Homemade Graham Crackers

Jitterbug Crackers aka Homemade Graham Crackers

I went looking for a recipe for crackers, as when the kids were little I used to make them and they were a real favorite.  I happened upon a recipe from Allrecipes  for homemade Graham Crackers and happened to have all the ingredients.  WOW, they turned out good.  I thought they would be a healthy treat for toddlers for Valentine’s Day, but everyone loves them. They are just a little sweet and perfect with peanut butter smeared on top!

After I rolled out the dough, I cut them out with cookie cutters to make them special.

Ingredients

1/2 cup shortening (I used butter)

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 cups whole wheat flour (works best with W.W. pastry flour)

1 cup  A.P. flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup + 1 — 4 tsp milk

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, cream together the shortening and brown sugar. Stir in the vanilla. Combine the whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the milk. Cover and chill dough until firm.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into rectangles. Place 1/2 inch apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until crisp. Edges will be golden brown. Remove from baking sheet to cool on wire racks.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/graham-crackers/detail.aspx

Rice Pudding – Comfort food a la Yia Yia

There is nothing that screams comfort to Doug louder than his grandmother’s Rice Pudding.  When we were first married, I naturally, asked Yia Yia how to make it, and she described in detail her recipe and the process.  I tried to make her Rice Pudding at least 5 times and it never came out like hers.  So I gave up.  Several years later, I stood next to her at the stove as she made it.  Well, I saw her reach for the box of cornstarch and I asked “When did you start using cornstarch in your pudding?”  She answered that she always had used it.  AHA!  The missing ingredient!  That’s why hers always came out so much better than mine, now I understood.  I have made this all my married life even making it for the kids when they were babies and giving it to them for breakfast.

Here’s a step by step tutorial so that you can continue to share the comfort that only Yia Yia can exude.

Rice Pudding

Ingredients

*a half gallon milk – use any kind except skim.  I use 1% organic.  **keep 1/2 cup of this aside for later in the recipe

*3 egg yolks

*3 tablespoons cornstarch

*3/4 – 1 cup sugar

* a slice of lemon or orange peel

* 1 Tbs butter

* 1 tsp. vanilla

* 3/4 cup medium grain rice (if you can get River Rice brand use that)

All the ingredients

Use a heavy bottom saucepan, pour all but 1/2 cup of the milk into the sauce pan and begin to heat on low (put remaining milk aside).  Add the rice to the pan and the fruit peel (I used orange here because I did not have lemon).  Float the Tbs of butter on the top.

Rice

Milk in sauce pan ** stir every 3 min. or so

Stir the rice and milk often, perhaps every 3 min. or so. Gradually increase heat so that small bubbles almost form on the surface of the milk. STIR! Continue simmering until rice is soft but not mush.  This may take 20- 35 minutes.  If you do not stir the pan, the milk will begin to burn on the bottom and the pudding will be ruined as well as your pan.  How do I know this? I have burned this more times than I care to admit.

Orange peel floating in milk and rice, STIR!

Meanwhile, put 3 egg yolks in a bowl and add 3/4 cup of sugar. Mix together

Egg yolks in the bowl

Mix with 3/4 cup sugar

Tempering the eggs

Once rice is cooked, scoop out a half cup of hot rice and milk and SLOWLY add it to egg yolks and sugar stirring constantly (this is called “tempering eggs”.  It raises their temperature slowly so that they do not scramble when added to the hot mixture).  Add another 1/2 cup of the hot rice and milk to the eggs doing it the same way, slowly, stirring constantly.

Now, take the egg mixture and SLOWLY, STIRRING CONSTANTLY, add it to the saucepan.

Add eggs SLOWLY to saucepan. STIR!

Now, continue to stir mixture gently, it wil begin to thicken. Remove from heat temporarily.  In the bowl you just used for the eggs, pour the leftover 1/2 cup of cold milk.  To the cold milk, add 3 tbs. cornstarch, Mix vigorously until dissolved.

Add cornstarch to remaining cold milk.

Now slowly add the cold milk-cornstarch mixture to the saucepan, STIR!

Add cornstarch and milk to saucepan. STIR!

Stir this mixture gently, put saucepan back on stove.  As it heats, it will thicken.  Taste.  Does it need to be sweeter?  Then add more sugar now.  Take off the stove. If you think it is too thick, now is the time to add milk.   Finally, add 1 tsp vanilla.

**The thickness of the final result will depend, in part, on the starch content of the rice and quality of the cornstarch.

Thickened with cornstarch and ready to come off the stove

Now, put in container, and place plastic wrap directly on surface to cool so that moisture does not build up and drip into pudding.  Serve with a sprinkle of cinnamon and all will be right with the world! YUM!

In the container waiting for your spoon

Special notes-

• Should you find that the rice pudding is too thick in the pan, just add milk to thin a bit.  Remember is will also tighten up when it is cold.
• If you find that you have burned your pan, all may be lost for the rice pudding, but it may not be for the pan.  Buy a can of “Oven Cleaner”.  Yes, the stuff that smells awful.  Warm you pan on low until the pan bottom is warm.  Spray the inside with oven cleaner and let sit for an hour.  It should clean out beautifully.  Of course, you would not use this method to take care of a burned non-stick pan (which I have also destroyed making this!)

Chipotle Chilaquiles

It is no great secret that I absolutely love Mexican food. This dish is another incredibly easy and amazing meal from Rick Bayless. It is year-round hearty deliciousness, good for a crowd and also makes great leftovers. This is more or less from Bayless’ book Mexico One Plate at a Time. It takes about 30 minutes, maybe 45 if you’re slower. Serves 4 and can be easily doubled. Most of the measurements are not all that important. The key to the dish is making sure that the chips have absorbed most, but not all of the soupy deliciousness. You will need:

8 to 12 loosely packed cups of thick resturant style tortilla chips. Get the thickest ones you can find, or get corn tortillas and fry them yourself.

1 28oz can of good whole tomatoes. I like to use the fire roasted ones since I think they add more flavor to this dish. If you can get ripe tomatoes, you can use fresh. You will need to place them on a baking sheet about 4″ below a very hot broiler and roast for about 6 minutes per side. Let them cool a bit and peel off the blackened skins with your fingers and cut out the hard cores.

2 or 3 canned chipotle peppers in adobo

1.5 tbsp vegetable oil

1 large white onion, sliced 1/4″ thick, divided

3 cloves garlic

2.5 cups broth. If you want to make this vegetarian, use veggie broth or water.

Salt to taste

Mexican crema or sour cream thinned with a little milk for garnish

1.5 cups shredded cooked chicken (optional). You can use leftover chicken, or this is a great thing to do with part of a grocery store rotisserie chicken. Just shred it with your fingers or a couple of forks. It does not need to be pretty..

1/4 cup queso añejo or queso fresco. If you can’t find either of these, Parmigiano-Reggiano works well for queso añejo and ricotta salata works well for queso fresco.

1 large bunch of swiss chard well washed and coarsely chopped (optional)

3 tbsp fresh epazote or cilantro chopped

 

First, heat a dutch oven or soup pot over medium high. When it’s hot, dump in about 2/3 of the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally until golden, about 7 minutes. While that is happening, dump all of the tomatoes and chipotle peppers into a blender and blend into a coarse purée. When the onion is nearly cooked, finely chop the garlic and dump it into the onions. Cook it for about a minute. After the minute, dump in the tomato mixture and cook over medium-high for 4 or five minutes. You will need to stir constantly to keep this from splattering everywhere. You are trying to reduce the tomatoes a bit and concentrate the flavors. Next, dump in the broth or water. When everything is combined, dump in the chard and chicken if you are using it (we always use chard). If you are using epazote, add it now. If you are using cilantro, wait. Make sure the chard wilts enough that you can get most of it beneath the surface of the liquid, then dump in the chips. Stir them to get them all evenly coated. You will have to eyeball the amount of chips. If your chips are thicker, it will take less. When all the chips are coated, cover the pot and take it off the heat. Leave it alone for about five minutes and you are ready to eat. Serve it in wide bowls and top with the raw onion and cilantro, if you’re using it. I usually like to let people add their own crema, but you can put it on at the end as well.

This is also a great thing to make and let people assemble themselves if you have a mixed crowd of vegetarians and carnivores. Just leave the chicken in a bowl on the side and let people add it as they like. Also, in Mexico, this is often served as breakfast. I’ve had it topped with a sunny side up egg in Mexico City and it is pretty fantastic, just different from the expected breakfast fare.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Mardi Gras Time!!

Mardi Gras King Bread

It’s almost that time.  I thought I’d post the recipe in advance in case there were any Mardi Gras events coming up.  Actually, this is the BEST breakfast bread ever.  You are supposed to hide in the dough, as you form the loaf, a plastic baby.  Those are getting hard to find, but try.  In its place, you can use:  a whole pecan or walnut, a dry bean, a whole date, a candied cherry, etc.  The person that gets the treat in their slice has good luck for the year.  Our Greek side of the family does this event on New Year’s Day.

The Recipe

Pastry

1 cup milk – scalded

1/4 cup butter -stirred into warm milk

1/2 cup whote sugar

2 eggs

1tsp salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

grated rind of 1 orange (or lemon)

5 1/2 cups or more flour

Allow milk/butter mixture to cool to lukewarm. In mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water (that has 1 TBS sugar mixed in) until foamy, about 5 min.  Add cooled milk with 1 cup flour, mix, add eggs, add spices. Mix in flour 1 cup at a time until, you have a warm dough that is smooth and elastic.  Lightly oil a bowl, cover with damp cloth, or plastic, (I cover my bowls with a shower cap).  In about 90 min., it should be doubled in bulk, punch it down and divide in half.

Filling

1 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

2/3 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup raisins chopped (you can use any dried fruit you prefer)

1/2 cup melted butter

Combine everything except butter.  When mixed, then pour butter over all, mix until crumbly.

Roll each half of dough into a rectangle.  Spread half of filling onto each rectangle. Roll like a jelly roll, Bury the baby, nut, or bean. Pinch ends TIGHTLY. Bring ends together and pinch together if possible.  Slash tops on diagonals about 1/3 of the way down.  Let rise until doubled covered with damp towels.

Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes

Frosting– an essential part, don’t skimp! (wait until bread has cooled)

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

1 tablespoon water or lemon juice

Drizzle liberally over cakes and sprinkle immediately with garish colored sugar. The traditional colors are:  green, purple, and gold (yellow).  Use what you have, just make it gaudy. You can also top with candied cherries and whole pecans.

**eat with gobs of butter and start Lent the next day.

Retro and Delectable: Monkey Bread

In a fit of nostalgia a couple months ago I tried to recreate something I remembered vaguely through a cloud of joy from my childhood. This something was monkey bread–a treat that you can imagine my mother would allow us maybe once a year. If this is starting to ring and bells for you, I have to tell you: It is just as melt-in-your-mouth gooey today as it was when we were 10.

Ingredients

One can of store-bought biscuits
Cinnamon sugar
Butter

Directions

Preheat the oven at 350. Unroll the biscuits and cut each round up into three or four strips. Roll each strip around in a mess of cinnamon and sugar and throw it in a greased pan (loaf, bundt, whatever you want). Repeat with all of the biscuit dough until what you basically have is a tangled mound of cinnamon sugar dough amazingness. Then cut up little bits of butter and intersperse them around the pan. Put the pan in the oven for about 30 minutes, then pull it out and eat it when it looks a bit brown and crispy on top.

Eating methods vary; I suppose you could cut this into slices, but really it’s more fun to just peel strips off and eat it right out of the pan.

Pumpkin Waffles

This is an adapted recipe for pumpkin waffles that Kate and I have been making for some time. If you don’t happen to have buttermilk around, just set regular milk in a cup or something and add a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice. Let that stand while you get the rest of the recipe together and use it just like the buttermilk. There is enough acid in the lemon juice to act on the baking soda and make the waffles fluffier.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I usually use some combo of white whole wheat and regular whole wheat flours for this)

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup well-shaken buttermilk
• 1 14oz can canned solid-pack pumpkin
• 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
• Vegetable oil for brushing waffle iron (I use Pam or baker’s joy)

Sift together flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices.

Whisk eggs in a large bowl until blended, then whisk in milk, buttermilk, brown sugar, pumpkin, and butter until smooth. Whisk in dry ingredients just until smooth.

Brush waffle iron lightly with oil and spoon batter (about 2 cups for four 4-inch Belgian waffles) into waffle iron, spreading quickly. Cook for about 4 minutes in a Belgian waffle maker, maybe less in a normal one.

Put some maple syrup on and dig in.

Also, these freeze really well. Just let them cool off and put them in ziplock bags for homemade eggos. Heat them up for a few seconds in the microwave and then bake them in the toaster for a couple of minutes.