Special Occasions
Chocolate Cheese Babka and Le Crueset Winner
When I was really little, we would go to my grandparents house for Easter. At breakfast, they always had this really good bread called babka. I had forgotten all about it until a few years ago, when something triggered the memory. I went searching for some, but I could only find one bakery that had them and it was way more than I wanted to pay. Ever since, I’ve looked for them each year at Easter to no avail. This year, I decided I would just make my own already. A quick search of the internet showed me that this was easier said than done – recipes were few and far between, they seemed to have crazy differences (some had tons of sugar and few eggs, others few eggs and tons of sugar), and most recipes seemed like they would feed an army.
A little research showed me that there are actually two types of Babka – an Eastern European/ Polish kind and a Jewish kind. The Polish babka is an eggy bread that is traditionally served at Easter, while the Jewish version is closer to a cake with a streusel topping. The Polish version was definitely what I was looking for, so I sent out a twitter message asking if anyone knew of any good recipes for it. It actually turned out that Cheryl from Backseat Gourmet was baking Babka that day too, and we shared out progress as we went along. It didn’t take long to realize that the recipe I was using was no good – my dough wasn’t rising at all! Hers was successful though, so she very kindly emailed me the recipe that she used. I gave it another try the next day, with much more success. The resulting bread was light and fluffy, with an eggy and slightly sweet dough that is similar to brioche. I filled my bread with chocolate and cheese, which I thought I remembered from my grandparents, but i think I actually remember it from when I was a little older and we bought babkas at the grocery store. When I read her post about eating raisin-studded babka slathered with butter, I remembered that’s how we ate it back then. Either way thought is delicious, and this would be a special treat on Easter morning.
I don’t have a bundt or tube pan so I made a makeshift one using a springform pan and a ramekin. I just set the ramekin upside down in the center of the pan and twisted the bread dough around it. It worked just fine, so I’m glad I didn’t go out and buy a special pan for this.
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Copyright Lauren Keating © 2007-2010. This feed is for personal enjoyment only, and not for publication. Please contact lk@healthy-delicious.com if you are not reading this in a news aggregator, the site you are viewing is guilty of copyright infringement.
Odds, Ends, and a Le Crueset Giveaway!
I can hardly believe it, but I missed the 1 year anniversary of me starting Healthy-Delicious.com! I can’t believe it’s been a year already. I’ve had the blog for much longer than that, but I only started posting regularly last winter, and it was last March that I moved it to my own domain.
Anyway, CSN stores offered me a product to giveaway and I thought it would be a fun opportunity to give away a great gift to one lucky reader in celebration of the blog’s birthday. This is a good one, folks! I spent hours pouring through the CSN websites choosing the perfect gift… they have everything imaginable: from cooking gadgets to board games, and dog beds to tv stands. It’s all divided up into smaller stores though, so it’s pretty easy to navigate. They also have some really awesome deals and special values on some of my favorite cookware. So what did I choose for you? You’ll have to read on to find out. 
You won’t want to miss this one! (pssst… it’s something from Le Crueset!)
First, see all that delicious food up there? Remember last year’s 24-hour NYC food whirlwind? Well, we did it again, and this year it was even better! I met up with Mo, Sarah, and Carol on Saturday and we proceeded to eat our way through NYC (sharing portions here and there so as to not be completely gross about it!). Our first stop was the Radiance Tea and Book House, where we shared a pitcher of the most amazing iced tea I’ve ever had (It was sweetened oolong tea with honey soaked fruit in it – it was almost like sangria with all that fruit!) and I ordered a side order of soupy pork dumplings. I love dumplings, and these were some of the best I’ve ever had. Sarah had an awesome looking ice cream sundae with homemade green tea, red bean, and mango ice creams and Carol ordered a really fun sticky rice and bean dessert with coconut milk and toasted nuts. I had a bit and it was SO GOOD! This place was a real find… not too crowded for a Saturday afternoon, it was the perfect place for a nice leisurely chat so we could all catch up. We did some sightseeing and stopped at the cutest little cheese shop for a snack – nothing like eating cheese on the sidewalk! Did some more sightseeing before we parted ways for dinner. Mo, Sarah, and I headed back to Mo’s neighborhood for a repeat of last year’s roast pork – which as even better this year! We also shared a few pitchers of sangria. [....]
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Copyright Lauren Keating © 2007-2010. This feed is for personal enjoyment only, and not for publication. Please contact lk@healthy-delicious.com if you are not reading this in a news aggregator, the site you are viewing is guilty of copyright infringement.
Lavender and Vanilla Bean Macarons
Why what do we have here? Just my long promised second (and more successful!) post about making macarons! I know. I left you hanging for forever. A few of you even emailed me. But what can I say? I got distracted by other goodies like pineapple upside-down cake, cappuccino cheesecake, and a delicious orange pound cake that I still need to post.
I recently began seeing a group of people on twitter posting about a monthly #mactweets event. It took me a while to figure out what exactly was going on, but eventually I got it : a group of people looking to perfect macarons, and sharing laughs, encouragement, and cheers along the way. All with a monthly theme. I’ve been watching from the sidelines for a while, but decided that this would be the month that I would jump right in.
The theme for March is “Spring Fling: Baking Your Favorite Springtime Flowers.” I’ve been looking for an excuse to buy some of the beautiful dried flowers that they keep in the bulk bins at the co-op, so this was the perfect month for me to start! It took me a while to settle on a flavor, but I ended up choosing lavender and vanilla bean macarons with buttercream frosting.
I’m not going to lie. These are tricky little devils to make! It actually took me two tries to get them right – I over folded my first batch and ended up with flat, cracked cookies that stuck to the baking sheet and were a huge mess to clean up. But I didn’t give up. Instead, I did a little more reading and gave it another go. My results still weren’t perfect, but they were a lot closer! I mean, how cute are these?!
A few tips that I learned along the way:
- You need to mix the batter a lot more than you think you should. It’s ok! Start out quickly and the slow down — it should take around 50 strokes. When it’s folded enough, the batter will flow like magma, and a line drawn in it with a knife will disappear after about 10 seconds.
- Use a scale. It’s much more accurate than trying to measure your ingredients.
- Parchment paper works better than a silpat. I don’t know why, but it does.
- Don’t crowd your oven. Bake one tray at a time, turning it halfway through so they cook evenly.
- It’s much easier to put your “toppings” on before the macarons bake. I don’t now why I thought I would be able to get stuff to stick to them once they were baked last time!!
Also, one of the things that I didn’t like about the other recipe I had used was that it didn’t call for the piped macarons to rest before baking. Instead, you baked them for a few minutes at a high temperature, and then the rest of the way at a lower temperature. I much prefer the method of letting them rest, which helps the tops dry out. When they bake, the dried top will rise straight up, giving you nice, ruffly “feet.”
The tops on this batch isn’t as smooth as I would have liked — blame that on me being lazy and not sifting my sugar/almond mixture. Also, I didn’t let my egg white age (my aged white went into my failed batch). I’m not sure what aging does to them, but these seemed to come out ok. They were also a little more hollow than they should be. So I know what I have to work on for next month. But for now, not bad, if I do say so myself. {….]
Meat Free Friday: Chana Masala (Curried Chickpeas)
There’s an Indian restaurant around the corner from my house. In addition to having great food, they’re one of the few Indian restaurants in town that have a weekend lunch buffet — and sometimes they even have a coupon for buy one, get one free! Needless to say, we find ourselves there on Saturdays fairly often. All of the options are spectacular, but I always head straight for the chickpeas. They do them a few different way, but whenever I see “the one with the onions” I know I’ve hit the jackpot. This dish is glorious: hearty but not heavy and with the perfect amount of spice to make it noticeably hot without being too much. And the chickpeas — oh, the chickpeas. I’m always jealous of how they get their chickpeas to be so silky smooth.
So, me being me, I decided to try reproducing it at home.
I searched for a while, but wasn’t able to figure out what exactly this dish is called. So I used a combination of recipes and memory to come up with this recipe. I’m calling it chana masala, which from what I can tell is a broad description that translates to something like “chickpeas in curry sauce.” It isn’t exactly the same as the restaurant’s, but it’s delicious nonetheless. Caramelized onions and tomatoes give the dish a great depth of flavor, and a combination of spices and cream give it a luxurious earthiness.
The trick to getting those velvety chickpeas is to start with dried beans. I have nothing against canned chickpeas. In fact, I use them all the time. But when you really think about the texture of them, they have sort of a grittiness or a sandiness to them. Dried beans take a lot longer to prepare, but the texture is entirely different — they’re soft and plump, with a smooth, creamy center that doesn’t have a trace of grittiness to it. I’ve tried making dried chickpeas a few times before but they’ve never come out quite right. You need to be patient with them. Soak them overnight in lots of water — they’ll plump up to at least double their original size. Then, simmer then slowly for at least an hour until they are tender and creamy.
If you’re in a rush, you can use canned chickpeas and have a delicious dinner in a few minutes. But if you have the time and patience to start with dried beans, you’ll be in for a real treat.
You may find chickpeas being sold under their other name — garbanzo beans.
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Copyright Lauren Keating © 2007-2010. This feed is for personal enjoyment only, and not for publication. Please contact lk@healthy-delicious.com if you are not reading this in a news aggregator, the site you are viewing is guilty of copyright infringement.
Southwestern Short Ribs
One day last weekend, I was looking for an excuse to not leave the house so I decided to braise something. I feel like although I’ve been doing a lot of braising this winter (thanks to Julie and Julia, which has us all craving Boeuf Bourgignon in August!!), I hardly ever use my oven. I obviously use it when I bake, but it’s so rare that I do something like roast a chicken and the oven just never gets used for cooking. I takes so long! You have to wait for it to preheat, then it takes forever to actually cook your food…. so it’s the stovetop for me the majority of the time. Every once in a while if I’m snowed in (or want to pretend I’m snowed in!) I take advantage of the time at home to make a delicious braised dish. Like these short ribs, which simmer away all afternoon until the meat falls right off the bone and is tender as can be.
Instead of doing a traditional Italian braise, I decided to put a southwestern twist on my ribs, using beer and tequila as my liquids and adding a jalapeno and some chili powder to the pot. The flavor turned out great – it wasn’t spicy or beer-y at all, but it had a nice little southwestern kick. In order to develop the recipe I used the “Create your own” feature on the Fine Cooking web site. The feature walks you through the recipe and lets you drag different combinations of ingredients into the “pot” – then at the end it gives you a recipe that you can follow to recreate the dish n a real kitchen. I always play around with the feature, but I had never actually cooked one of the recipes before. I was impressed! Although you ned to pay attention to what flavors will go well together and make sure you have a good balance of richness and acidity, it’s a great way to put a fun, personal twist on a recipe that you aren’t that familiar with.
For any of you that have never had short ribs before, it’s similar to pot roast with a slightly firmer texture – fork-tender and succulent meat, with vegetables that cook down into a nice sauce. I served these with mashed potatoes (with sour cream instead of milk) to serve with my ribs. They were a great way to soak up the extra sauce! [....]
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