Grandma's Persimmon Cookies

These are a different kind of cookie than what I've posted before. Somewhere between a cookie and a spice bread with a fluffy crumb interior but enough sugar to get a caramelized crispy edges.

 I grew up with frozen persimmons in the freezer ready to be thawed just for these cookies. I didn't know until I was an adult that there are two types of persimmons - firm flat ones that you can eat like an apple fresh, and the ones with the "pointy" bottoms that are used for cooking and cookies when they are incredible soft and squishy. 


How soft should your persimmons be? Soft enough that the pulp slips from the skin with very little encouragement and plops into the bowl below.


The recipe notes that the "Grandma" was my Great-Grandma Giva.

What you need

1 cup persimmon pulp
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup nutmeats (typically I use walnuts)
1 cup raisins (I think dried cranberries would be good too)
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves (optional, says the original recipe - but I why I can't fathom!)

Git 'er Done

Preheat the oven 375 degrees

Into that lovely bowl of persimmon pulp, mix in the baking soda.

Like a typical cookie recipe, cream butter and sugar, then add the egg and mix.

UNLIKE a typical cookie recipe, add the nutmeats and raisins at this point and mix.

Mix together the remaining dry ingredients and then add to the creamed mixture, stirring in.

Add the persimmon-soda mix. Surprise! It's like jelly now! Mix until blended.


Drop batter onto ungreased cookie sheet in large spoonfuls and then (VERY IMPORTANT), spread cookies out to flat cookie shaped objects with a fork. If you don't do this, you will end up with tall, dense cookies you have no one but yourself to blame for.


"Bake until cookies are golden brown, with fairly dark edges".

The original recipe doesn't give a baking time. Unlike the other cookie recipes I've posted here there's lots of lee-way on the cookie time. They don't overbrown and burn if cooked 1 minute too long. In fact, I cooked one batch of cookies for ummmm...30 or 40 minutes. Completely forgot about them. Took them out and they were BROWN. As the cookies sit they soften up and they were perfectly edible and delicious - better than the batch that was barely brown at ~15 minutes. I think a good range is 20-25 minutes, check them at 15 minutes.

• Do NOT take them out too early
• Error on the side of more brown
• Let them sit and cool and soften before making judgements
• Don't throw out "burnt" cookies without letting them have a chance. 

On the left is a 15 min baked cookie. On the right is a...ummm..30 or 40 or 45 min baked cookie. Something in between is your goal! You want the edges brown like the right hand cookies, but the middle will be closer to the left hand cookie.

What about freezing? Because they have to be mashed flat, they don't lend themselves to being rolled into balls and freezing, then they have to be pretty thawed to flatten out. My solution has been to freeze them in flat "sheets" in quart size ziplocks at approximately the thickness of the cookies. To bake, I cut the ziplock off my cookie dough slab and then break into pieces and put on a cookie sheet.

Kitchen Sink Fried Rice

I have a couple of "kitchen sink" recipes - the versatile recipes that I can throw left over vegetables +/- meat into at the end of the week so that nothing goes to waste. The fried rice is perfect for this.

Before making my own at home, I wasn't a fried rice fan. I never ate it in restaurant and it never dawned on me that it would be something I would be interested in actually making or eating. The color was off putting (why was it brown?), the name horrifying (frying something that was already a simple carb?), and the vegetables and meat unimpressive (what was that speck of orange and green?).

Simply recipe's dish looked so simple and straight forward I gave it a try.  (also and I saw that the color was from soy sauce, and it wasn't fried as much as sauteed). The first time I made it I used left over chicken, and stuck closely to recipe. After that the field was wide open and I've made several variations - all of them good. I can stuff almost any left over vegetable into this recipe which is probably why I've made this weekly since I discovered the recipe.

What you need

• Some meat. Or none. A vegetarian option works here too. SR suggests 8 ounces of shrimp. I suggest you use whatever is in your fridge. Last night I used boneless skinless frozen thighs cut into generous chunks. 
• Cornstarch
• Black pepper and salt
• Oil with high smoke point (not olive oil)
• 3 beaten eggs
• Other vegetables cut into bite sized chunks - such as broccoli, bok choy, celery, etc. 
• An onion of some sort - green onion or regular yellow onion. I usually have both left over from the week and I prefer to use the green onion.
• About 4 cups of left over rice. It fries better if it's a day old and slightly dried out. 
• About 1 cup frozen or canned peas and carrot mix. I abhore carrots and peas, but use them here because it makes the dish look like fried rice, gives it color, and I can't taste them in it. 
• Soy sauce
• Sesame oil (optional)

How to Git 'er done

Lightly coat the meat with cornstarch (a teaspoon or two) and season with pepper and salt to taste. 

Heat some oil in a skillet until HOT. This is the theme of this recipe. You want to cook stuff HOT. 

Put the meat into the hot skillet in a single layer. Don't stir too much if you want a nice brown crust. Flip and stir as necessary until cooked. Remove from skillet. 

Add eggs and cook. Remove from skillet. If I don't have meat+cornstartch in the recipe I'll add a little cornstarch to the eggs after they are cooked. 

Cook other optional veggies (besides onion). Most of them just need a good sautee in the pan. Some like broccoli need to be sauteed, and then have some water added to the pan and cooked for a bit longer until they are tender enough. Remove from skillet. 

Add green or yellow onion. Sautee. Add rice and mix. Press the rice into a sheet across the bottom of the skillet and WAIT. The rice should be SIZZZLING. Yes, that is sizzzling with 3 "z's". If it wasn't, your skillet wasn't hot enough. 

Boo hoo. However, it will still work. It just might not be brown and chewy - instead it will be closer to what you are served in restaurants that they call fried rice.  

Flip the rice and let it brown on the other side. 

When your rice has been fried (or your patience run out) sprinkle soy sauce over the rice to taste and mix. add back in all the other ingredients and heat through until HOT. Finally, add seasame oil - just a bit - according to taste.

~Adapted from Simply Recipes (simplyrecipes.com)

Artisan Bread

About a year ago wheat and I made up.

It's a relationship with rules and boundaries, but the bottom line is that if I make it in my own oven and some moderation exists, we do OK.

Enter the easiest, best, homemade artisan bread recipe EVER if you are like me and...

1. Do not have any time ever. 
2. Have a career, have a kid, have hobbies (oh, never mind - this is just an extension of #1)
3. Are cheap.
4. Refuse to add any additional appliances to the kitchen
5. Are bored/easily distractible/ADHD and have a hard time focusing even with timers. "Critical steps" and meeting exact time deadlines are not my friend. A forgiving recipe is...I've already lost my train of thought. 

I've made 8-10 loaves and 3 or 4 master "batches" so far in the last couple weeks. I don't think I've baked a loaf twice the same way and none have gone to waste. I've baked them for friends and mommy meet-ups and brought them to work. I've made cinnamon varieties for breakfast and savory herb mini-loaves for an old-fashion lunches. Wanna give it a try? 

Plain Boule with dried herbs on top.

Here's the basic recipe - further down I'll go through some of my favorite variations. 

The recipe

- adapted from the 5 min artisan bread method (click here)

- There is a ton of variations on this method and the one I linked above is darn close to what I do - what's funny is that it's not the recipe I initially followed, but once I made a bunch of modifications to suit me, it was very close to this source one. 

What you need

• 3 cups water lukewarm 
• 1 tablespoon yeast 
• 1 tablespoon salt 
• 6 1/2 cups (2 pounds) flour

What you do...

Mix everything together. Put in a container (covered, but not with a tight fitting lid) and let rise on your counter....or not. As you will see in the commentary further down, everything about this recipe, including ingredients and method can be a compromise :). 

At some point put in your fridge.

New batch of dough right after initial rise on counter, ready to be stored in fridge. 

At any time between now and 14 days from now, cut off a chunk of dough and shape. 

Let rise on the counter for 40min-2 hours or in the fridge overnight. Don't worry if it doesn't puff up like you are used to with other yeast bread methods. It will in the oven (I swear). You came this far, so you have a little trust right????

2 formed hamburger buns resting on the counter. Rest of dough ready to go back to the fridge.

Slice the top of the bread with a sharp knife in slashes prior to baking. It releases the bread to rise better in the oven (I swear). Slash it like you mean it, don't be a weanie. (This is actually a really critical step. If you don't slash it, the loaf will end up a hard little crusty bowling ball.)

Bake in a 450-500 degree oven either uncovered with a cup or 2 or boiling water in a shallow dish at the bottom of the oven to increase oven humidity 20-30 min, OR cook covered in a cast iron pot/container for the first 15-20 min, then uncovered for 10-15 min. 

It's hard to screw this up. Trust me. 

• 3 cups lukewarm water? The original recipe I used didn't state this, and I used cold water from the tap. Turned out just fine. If you use warm water, it should be lukewarm "body temp". Not scalding bath water. If it feels hot, not warm - it's probably too hot. Using lukewarm water will make the initial rising process faster - or so the internet says. 
• 1 tablespoon yeast....or whatever you have in your fridge. Original quantity was 1 1/2 tablespoons. I mis-read that on my first attempt and put in 1 1/2 teaspoons. Was totally fine. Did some reading and it takes longer for the dough to rise and to be able to use the first batch with less yeast, but it still does exactly what it needs to do, even at scant yeast amounts of 1/2 teaspoon. Some people like the flavor of dough that initially had less yeast in it (fast versus slow rise). I'm not sure I care, but since I don't want to waste my ingredients and I always refrigerate overnight, I've settled on 1 tablespoon. 
• 1 tablespoon salt - I've seen recipes go up to 1 1/2 tablespoon, and the first time I made it, I used 1 1/2 teaspoons. I felt like it needed more salt so bumped it up to 1 tablespoon. This is based on individual taste, so feel free to increase or decrease as needed. 
• Flour. I use regular all-purpose flour. Except for when I run out. Then I'll replace what I need with bread flour. Or wheat flour. Yes, you can use sourghdough starter, wheat flour, or whatever other variation you desire. I know that bread flour and wheat flour require a little more water (or less flour) to the above ratios. If you are going to do anything other than make up the difference with a little when you are short, you should probably do some research (start by exploring the website I linked above). For this recipe plain 'ole all-purpose is recommended over bread flour because it makes a better texture in the finished product. (May 29 2017 update - made a batch with almost 100% bread flour because I was short on time and needed to make some bread for a potluck. Result? I didn't notice much difference between the loaves with bread flour and those with all-purpose. Moral of the story - use what you have)
• No time for the initial rise? First time I made it, it was 11pm at night and I read it on the internet and just HAD to try it. I mixed and put it in the fridge without any counter rising time. It was fine. 
• Prebaking rise? It's better if I either put in fridge overnight, and then let sit on the counter for an hour to un-chill after forming, before baking. Or, let sit 1-2 hours on the counter before baking. HOWEVER, I've also gotten impatient and cooked directly out of the fridge, or let only sit on the counter for 20 min while the oven preheated and it was FINE. The air holes are less open, but perfectly edible. Trust me. Whatever time you have, make it work for you. This is not a fussy recipe. 
• Cooking methods....Sheet versus pot versus foil loaf pan? All produce acceptable (delicious!) bread. After baking a lot of loaves, I think I slightly prefer the cast iron pot method, and I prefer keeping the lid on for 2/3 of the cooking time, instead of the first 1/2. I have more cast iron pots than sheets and so it's more convenient, and I like not having to deal with the water. (although for my oven, when I've tried the other methods and used hot water in the bottom of the oven I'm not sure it made a difference?). I'm still experimenting with time covered versus uncovered in the "pot method". Leaving the cover on longer and then uncovering just long enough to brown produces a thin crackly crust. Uncovered longer produces a thicker, more chewy crust. 

On to the fun stuff! Flavors!

Dried herbs

Simply topping a plain loaf with dried herbs such as rosemary, or a spice blend.


Nut and dried fruit
Made a Walnut and raisin boule as my first loaf and managed to eat the entire thing as dessert while watching TV on the couch. I'm out of nutmeats (serious sad face) but this simple combination is cliche for a reason - it's SO GOOD.


Cinnamon etc.
I love cinnamon! I've made a swirl loaf (spread out the dough like a thick pizza, prep with filling, roll into loaf shape) and cinnamon rolls (similar to above but cut into rolls) and gotten rave reviews from both. I initially did the predictable cinnamon+brown sugar+butter with a bit of cloves and salt thrown in.

It was good....but not divine.

I only thought it was divine because I hadn't tried....

- Cinnamon, lemon zest, chopped dates.

*drool*.

Now THAT is something binge worthy. The chopped dates cook down so tender that it's like magical craters of moist sweet deliciousness mixing with the bread and spices. Chopped dates might be my favorite dried fruit to put in bread.

I personally don't like my breads very sweet, so for a more traditional cinnamon roll that is sticky sweet, add frosting or glaze.

- Cinnamon, honey, chopped almonds

Just a hint of sweetness, nutty crunch from the almonds.

Chocolate chips
Fold them in, form a boule or flat sheet loaf. Always a huge hit. I'm not a huge chocolate lover so I'm sort of meh (give me cinnamon+dates anytime!) but for some people this is what they love.




Whole Garlic cloves
This is the one that surprised me the most. I threw in all my left over whole garlic cloves into a simple boule and after baking it was something really wonderful. The garlic flavor infused the entire loaf without being heavy, and the garlic cloves were soft and mild. Dried herbs (such as rosemary) on top compliment the flavor well.





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I'd love to hear your favorite flavor variations if you try this recipe!

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October 2017 update

When it's warm in the summer and I don't want the heat of the oven in the house, I like making bread on the BBQ.

It's definitely a different product than the oven bread, but I find it ideal for sandwich bread, english muffins, and rolls. If you want to try this method, here's my tips.

- Small rounds of dough patted flat.
- While they are resting fire up the BBQ with the lid down on high. It should be HOT.
- Once the BBQ is HOT, throw the dough on, turn it down to medium and close the lid. This part takes some experimentation because you want the heat low enough that it doesn't burn the bottom of the rolls before the rolls are cooked through.
- To finish the rolls, I flip them over and turn the BBQ off - but keep the lid closed. The heat inside the BBQ is enough to finish off the rolls.
- I've been experimenting with no flipping the rolls so they look more like dinner rolls instead of english muffins. I think the trick is to turn the heat down initially even lower, so that the rolls can stay on the grill even longer without burning while the overall heat inside the BBQ cooks the rolls like an oven.

The finished bread has a grilled taste that is just absolutely wonderful. It's a softer bread without the crusty chewy crust, but is still sturdy enough for sandwiches or burgers.

Hot Open-faced Roast Beef Sandwiches

This is a new-ish recipe that my husband has requested weekly since the first time I made it so I guess it's both a keeper and no longer new :).

It's easy, fast and delicious - perfect for a week-day dinner after work, but I think it's just fancy enough to serve to company too.

My husband is a rebel and puts a top on his a-la hot open-faced roast beef sandwich, puts cheese on it (hates horse-radish), AND insists on dipping it in some sort of broth, which works out nicely because there's always delicious liquid left from heating the roast beef lunch meat. Although why anyone would want to make a perfectly good sandwich soggy on purpose I do not understand. But, to each their own since he *refrains from making fun of me when I put too much horse-radish on mine and am blowing fire out my sinuses through my tears.

*Or at least, mostly just rolls his eyes and doesn't actually verbalizes his opinion?

-Originally adapted from a Blue Apron recipe

What you need

• French Baguette loaf, sliced lengthwise and then into reasonable sandwich lengths. 
• 1 pound roast beef lunch meat. This is enough for me to have a portion, my husband to eat many portions for dinner, my daughter to waste half a portion, and there still be a portion left over for his lunch the next day. 
• Beef broth
• mushrooms, 6-8 ounces sliced
• Shallot, thinly sliced. Onion will work too, but shallots are a better texture in the final dish
• Butter
• Garlic
• Sliced provolone or swiss cheese if that's your thing?

For sauce

• 1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt or mayo
• Juice of a lemon (but it's fine without if you forget like I did last night)
• horse-radish to taste

Git 'er Done

Heat roast beef in a pan with a bit of beef broth to keep moist. Save liquid for dipping if desired (weirdo). 

Butter, rub with garlic, and toast the baguette halves (I use a 500F degree oven). 

Cook mushrooms and shallot with oil in a skillet on the stove until softened. Season with salt/pepper to taste.

Assemble sandwiches - slather cut side of baguette with sauce. Add roast beef. Add mushroom/shallot mixture. Top with additional sauce. Maybe add some cheese and melt on top if that's your fancy. 

Serve open faced (and be prepared to get your hands messy) or topped with another piece of baguette (a-la Mel's husband). 

Heart of Darkness Blackening Rub

Once upon a time I got an excellent deal on some salmon and I knew I wanted/needed/had to grill it. But what to season it with? I didn't have time to marinate it (and let's face it, when you have a nice chunky thick salmon fillet it does *not* want to be marinated) but I wanted something fancier than my usual "salt and pepper".

Enter "The Heart of Darkness" Blackening Rub. Shamelessly *stolen without modification from Zinczenko's and Goulding's "Cook This Not That - Kitchen survival guide", but so divine I had to share it here.

*I did substitute smoked paprika for regular paprika. I don't have *have* regular paprika in my pantry. Once we tried smoked paprika we were instantly hooked. 

When I mix up seasonings, I make enough for 2-3 uses and store in a mason jar. The first time I tasted this it was so unique, so.....party on my taste buds that I knew I would be posting it here. But, I waited until I tried it again. Just as good. It's a keeper.

Heart of Darkness

Mix together...

• 1 part cumin
• 1 part smoked paprika (original recipe calls for regular paprika. Use smoked paprika. It's worth it)
• 1 part cayenne (yes it makes it spicy when you lick the seasoning off your fingers, but somehow when I eat it as part of the meat it just provides flavor, not spiciness. Just try it, and if you just can't handle it, reduce it by half next time)
• 1 part oregano
• 1 part black pepper
• 1 part salt

The suggestion is to use it on fish and poultry.

I can't speak for chicken, but on grilled salmon it is absolutely fabulous. Compliments the flavor, texture, and experience of grilled salmon perfectly.

- I liberally cover both sides of the salmon fillet with rub, place on a medium hot grill that has been wiped with an oiled papertowel, and grill skin side down until crispy (~8-10 min-ish). Flip and cook for 5 ish minutes more. I like my Salmon barely cooked in the middle. If it flakes, we are good. Your preference may vary. 

Buttermilk pancakes

This is for my friend H*, who has never cooked pancakes from scratch. With a little practice these really are just as easy as the mix, and the light fluffy tender pancakes are well worth it.

I used to make this recipe with a buttermilk substitute (such as soured milk - milk+lemon juice) and it works just fine, but nothing is quite as good as the real thing. Pick up a small carton of buttermilk and keep it on hand - you won't regret it. There is modifications you can do to the baking soda/baking powder ratios in order to use regular milk, but I consider the final product quite blah when I do that and no one has time for blah food right?

These are the pancakes I serve at least once a week to my husband for a quick pre-work (and pre-dawn) breakfast.

Quick note: I've also been known to make a savory version - sprinkling cheddar cheese and rosemary on the uncooked top before flipping. Pancakes are usually served sweet in my region, but with a little creativity, herbs, and aromatics, and maybe a scoop of plain yogurt on the side, these don't have to be yet another sugar-ladened breakfast food. 

Buttermilk Pancakes
-barely adapted from Better Homes and Garden cookbook.

What you need

• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 1 c. Buttermilk - I have successfully replaced it with half regular milk and not modified anything else and had the pancakes come out almost indistinguishable from full-buttermilk. 
• 2 tablespoons oil or melted butter (ie, some sort of fat in liquid form). I usually use olive oil.
• 1 tablespoon of something sweet - I prefer honey or maple syrup. The original recipe called for plain white sugar. 

How to git 'er done

Mix the dry ingredients. If you are using sugar instead of a liquid sweetener, mix it at this step. 

Add the wet ingredients. The original recipe called for the egg to be beaten prior to adding. I'm lazy and hate doing extra dishes. I add the (unbeaten) egg in with all the wet stuff and then sorta poke it with a fork a couple of times before mixing the wet and dry ingredients together. 

Mix everything together until just moistened and mixed - there should be lumps. 

If it's too thick add buttermilk until you have the consistency you want. It *will* be thicker than the mixes in my experience. It's ok!!!!!  My batter sorta gloups out of the bowl into the skillet. 

Heat a skillet on medium high heat. I use a cast iron skillet and find myself turning it down as I go along because it retains heat - you don't want to burn the outside of the griddle cake before the middle is done. 

A trick I learned as a kid to tell when it's ready to flip is to watch the bubbles form on the surface of the raw top. *About half the bubbles should pop and stay sorta dry and open, and the edge of the pancake should look dry. If your pancake is getting too dark on the first side before this happens and it's flipped, turn the heat down. 

*I find that this buttermilk recipe doesn't form as many bubbles as a regular mix (too thick?), so I tend to use how the edge of the griddle cake looks, and just keep an eye on the bubbles without using them as an indicator quite as much. 

Original recipe said it yielded 8 pancakes. LMOA. More like 5-6 medium sized, perfectly reasonably sized pancakes. 

Brownies

Yes, it's another dessert recipe and I promised something different....but here's the thing. When it's been raining for 40 days and 40 nights all I want to do is sit inside and bake stuff like this - an incredibly simple, no fuss brownie.

This is the brownie recipe I grew up baking. It's simple, delicious, and can be made with regular ingredients in the cupboard without special grocery trips.

I'm not a huge chocolate fan but when I was flipping through the recipes tonight I kept coming back to the brownies.

Make us......MAKE US.....

So I did. It's been at least a decade since I've made these and I had forgotten how simple and delicious they were. The forgotten brownie amidst the overly sweet and complicated world of boxed brownies with too many layers of decadence.

My mother always added walnuts to the batter. Tonight I topped half with sliced almonds, leaving 1/2 of the pan un-contaminated by nuts for the nut-hating husband.



What you need:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 2 unbeaten eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

Nuts for mixing or topping if you wish. 

Git 'er done

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Mix together sugar and cocoa. Stir in melted butter. Stir in eggs and vanilla extract. Make sure everything is mixed really well. 

Sift together or otherwise mix the remaining dry ingredients together really well....then combine with the wet mixture. 

Mix in nuts if desired.

Pour into a greased 8x8 baking pan. 

Top with nuts if desired. 

Bake 20-25 minutes, until the edges start to slightly pull away. DO NOT OVER BAKE. In fact....just go ahead and pull it out of the oven at designated time. You will then panic when it appears completely unbaked in the center....but trust me. It will be perfectly cooked as it sets and then you will have chewy perfectly baked brownies instead of crunchy little chocolate-like brownie cardboard. 

Tortillas (with bonus salsa recipe and others!)

Today's *recipe is the humble flour tortilla because soon I'm going to share some enchilada recipes. You can use store bought tortillas to make them, but believe me when I say that making a quick batch of home made is doable, practical, and worth it.

*and then I got carried away and added a few bonus things to the end of the post. But whatever. The post started as *just* the humble tortilla recipe. 

I grew up on home-made flour tortillas made by my decidedly gringo mother, who could turn out tender yet stretchy containers for family burrito nights as quickly as she could whip up a batch of buttermilk biscuits the next.

In my 20's living on my own and diligently following the recipe I couldn't get them to turn out. They were stiff, burnt, had holes in them, and did not do tortilla-like things like contain a filling. Store bought tortillas were tough and had a weird aftertaste, but I gave up and settled for them until last year, when I gave the homemade ones another try.

Before digging up my mother's recipe I used a different recipe I had on hand which used olive oil in place of crisco. I think having the fat source in the recipe already "melted" made a big difference in getting the consistency of the dough right and having them roll out nicely. My conclusion when I realized my mom's had crisco was that the exact fat you use here doesn't really matter - use what you have on hand, and if it's not an oil, heed the directions on my mother's original recipe to use very hot water. And if you do try crisco or some other solid-at-room-temp fat and can't get the recipe to work, try an oil.

One other small change, the copy of the recipe I have calls for a bit of (optional) dry milk. I've never added it, so I omit it here.

Every recipe I've used says to use an ungreased skillet - this is mostly true. I keep a paper towel handy to wipe out the skillet 2-3 times to keep excess flour from burning and smoking, and will admit to spritzing the pan with *just a bit* of pam or similar, or perhaps having some grease on that towel when I wipe it down every 2-3 tortillas.

What you need

This makes ~6-8 medium tortillas. This recipe easily doubles.

• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil or crisco or other fat (see recipe notes above)
• water (if using crisco, use very hot water. If using oil, doesn't really matter)

How to get 'er done

Mix together dry ingredients in a bowl. If using a solid fat, incorporate with a fork or pastry blender into flour mixture (or for a modern touch a la Mel, whir around in a food processor). If using oil, eye ball it in and mix it around. Add water a little at a time while mixing until mixture is a soft dough. If you screw up and held it under the faucet too long, add a little more flour. 

Divide dough into equal portions and form into balls (I find that doing this helps me roll out a more circular tortilla). Roll out on a floured surface - I usually do it right on the counter top next to the stove so I can flip them in the skillet and roll more out at the same time. Cook at medium-high temp in a heavy skillet (not a thin non-stick) until it starts to brown, then flip. 

Recipe notes: 

(from my mom, Carolyn)

"With practice, these become easy. They beat the store ones for price, tenderness, and freshness". 
~From Mrs. Diaz, homemaking teacher

PS from Mel - Corn tortillas and a bonus salsa recipe

If corn tortillas are more your style, did you know they are even easier? Buy some masa flour, add water according to directions and form little balls. Place inside of a ziplock bag and smash down with a large flat bottomed and heavy dish to press it into the right thickness. Then cook like described above. IMO if you've never had a fresh corn tortilla you don't know what a corn tortilla is. It's *not* the dry cardboard things that come out of the plastic packages. No siree. These are tender little pieces of heaven just begging to be baked into home made chips, or be topped with lime juice marinated cabbage and your choice of seasoned meat filling, with perhaps a bit of pineapple salsa on the side.

Oh, you want my Pineapple Salsa recipe?

1 can of cubed pineapple
Zest of 1 lime
Juice of half a lime (use the other half to marinate the shredded cabbage that is going in your tacos)
Chopped pickled jalopeno peppers to taste

Marinate at least 10 min. Sprinkle a bit of mexican spice blend over the top. My family's favorite that we mix up to have on hand for enchiladas, tacos, refried beans, or any other appropriate dish is:

• 2 parts chili powder
• 2 parts ground cumin
• 1 part corriander
• 1 part chipotle chilli powder
• Smoked paprika to taste

~Barely adapted from a Blue Apron recipe

And even more ideas....

Cheap Mexican Burritos: 

• Make your own refried beans (soak beans, boil beans, and then mash beans in a skillet and season). 
• Make a big pot of rice. Did you know that this cheater way of making rice totally works? I never worry about measuring water or it sticking to my pan any more. 
• Make flour tortillas
• Assemble burrito and garnish with salsa or pico 

Veggie Wraps: 

• Cut veggies into bite sized strips. Mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, asparagus work really well. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Grill or roast in the oven. 
• Mix mayo with balsamic vinegar. 
• Slather a tortilla with the dressing, add vegetables. 

This is a good "kitchen sink" recipe to use up your left over vegetables at the end of the week. I know it sounds so simple and plain, but the combination of mayo and balsamic vinegar pairs everything together and it's AMAZING. I can eat an entire cookie sheet of roasted vegetables this way.

Seasme Wafers

In the early 90's my dad was an undergraduate student at UC Davis and as a family we would often visit the coffee house, where each of us kids got to choose a cookie. I can't remember what cookie I usually chose, but it probably wasn't this sesame wafer cookie - my tastes running towards something big, dark and rich looking at time.

Two years later my dad graduated and we moved away. I can vaguely remembering my mom buying the cookbook that the coffee shop had published before we left and over the years she tried various recipes from it. This was a keeper from the very first time she baked it.

The dough is a rather unassuming sugar cookie that completely transforms when you cover it in sesame seeds. The sesame seeds add a toasted, chewy element that is sheer perfection - I promise.

The recipe originally called for 1/2 butter and 1/2 crisco and now I make it with all butter. Unlike the molasses crinkles, getting the final product texture right with this substitution wasn't a big deal. I think in part because not being dark colored cookies, it's easier to see when they are done and not let them get over cooked.

As usual with a all-butter cookie recipe, I find the temperature of the batter prior to baking is critical. After forming the balls chill in the freezer for 5-10 min before baking - it makes a huge difference. If you don't the cookies will spread and be hideous and weird. I like coating them with sesame seeds BEFORE chilling, because otherwise the dough isn't quite sticky enough to pick up enough sesame seeds to coat the ball.

The copy of the recipe I have now is a re-typed version of the original and somehow the sugar was left out of the ingredients.... even though the instructions say clearly to cream the fats and sugar. Based on typical cookie ingredient ratios, something in the 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 c. range should work. When I remade the recipe recently for this blog, 1 1/2 cups of sugar worked just fine.

What you need

1 c. unsalted butter
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/8 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Enough sesame seeds for rolling, ~1 cup.

How to git 'er done

Oven preheated to 375 degrees

Cream fat and sugar.

Mix in egg and vanilla.

Premix dry ingredients and then add to wet mixture.

Roll into dough balls about the size of a walnut. Coat with sesame seeds and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Partially flatten with a flat-bottom glass. Chill dough for 5-10 minutes (I usually do this on the cookie sheet in the freezer).

Bake ~10 minutes, until golden brown on the bottom.

To make a freezer batch I roll the balls and freeze without the sesame seeds (otherwise they just fall off in the freezer during storage). To bake Let the dough balls thaw while oven preheats, and then roll in the seeds. Doesn't pick up as many, but is still sufficient. Bake for ~12 minutes.

Makes ~2 dozen cookies

Adapted from the UC Davis Coffee House Cookbook

Molasses Crinkles

The chewy rim and soft moist center of this cookie that I remember from childhood is really easy to get when using the originally call for crisco. Nowadays I try to avoid crisco in favor of butter when I can and I won't lie - getting that texture was really difficult to replicate when I switched it to an all butter recipe.

I ended up reading a lot of science about the physics of cooking with butter versus crisco because I was really frustrated when I couldn't get the texture right in these cookies.  It boils down to relative melting temperatures and differing moisture contents and I was *this* close to throwing my hands up in the air and using lard in the recipe when I finally figured out how to manage the butter.

There are 2 tricks.

• Pay attention to the temperature of your dough when you go to bake it. Chilling the batter and/or using a stand mixer to cream cold butter with the sugar is recommended not something I say just because I'm trying to delay your cookie experience.  It actually will result in cookies that don't over spread and end up as dry little biscuits. 
• DO NOT OVER  BAKE. This is so much harder then it sounds. Dark cookies on a dark pan cooked with all butter have a very short window. I overcooked THREE batches of these cookies before deciding that indeed the original 10-12 min (lower end for dough that has been chilled, higher end when cooking from frozen) was perfect and JUST TAKE THE DAMN THINGS OUT OF THE OVEN - even if it looks like they can't possibly be done. They really are and are dang near perfect once they cool a bit (which I let them do on a rack, not on the hot cookie sheet). 

If you don't have an objection to crisco and want to make it that way the butter does not significantly flavor these cookies thanks to the strong flavor of molasses and spices and switching results in a softer moister center and chewer edges without needing perfect timing.

Nope nope nope. I absolutely did not allow my 18 month daughter to lick the cookie dough off the beater. Ummm....yeah that's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

Makes ~2 dozen

What you need

3/4 c. butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
scant 2 teaspoon baking soda (don't ask me what the hell this exactly means I just go with it)
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
Sugar (for tops)

How to get 'er done

Bake them in an Oven 375 degrees

Cream the fats and sugar. Chilled butter and a stand mixer is highly recommended. Add the egg and molasses and mix well.

Mix the dry ingredients (except for the sugar) together and then add to the wet mixture.

Roll into walnut sized ball cookies, dip tops into sugar. Chill the cookies "for a while" (10 min?) in the freezer before cooking. I know a lot of recipes have you chill the dough before shaping them I don't like how dry hard to shape the dough is after chilling, so I prefer to chill it after it's in ball form.

Cook for 8-10 minutes.

Freezing: Freeze formed balls in freezer before dipping tops if wanted. A friend told me to thaw the cookies on the cookie sheet for the amount of time it takes the oven to preheat, and she was right - they cook up perfectly. I usually flatten the cookies slightly with the bottom of a flat dish if cooking from frozen-ish because otherwise they don't spread enough and get the chewy cooked rim that I love.

If cooking from frozen, cook for 12 minutes in a preheated oven.

- According to my mother, original recipe came from a very old paperback Gold Medal flour cookbook. Early 60's or late '50's. It was the first cookbook she ever baked anything from. 

Sweet & Spicy Beef

This recipe was my introduction to the "Chinese ketchup", and now that I've used Hoisin sauce I don't know how I did without it. This is a recipe of my 20's that often appears on the menu today by request of my husband.

The building blocks of hoisin sauce, garlic chili sauce (another red combination sauce found in the Asian section of my grocery store), soy sauce and oil can be used for marinades, dipping sauces and more. Fresh garlic (what this recipe calls for), ginger or chinese five spice can be added to round out the flavor.

The soy sauce provides plenty of salt for my tastes, so verify before you add more.

This is a great recipe to stuff lots of vegetables in and I found that my mouth objected to them less if they are cooked instead of left crunchy and partially raw. So, depending on what vegetables I'm using I'll "pre cook" them before assembling the dish. The broccoli pictured in this post was blanched in boiling water for a few minutes. You could also sauté and then add a bit of water to cook further in a separate skillet if you wanted to expend more effort for a little flavor. Honestly the sauce is such a huge part of the taste that blanching works just fine.

I guess a wok would be good but I don't have a wok so I use a large ceramic or stainless steel pot. I really try to practice minimalism in the kitchen and not have my limited cupboard space stuffed with specialized equipment. No, the veggies and meet don't brown quite as well or fast - but the results are still delicious.

What you need

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• 12 oz flank steak or any other cut that you can slice thin and it's edible.
• ~1/2 to 1 tablespoon Sesame oil (OK to use peanut or vegetable oil, anything that won't smoke at high temps)
• 8 scallions chopped with greens and whites separated
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 cups mushrooms, sliced
• 4 cups of "suitable" vegetables - green beans with ends snapped, or sugar peas, or broccoli cut into florets. Some combination of carrots, baby bok choy, water chestnuts would probably work and be delicious too.  
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 1 or 1 1/2 tablespoon chili garlic sauce

How to get 'er done

Mix the soy sauce and the corn starch together. Toss with the beef in a bowl and let sit for at least 10 minutes. 

Chop and prep EVERYTHING. Put in little cute bowls next to the stove. This is going to go fast. 

Heat the oil blazing hot. But don't actually catch on fire. 

Add garlic and white scallions. Stir briskly ~30 seconds until fragrant but not brown. 

Add mushrooms and veggies and stir fry for 3-4 min, keeping in near constant motion. If you using vegetables that you want more cooked than this, blanch them first in boiling water (or sauté them in a separate pan, add a little water if needed yada yada). Anywho we are getting distracted. 

Add the beef along with the soysauce mixture and stir fry for another 3 min, until the beef is browned. Stir in the hoisin and garlic chili sauce, cook until sauce clings to the meat and vegetables. 

Garnish with scallion greens. 

It's fabulous by itself but if you insist serve with rice, or maybe these scallion pancakes? 

Adapted from Cook This Not That Easy and Awesome 350-calorie meals by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding

Guinness Molasses Bread

Banish the thought that this is a bread recipe and embrace it as a dessert much like those cupcakes masquerading as muffins we eat for breakfast. This way you won't make the same mistake I did and put a traitorous note at the top of the recipe that says "very sweet! experiment with less sugar?".

The truth is, it's an absolutely divine combination of bitterness, sweet, and deep molasses-ly flavor that I fell in love with each time I made it and I never did get around to trying to make it more bread and less dessert.

This is a recipe from Simply Recipes that I first discovered in my 20's living in an apartment with my cat. I made it countless times - probably because I could make it from ingredients I had on hand without  special trips to the grocery store - and every time I was helpless against it's chewy sweet-bitter goodness.

I put a loaf together last night since the last time I made it was pre-vetschool, pre-kid, pre-husband, and pre-ultrarunning. Would the recipe hold up to my memories?????

YES.

OMG YES.

The version I've cooked over the years deviates very little from Simply Recipes's version - but here's a few notes of my own.

• I don't own a bread pan anymore so last night I threw it in a #6 cast iron skillet and it was perfectly adequate. 
• I've never used Self-rising flour and I'll take their word that it makes a better loaf. But the appeal of this recipe for me is that as long as I have beer, I can make this with just a few simple ingredients that I already have on hand. The loaf is slightly dense and chewy and perhaps it would be more bread-like with self-rising when it comes out of the oven. This might explain while I like it just fine out of the oven with its caramelized top and moist sweetness of the loaf, for me this bread doesn't REALLY shine until the next morning when you slice and toast it and let your mouth roll over the toasted caramelized bits mixed into the soft body of the loaf. 
• If you do use Self rising flour, Simply Recipes notes it should be fresh (less than 6 months old). 
• Your beer needs to be carbonated and cold. Don't use the flat stuff sitting in your garage. The bread is worth the sacrifice of a drinkable beer, I promise. 
• Simply Recipes warns to not over-combine when mixing everything together, but to combine well enough that there aren't lumps. I'm so afraid of over-combining that while I don't have lumps, the color of loaf isn't uniform after it cooks and I have darker and white splotches in the finished loaf (you can see this in my picture above). I don't feel like it detracts from the taste or texture of the finished loaf, and it's not lumpy. Maybe the next time I make it I'll get brave and whip that loaf into shape (I think this every time and never follow through because why mess with something that works???)

As usually, I'm neither a professional photographer, nor a pro blogger. for really PRETTY pictures of this, you should go to the recipe at Simply :). 

Ingredients

• 3 cups self rising flour OR 3 cups of flour, 3 3/4 tsp baking powder, 3/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar 
• pinch of salt (~1/8 tsp). Consider making it a large pinch...every time I've made the bread I've wondered whether it could be improved by just a touch more salt. 
• 12 ounces of Guinness beer. I usually use extra stout since it's what I can find easily in the stores in this area. I've used other beers and it's turned out just fine, but the flavor is best with Guinness IMO. 
• 1/3 cup mollasses
• Butter for greasing pan (or the olive oil spray worked fine in the cast iron skillet), and more for floating on the top of the loaf after cooking. 

How to git 'er done

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease loaf pan (9x5 inch) or a number 6 cast iron skillet. 

Mix dry ingredients together. 

Slowly pour the beer into the flour mixture. Mix into the dry ingredients, and when about half way done add the molasses. Don't over combine (see note above). ,

Pour into pan, no more than 2/3 full. Cook for 50 min. It's done with a butter knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. 

Let cool 5 min and then paint the top of the loaf with a butter stick. Don't be tempted to skip this step in the name of calories, the amount of flavor it adds is phenomenal, and this is dessert, not a health food. Just make your slice a little thinner and add the butter please!

- Adapted from Simply Recipe

Paul's Cheesecake

This is the cheesecake I grew up with - made in a pie plate, crustless, with an optional fruit topping served on the side. No fancy water baths or springform pans needed. My husband makes a dang good fancy "New York Style" cheesecake that does use all that, but on the nights I make cheesecake, I make the one that I begged my mom to make me for my birthday as far back as I can remember. 

P.S. My husband and I love cheesecake so much it was our wedding cake. 

Ingredients

• 1 pound cream cheese
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp almond extract

Topping:

• 1 cup sour cream
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Oven: 350 degrees

How to get 'er done

Beat cheese, eggs, sugar, and almond extract together throughly till smooth and lemon colored. When I tried to make it this time I loosely interpreted "beat" as something I could do in a large bowl with a wooden smooth. NOPE. All it gained me was TWO dirty bowls as I then poured it into my stand mixer bowl to finish it up. Smooth is also relative as I *always* have small soft chunks of cream cheese suspended in the finished batter. *shrug* seems to turn out OK in the end. EDIT: Highly recommend that you cream the sugar and cream cheese together first, and then beat in eggs and almond extract. Whatever texture you pour the raw batter into the pan is the texture you get in the finished product. 

Pour into a greased pie plate and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, take out of the oven and cool for 20 min. 

While cheesecake is cooling, beat sour cream, sugar and vanilla throughly. 

Pour this over the top of the pie. Return to 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Cool, then refrigerate. 

Optional - can be baked on a "crumb crust" that I assume means those nasty graham cracker things - although why someone would ruin a perfectly good cheesecake with it I'm not sure. The original recipe from my mom says "adjust initial baking time to reflect that." which I assume means it takes longer - because Matt *does* like the crust and that's what I did when I cooked it this week and it took FOREVER. 

Other Recipe notes: 

"From Paul Barnes. It was his mother's recipe." Paul was a navy friend of my Dad's and the best man at their wedding.

Succotash

I can't even pronounce the name but every time I've made it over the years, I've devoured every morsel of it without a single serving going in the trash. I made this Sunday and even knowing I was going to write this post, still managed to snarf it all before getting a picture,  so that's my excuse for a photo-less post (at least until the next time I make it and then I pinky-promise swear to update this post with a picture).

Original recipe called for bacon, corn scraped off of a fresh ear of corn and thawing the lima beans along with encouragement to try all sorts of seasonal varieties (zucchini, green beans, whatever frozen veggies you have on hand).

Almost immediately I made substitutions and discovered something wonderful. Even to this mostly vegetable hating person it is just as delicious (and just as pretty) made with frozen and canned veggies. AND it reheats. It's not mushy, stringy, bitter, or any of the 100 objections I usually have to vegetable dishes.

I know, amazing right?

I ADORE this recipe. It's a great side if you go easy on the meat, but I can easily eat a huge bowl as a meal too, especially if the protein content is bumped up.

Adapted from: Cook This Not That: easy & awesome 350-calorie meals by David Zincozenko & Matt Goulding

Ingredients

• 4-8 oz. Sausage (I commonly have a roll of sausage in the fridge, but you can substitute 2 strips of bacon or some other flavorful meat here. How much sausage I use is usually dependent on how much of a "main dish" I want, and what other uses I have for the sausage that week. )
• 4 scallions, chopped, greens and whites separated. A regular onion is great too. 
• 1 bell pepper (red? It's prettier with red, but just as tasty with green. My advice? Go with what's the cheapest), chopped
• 1 can of corn 
• 2 cups of frozen lima beans (theoretically thawed if you are into an extra step)
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup half-and-half (I've used canned whole coconut milk and it substitutes very nicely)

How to get 'er done

Cook the sausage in a large pan over medium heat until cooked and browned. Remove, leaving the grease in the skillet. If it's excessive, wipe the skillet out. You want to leave enough that the onion and pepper can cook without sticking and without adding additional oil. 

Add the scallion white and bell pepper and cook until softened, about 3 minutes, then stir in the corn and lima beans. If you are like me and are lazy, you haven't thawed your lima beans and the corn was canned. Thus I've never experienced the "light toasting" that theoretically is supposed to be achieved. Don't worry about it. I sorta just stir everything together until I'm satisfied that everything is starting to warm up. 

Turn the heat down to low and season with salt and pepper. Then add half-and-half. Gently simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated and coats the vegetables (~3 min). 

Stir in the sausage and the scallion greens.