Coconut Bread

I have to admit a tiny, devious secret; I have an ulterior motive to this recipe.  It is a mere stepping stone towards a dish I really have a craving for.  Let me explain. I enjoy scuba diving and on my most recent trip diving in the Bahamas, we stopped at a local restaurant for breakfast before boarding our boat.  I really enjoy breakfast foods so choosing just one item off the menu is often difficult.  I usually try to convince my husband to get something different so that we can share.

This time around, I selected the coconut french toast.  It seems rather simple, I'm sure, but it's something that I would never take the time to make for myself.  Week days are too busy to indulge in fancy breakfast foods, only leaving the weekend to partake in the more decadent dishes. Getting back to my story, it was absolutely delicious. You could taste the butter that it was cooked in and the sprinkle of confectioners sugar on the top made the maple syrup almost unnecessary.

Since that day, I have tried only once to recreate the dish.  My version was good, but it seemed like a lot of effort for only a second-place finish.  I'm hoping that this recipe for coconut bread will help me get one step closer to the flavor that I can only seem to find in the Caribbean.  The bread itself turned out great both moist and flavorful.  Slice it and serve it warm with a small pad of butter or sprinkle some powdered sugar on it.  It makes a great breakfast treat or a light post-dinner dessert.  I'll be sure to let you know if the coconut french toast turns out, however, this recipe was good enough to hold up on its own.

 

Coconut Bread
Adapted from Bill's Sydney Food
Makes 8-10 thick slices


2 large eggs
1 1/4 cup milk (not skim)
1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla paste
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
3/4 cup shredded coconut
2 Tbsp butter, melted

To Serve:
butter
confectioners (powdered) sugar



Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Lightly whisk eggs, milk and vanilla together.

Sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl, add sugar and coconut, and stir to combine. Make a well in the center and gradually stir in the egg mixture until just combined.  Add melted butter and stir until the mixture is just smooth, being careful not to over mix.

Pour into a greased and floured 8.5 x 4 inch (loaf) pan and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour or until bread is cooked when tested with a skewer or toothpick.

Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to cool further on a wire rack. Serve with a pad of butter and/or dusted with powdered sugar.

Not Your Mother's Scrambled Eggs

Rise and shine!  We've all had scrambled eggs for breakfast. Even someone who has never cooked before could probably whip up a dish of scrambled eggs without screwing them up.  What if I told you that while you can't really screw them up, you can totally make them better?


Case in point:  I have always been a follower of the cooking show Good Eats hosted by Alton Brown.  He was the first to point out that I was cooking my eggs incorrectly.  A scrambled egg should be removed from the pan when it still looks runny as it will continue to cook when laid upon the plate.  By the time the first bite hits your mouth, it will be finished cooking and done so to perfection. 


Alton's second point made is confirmed by this recipe taken from Bill Granger's book Bill's Sydney Food. The magic ingredient to fantastic scrambled eggs is heavy cream.  Yes, I know, I can hear the moaning and groaning from here, but it's true.  As much as our diet-fad culture wants us to cringe at the very thought of heavy cream, it really does make the world taste better.  Every now and then,  treat yourself and buy a small container of it and make several dishes in a row that require it. Using it up with no waste justifies the cost (which I admit seems ridiculous) and you get to treat your palate to a few meals indulging in rich, decadent flavors. As it was said to Mikey so many years ago, "Try it. You'll like it." Trust me.

Scrambled Eggs
Adapted from Bill's Sydney Food
Serves 1

2 eggs, large
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter
pinch of salt
fresh ground pepper to taste

Place eggs, cream and salt in a bowl and whisk together.
Melt the butter in a non-stick rying pa over high heat, but becareful not to burn the butter.
Pour in the egg mixture and cook for 20 seconds or until gently set around the edges.
Stir the eggs with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, gently bringing the egg mixture on the outside of the pan towards the center.  The idea is to fold the eggs rather than to scramble them, but really, I just push them towards the center of the pan.  Leave alone to cook for another 20 seconds longer and then repeat the folding process.  When the eggs are just barely set (yes, they will look runny), turn out onto a plate and serve. Sprinkle salt and peper to taste.

Ricotta Hotcakes

One-fourth of the month of August is already gone. That is an even more depressing fact when I realize this is my first post of the month.  It's been a super busy summer for us and I'm sure your household is no exception.  I realized, by accident, that we recently ate a week's worth of vegetarian meals.  This isn't really a big deal for us accept my husband is a meat and potatoes man.  Even more ironically, my husband admitted that the vegetarian meals we had were so good that he didn't even miss eating meat. So I decided to run with it and add another vegetarian meal to the list.

This picture may look like ordinary pancakes, but I guarantee you, they do not taste like ordinary pancakes.  As the recipe title suggests, these are made with ricotta cheese.  This recipe comes from Bill Granger's cookbook, Bill's Sydney Food.Bill lives in Sydney, Australia and runs a tiny little restaurant in the Darlinghurst region of the city.  It's unfortunate that I didn't cross paths with Bill's restaurant when I was living in Sydney because surely I would have become a regular there. His cuisine offerings focus more on breakfast and light lunch fare but that wouldn't stop me from preparing any of his dishes for dinner. I think I really enjoy his recipes because he is not a classically trained chef.  He has simply dabbled in food all of his life, cooks for his wife and children daily, and he worked hard to get his restaurant up and running. His focus, like many of my favorite chefs, is fresh, quality ingredients as the base for simple yet flavor-bursting dishes. 

These pancakes are true to that mentality. I love pancakes but absolutely refuse to make (or eat) them at home.  I can never get them to taste as they do in the restaurant. These hotcakes are my one and only exception and they are the only ones that I will make for my family.  Admittedly, these are a bit more work than your average "just add water" pancake mixes, but I don't care.  I will gladly dirty an extra bowl or two just to bite into one of these babies.  You don't even taste the ricotta.  It simply brings creaminess and body to the plate.  The key is in the egg whites.  You must beat the egg whites to a stiff peak before folding them into the batter. However, it is really easy to hand your 5-year-old the hand mixer and have them beat the egg whites while you prepare everything else.  This is a great recipe for involving little helping hands and you can essentially eat them any time of day.

Ricotta Hotcakes
Adapted from Bill's Sydney Food
Serves 4-6 (depending on the size of the hotcakes)

1 and 1/2 cup ricotta
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs, separated
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
butter

For Serving:
confectioners sugar
maple syrup


Place ricotta, milk and egg yolks in a mixing bowl and mix to combine.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into another bowl.  Add to the ricotta mixture and mix until just combined.

Place egg whites in a clean dry bowl and beat until stiff peaks form.  Fold egg whites through the batter (the book says in two batches, however, I have sometimes done it all at once and didn't notice a difference) with a large metal spoon.

Lightly grease a large non-stick frying pan with a small portion of butter (butter tastes better, but you can substitute a cooking spray) and drop approximately 2 tablespoons of batter per hotcake into the pan.  Don't cook more than 4 at a time as you need a little extra "flipping room."

Cook over low to medium heat for 2 minutes or until the undersides are golden.  Flip hotcakes (carefully! they are delicate) and cook on the the other side until golden and cooked through. 

Sprinkle with confectioners sugar or maple syrup and serve immediately.

NOTE:  The book indicates that the hotcake batter can be stored for up to 24 hours, covered with plastic wrap in the refrigerator.  I have not yet tried this but I image they do it at the restaurant all the time.

Greek Frittata with Spinach and Potato

I admit it. I'm a Costco shopper. I know that not everything there is a good deal and buying in bulk goes slightly against my anti-hoarding tendencies, but I really do like a lot of the items that they offer.  One item in particular (and this may sound silly) is their bag of baby spinach.  They sell a 5 lb bag of cleaned, trimmed, baby spinach leaves for $5.  That is way more than I can produce out of my garden and for $1/lb cleaned and trimmed, how can I say no?

However, I don't like to waste either. We do have a compost heap in the backyard to properly recycle food scraps, but I still don't like having to toss food out.  So once I buy this rather large bag of spinach leaves, I must dig out all my spinach recipes and put them to work. This recipe is a new one, but certainly one that I will use again.  This one was inspired from Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best as it's one of those "suggested recipes" where they only give you the idea and not the "how-to."  It was really easy and ready to eat in less than 40 minutes with minimal hands-on time.  This made for a delicious dinner but could also be served for lunch or breakfast.

Greek Frittata with Spinach and Potato
Inspired by Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best
Serves 4-6

8 eggs
4 cups raw baby spinach (or a 10-oz frozen package of chopped spinach, thawed and drained well)
4 scallions, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 tablespoon fresh dill (or 2 tablespoons dried)
1/2 cup heavy cream (though milk would be fine also)
3 cups diced potatoes (I used a package of frozen diced as I didn't have any fresh but make sure they are thawed)
salt and pepper to taste


Heat the oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet (oven safe). Cook the potatoes until almost done. Add the scallions for just a few minutes.  During this time, mix the eggs and cream together in a separate bowl.

Add the spinach into the skillet and cover with a tight fitting lid.  Turn the heat down to medium low.  You want to steam the spinach until it wilts, but do not stir.  This should take a few minutes.  When it looks wilted, sprinkle the feta and dill above the spinach. Pour the egg mixture over the top. Add a dash of salt and pepper on the top (optional).

Turn the heat down to low and cook for 8-10 minutes or until the top is almost set.  Slide under a preheated broiler to finish cooking and brown the top. Cut into wedges and serve hot or cold.  For lunch or dinner, serve with a fresh green salad.

Balsamic-Macerated Strawberries

Yes, I know.  Technically, strawberry season has come and gone.  Therefore I know the package that I recently purchased was carted in from elsewhere, but I can't help that I'm a sucker for the delicious red fruit (and so are my girls to be honest).  I always want to make something with them, however, they usually get eaten too quickly and I am not left with much to work with.  I have managed to make a delicious strawberry bread with them and put them in salads with a nice balsamic vinaigrette dressing and some goat cheese, but that is about the extent of my creativity.

This time around, I actually hid the strawberries in the back of the refrigerator back behind the leftovers as I found a new recipe for them in my copy of Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best, balsamic-macerated strawberries.  The notes in the recipe indicate that it can be served as a dessert or as a filling or a topping, a nice versatile dish in my mind.  So I actually made a chocolate pound cake so that I could serve the topping as a topping.  After the pound cake was made and set to cool, I had to sneak a taste of the macerated strawberries and decided they should be served on their own, and I went so far as to serve them as a side dish rather than dessert.  This was probably a little non-traditional, but it tasted great with the other meal pairings and, again, great for a hot summer day.  Thankfully, I still had a chocolate pound cake to serve for dessert.  Just add a dollop of whipped cream and serve. (Yes, you will note that this photo is from a previous post, but I can't help it if two components of the meal were recipes were from this month's featured cookbook.)

Balsamic-Macerated Strawberries
Taken from Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best
Serves 4-8 (depending on if it's served as dessert, filling, or topping)

2 lbs fresh strawberries, rinsed, hulled, and sliced 1/8 to 1/4 thick (about 4 cups)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
8-10 medium fresh basil leaves (cannot used dried)


In a large bowl, gently toss the strawberries with the sugar and vinegar.  Let sit at room temperature until the strawberries have released their juices but are not yet mushy, about 30 minutes.  (Don't let them sit for more than 90 minutes or they'll start to collapse.)

Just before serving, stack the basil leaves on a cutting board and roll them vertically into a loose cigar shape.  Using a sharp chef's knife, very thinly slice across the roll to make a fine chiffonade of basil.  Scatter the basil among the strawberries just before serving.

Serving ideas:
-over grilled or toasted pound cake. Garnish with a dollop of creme fraiche.
-put the berries on split biscuits for shortcakes; top with whipped cream and scatter with the basil.
-mash the berries slightly and fold into whipped cream for a quick fool. Garnish with the basil.
-serve as is in small bowls for dessert, or in my case, a nice summer side dish.

Minty Quinoa Tabbouleh

After four days in a row of working nights, I admit to not having cooked much last week. Actually, I don't think I cooked at all.  Of course this meant that I had plenty of "free time" to plan the next meal when I eventually had the opportunity to provide for my family. So in perusing through the pages of Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best, I came across a recipe for Minty Quinoa Tabbouleh.  Mind you that I already enjoy tabbouleh, however, I normally make it with bulgur and not quinoa.  Having a friend that absolutely adores cooking/eating quinoa, I figured I should give this one a whirl. 

Luckily, the only two ingredients that I didn't have on hand were a cucumber (not ready from the garden yet) and the fresh mint so I can easily classify this recipe as a garden/pantry meal.  I plucked the first tomato from the garden for this dish and was able to get some fresh mint from my neighbor.  The cucumber, unfortunately, was from the grocery store.  No matter though, this was a great summer tasty treat.  The quinoa cooks in less than 15 minutes and you can finish all your chopping during that time.  After the quinoa cools, throw it all together and stick it in the fridge to let the flavors meld and tah dah! A great summer side dish.  I served this along side of Grilled Chickpea Burgers with Creamy Lemon Tahini Sauce and they were well matched (also perfect for a vegetarian evening). And yes, there is a third item on the plate that I have not yet described, but I will get to that in my next post...

Minty Quinoa Tabbouleh
Adapted from Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best
Serves 6 to 8

1 1/2cups quinoa
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 1/2cups finely diced tomatoes (canned is okay)
1 cup finely chopped fresh parsley (flat-leaf)
1 cup peeled, seeded, finely diced cucumber
1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more to taste
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, plus extra to taste
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mint (cannot use dried)

Rinse the quinoa well in a bowl of cool water and drain.  Bring the quinoa and 1/2 teaspoon of salt to a boil in 3 cups of water in a medium saucepan over high heat.  Cover, reduce the heat to medium low, and simmer until the water is absorbed and the quinoa is translucent and tender, about 10 to 15 minutes.  (The outer germ rings of the grain will remain chewy and white. Some germ rings may separate from the grains and will look like white squiggles.)  Immediately fluff the quinoa with a fork and turn out onto a baking sheet to cool.

When cool, fluff the quinoa again and transfer to a large bowl. Add the tomato, parsley, cucumber, scallion, oil, lemon juice, cumin, cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon salt.  Toss well. Cover and refrigerate to let the flavors mingle, at least 2 hours or overnight.

**The recipe states that this should be served at room temperature, however, served chilled on a hot summer day was also very nice.

Before serving, stir in the mint. Taste and add more oil and lemon juice and salt as needed.

Fresh Cherry Clafoutis

I admit that I have a small weakness when it comes to French food.  I love almost all French food and yet can make hardly none of it (I'm sure there is a grammatical error in there).  Maybe it stems from the fact that France was my first venture abroad when I was 19.  Maybe it was because I lived in the south of France for a summer when I was 23. No matter the reason, I do enjoy french cooking, er, I mean eating.

Today's feature recipe from Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best is a french dessert that I have been meaning to try for a while.  The dessert, Cherry Clafoutis is defined as "a baked French dessert of black cherries arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter. The clafoutis is dusted with powdered sugar and served lukewarm" as per Wikipedia. The irony of my sharing this definition with you is that I had to look up what a clafoutis was because I didn't actually know myself.  I could guess what the look and texture should be based on the ingredients but I wanted to know the technicalities.

This recipe, of course, brings me to address the main ingredient, cherries.  Last week I spent an hour up on a ladder picking these tart beauties out of a tree on my parents' new property less than 10 minutes away.  I then proceeded to spend the next hour pitting them.  My mother had asked me to bring my cherry pitter with to her house and was bummed when I handed her a paperclip. Quite honestly, they were so ripe that if I gave them a little squeeze, the pit came right out.  I knew that I was going to be baking with the cherries so I wasn't too concerned with how they looked post-pitting.  If appearance is key for you, just use a large paperclip to push the pit out, leaving the cherry itself looking wholesome.  This recipe was not difficult at all (minus the picking and pitting) and so if you have the cherries available it's a great last-minute dessert to throw together for guests.

With my remaining loot of cherries, I plan to make a cherry cobbler, however, I don't have my own recipe...yet.  So if you have a delicious one that you would like to share, please send it my way!
Bon appétit!

Fresh Cherry Clafoutis
Adapted from Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best
Serves 8


softened, unsalted butter, for the pan
1 cup milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extra (vanilla bean paste if you have it)
pinch of salt
2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted
4 cups pitted fresh cherries (be sure to use a sour cherry like Montmorency if possible, but Bing is
     delicious too)
confectioners' sugar, for sprinkling


Heat the oven to 350 °F .  Butter a shallow baking dish (such as a 10-inch quiche mold or pie plate).

Combine the milk, cream, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt, and flour in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until froth, about 5 minutes.

Pour enough batter into the prepared baking dish to make about a 1/4-inch layer; reserve the rest. 

Bake the thin layer just until it forms a skin, about 5 minutes. Remove the dish and arrange the cherries in a single layer over the surface.

Pour the remaining batter over them. Return the clafoutis to the oven and bake until it's puffed and brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.  Let cool slightly (or to room temperature if you prefer) and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar before serving.