sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 oz Co-Jack, Monterrey Jack or Cheddar cheese, shredded and divided in three parts
1/2 teaspoon chili powder

Vegetable and Chili Sauce
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped fine
1 small red bell pepper, seeded and chopped fine
1 poblano or pasilla pepper, seeded and chopped fine
1 small tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups Texas Beef Chili without beans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Heat olive oil in a large cast-iron pan over medium heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the peppers, onion, tomatoes and salt and cook until all the vegetables are very soft and beginning to brown around the edges, about 10 minutes.

While the vegetables are cooking pulse the corn in a food processor several times until it is chopped, but not pureed.

In a bowl, combine the corn meal, sugar, garlic, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl. In another bowl combine the corn, buttermilk, garlic, eggs and oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and fold in 1/3 of the cheese.

Use a blender or food processor to blend the vegetables up into a smooth paste.

Return to skillet and add chili. Bring mixture up to a simmer then remove from the heat.

Spread 1/3 of the shredded cheese over the chili.

Then evenly spread the cornbread batter over the top.

Mix the chili powder with the last 1/3 of the shredded cheese and sprinkle over the top of the cornbread batter.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the top of the casserole is evenly brown and the center of the casserole springs back when lightly touched.

Happy New Year – Hoppin’ John Cakes

December 28, 2012 - 10:45 pm | Beans, Grains, Holiday, Main Dish, Meatless Meals, Recipe, Sides, Southern, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Winter

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Although the new year is not quite here yet, I’ve already begun to celebrate it’s arrival. Since the Mayan’s were wrong about the end of the world last week, I now feel the need to hurry up and enjoy myself before we all slide off the Fiscal Cliff. So, I kicked off a week long party by reinventing a southern new year’s tradition: Hoppin’ John.

Southern tradition dictates eating peas on New Year’s Day. Different parts of the south do this differently. Some parts say you need to eat black-eyed peas, others say it needs to be peas and rice, other parts say peas and greens. In low country cooking, it needs to be Hoppin’ John served on rice. Hoppin’ John is a pea dish made most often with black-eyed peas and ham hock. Whatever the combination, the eating of peas on New Year’s Day is supposed to bring you luck and wealth in the coming year.

I’m not really picky; all of the above sound good to me. Well, almost all of them. I’m not a greens fan. I know, I know. How dare I claim to know anything about southern cooking and hate greens. It’s like an New Yorker hating pizza. But there you have it. I think my distaste is rooted in the smell of mustard greens cooking all day in my house when I was a child. On days when my grand-mother was down in the kitchen cooking up a mess of greens, I would hide out in my room, sometimes even burying my head in my pillow to hide from the stench. It takes a lot to get that smell out of your mind.

But now I’m the grown-up. I’m supposed to like vegetables. So, as the good girl that I am I decided to turn greens and peas into something I could like, even love. Mixing a mild in-season green like kale with the rice and peas makes the flavor become something to get excited about. Forming the rice, peas and greens into a patty, dredging it in corn meal and frying it makes this traditional dish into something strangely more southern. It tastes deeply of the south. The total flavor is nothing but satisfying: crunchy cornmeal, homey peas and rice and the rich flavor of greens. Several people even commented that it reminded them of fried okra. It can be a little crumbly to work with, but it’s worth it in the end because of the crunch and the flavor. Alone or with a generous splash of hot sauce, these are perfect for a home cooked meal with nothing but a salad or a piece of fish. Or if you are entertaining for New Year, you can start the party in style and make these into small appetizers. I can’t promise that they will bring you wealth or luck in the new year, but they will make you popular. Enjoy!

Hoppin John Cakes

Makes 16-3” cakes or 32 small hors d’oeuvres size cakes

I love these cakes fried up with just a splash of hot sauce. Depending on your rice and peas, you may need to stir in a tablespoon of flour to make these stick together when forming them into cakes. The baking soda used in the cooking of the kale helps keep it’s nice bright green color.

1 cup dried black-eyed peas
1/2 small onion, chopped fine
1 cups medium grain rice
1/2 small bunch of kale (take the other half bunch and make kale chips – everyone else is)
1 teaspoon steak seasoning or rib seasoning with natural smoke (two of my favorites are Adams Rib Rubb and Penzey’s Chicago Steak Seasoning)
2 teaspoons hot sauce such as Crystal
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup corn meal
bacon drippings or vegetable oil for frying

Pick over the dried peas to make sure there are no rocks, pebbles or debris. Soak them overnight or bring the peas to a boil and let boil for five minutes.

Turn off the heat and let them sit for 1 hour. Cook the peas without any seasoning until just tender, about 30 minutes. When they are tender, drain off the cooking liquid and season with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and two teaspoons of hot sauce.

Set aside to cool.

While the peas are cooking, add the onion and 1/2 teaspoon of salt to a medium pot without any oil. Saute on medium-low heat until the onion is translucent, 7-10 minutes.

Add two cups of water and steak or rib seasoning and bring to a boil. Add the rice, cover tightly and reduce the heat to low. Cook for twenty minutes or until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender.

To cook the greens, remove the stem from the leaves and chop the kale into 1 inch pieces and rinse well.

Add to a pot with a 1/2 cup of water, a 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and a 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Cook over medium heat stirring frequently until the kale is wilted.

Cover and continue to cook until the kale is tender, about another five minutes. When tender, drain off the cooking liquid and squeeze the extra liquid out of the greens.

Combine the greens, rice and peas together and season to taste.

Form the cakes by pressing the mixture into a round cookie or biscuit cutter or down into a ring mold.

Small cakes can be formed by pressing the mixture into the desired size with your hands.

You want the mixture to be tightly packed to prevent the cakes from crumbling. If they do start to crumble, you can add a tablespoon or two of flour to the mixture. Carefully dredge the cakes in corn meal.

Heat a thin layer of oil (about 1/8” deep) in a large pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the cakes in batches cooking for about five minutes a side.

They should be very crispy and dark golden brown on both sides. Repeat with remaining cakes adding more oil as needed until all the cakes are done. Serve hot with lots of extra hot sauce.

Brown Sugar Walnut Pennies

November 28, 2012 - 10:09 pm | Autumn, Baking, Cookies, Desserts, Grains, kid-friendly, Recipe

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Perhaps I should tell you about “gasoline cookies.” That short story might save you the trouble of foraging for black walnuts sometime. My father, who forages his plot for anything edible, most of which turns into wine, hoarded bag after bag of black walnuts a few years ago on a year that produced more nuts than the squirrels could stow away. He had grand plans for these nuts, so he sat eagerly picking the tidbits of meat out of the impossible nuts. The phrase, “a tough nut to crack,” must have referred to black walnuts. After long hours of cracking he discovered a few things about black walnuts. First of all, black walnuts leave a black tar on your hands that is pretty difficult to remove with any earthly substance. It wears off in about two weeks. Secondly, black walnuts have a very distinct and strong flavor. One for which many people do not have a hankering. His childlike visions of a Thanksgiving full of black-walnut treats dissolved into a single simple question “Now what do I do with all these nuts?”

In the end, he made cookies which guests either loved or hated. Most of us felt they had a distinct petroleum flavor that earned them the name “gasoline cookies.” One guest—only one though—loved them for the savory, oily, umami flavor that others just did not understand.

Now, you may think it’s strange that I start out my post on brown-sugar walnut cookies with a story about black walnuts; an ingredient not present in the finished recipe. Here’s why: I spent a lot of November thinking about past Thanksgivings and the crowd that gathers every year for the feast. My parents love to entertain, and through the years they have collected a diverse yet truly lovely extended family that gather for a long weekend of eating and celebrating each other. Some years the crowd is larger than others, and I only get there every other year. On the years I spend with the other half of my family, I mull over all the memories of all the Thanksgivings I have spent with my parents’ Thanksgiving family. The people that grace their Thanksgiving table are so important to my family’s memories that the foods each person introduces bear his/her name from that time forward. Imelda Berries and Pam’s Potatoes are normal side dishes (thankfully Erin’s sauerkraut never took off – sorry Erin!).

Every year is a different Thanksgiving, and each year a different story is told. One year the stuffing exploded; one year my mom invited the florist (or was it the pharmacist?) When I asked my parents about how Thanksgiving went this year my first question was, “Was it a good stuffing year?” My father’s famous stuffing recipe evolves every year and some mutations are more successful than others (this year was a hit). And the second question was, “What was the food star this year?” Every year there is one food item that gets all the talk. This year it was a pecan-pie cookie so good that one taste was enough for a family member to lay claim on the entire batch. So while I thought about those food stars, I kept coming back to the year of the gasoline cookies.

Considering the ingredients, those gasoline cookies should have been wonderful. But, it turns out that you can have too much of a good thing. Black walnuts, prized for their strong flavor and unique nuttiness should be used sparingly and cautiously–especially in baking. Many love black walnuts in savory dishes such as salads or for snacking with strong cheeses, but not usually as the main ingredient in cookies. When you want a walnut cookie packed with nut flavor black walnuts might not be the right choice for you. By the way, after a few years in the freezer, the black walnuts mellowed and made some delightful desserts. Do you have a few years to wait on your walnuts?

For a cookie that is crunchy and sweet with a mouth full of brown sugar and nutty goodness, then you want to use English walnuts. That’s what this cookie uses. To heighten the nutty flavor of the cookies, I brown a portion of the butter and re-cool it before adding it to the mix. There isn’t anything in these cookies that doesn’t add to the flavor; there’s no eggs and no leaveners. The finished cookie is something between a sweet sugar cookie and a shortbread. They are sweet and very nutty (with my normal dose of whole grains). I made them small and coin-like (hence the name), but don’t expect to stop at one or two cookies. They are so good that you’ll need to make sure you have all four dozen ready to go when you serve them, and as a bonus, they are guaranteed to be free from all fossil fuels. Perhaps I should nick-name them alternate energy cookies…Enjoy!

Brown Sugar Walnut Pennies
Makes 48 small cookies
Spelt flour adds a wonderful crunch to these cookies, but no one will guess that there is any whole wheat flour in them.

12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks) divided
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups spelt flour
1 cup English walnuts

Melt 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter in a small saucepan set over medium heat. Watch the butter carefully and remove from the heat when the butter reaches a light nutty brown color.

Let the butter cool back down completely to room temperature even if it starts to harden slightly.

While the butter cools, finely chop the walnuts until they are about the size of a piece of rice (I pulse them in a food processor). Set aside.

Mix the cooled browned butter with the rest of the butter and brown sugar in the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer. Beat on medium speed until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the salt and vanilla and beat again, scraping down the sides. Add the flour, mixing until just combined, and then fold in the nuts.

Place half the mixture on a long piece of plastic wrap and form into a long rope about 1” wide and about 12” long. Repeat with the second half of the dough forming two long thin rolls of dough. Refrigerate the dough for at least two hours, or until it is hard and cold.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice each roll of dough in half and then each half into twelve even “coins” forming 48 small cookies. Place the cookies on baking sheets lined with parchment or a non-stick baking mat – 24 to a baking sheet. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are slightly browner than the middle and the middles look set. Let the cookies cool before removing from the baking sheets and store tightly covered until serving.

Category Archives: Grains

Babycakes – Gluten Free Mini Oat Scones

Rustic Sweet Onion Tart

Bulgur Pilaf and a Spring Feast for Mother’s Day

Banana Bread Pancakes

Quinoa Turkey Meatloaf (Gluten-Free)

Chicken and Dumplings

Fun with Real Yams and Pancit Noodles

Chili Tamale Pie

Happy New Year – Hoppin’ John Cakes

Brown Sugar Walnut Pennies

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