Category: Food & Cooking

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The devil you say

We’ve been out of sorts lately. A recent encounter between a deer and our car (the deer survived, our car not so much) has us sans our all terrain vehicle. With the car at the body shop for 4-6 weeks, our normal schedule has been slightly upended.

Luckily for us, a recent trip to our local grocery store provided inspiration. Several items which have been out of stock since March suddenly appeared … namely, pickling salt and cake flour.

Bread and Butter Pickles

This is a staple in our pantry and unfortunately, we are on our last jar! The timing couldn’t be better. The pickles are used in our homemade potato salad and extra juice is used for brining hard boiled eggs.

Devil’s Food  Cake
A mix of dutch-processed cocoa powder, unsweetened chocolate and hot water enhances the chocolate flavor. A combination of cake flour (tender crumb) and all-purpose flour (structure) create a melt-in-your mouth texture.

Jack recently put in a request for cake. It needed to be chocolate, packed with flavor and easy to freeze.   I went to the experts of food alchemy, Cook’s Illustrated, and found what I hoped was the perfect cake … Devil’s Food Cake.

The essence of this cake is a very moist, velvety texture, combined with intense chocolate flavor. Sounds perfect. We baked it in a sheet pan to help meet the freezing requirement. The cake itself is so rich in flavor it doesn’t need frosting. What you say? No frosting? Yes, it’s that good.

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5 from 1 vote

Devil's Food Cake

An extremely rich and tender cake, that if baked in a 13x9 pan, will NOT need frosting to be a great treat.
Servings: 10 people

Ingredients

  • 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate chopped
  • 1/4 cup dutch-processed cocoa
  • 1 1/4 cup boiling water
  • 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup cake flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 16 tbsp unsalted butter 2 sticks / softened
  • 1 1/2 cups brown sugar packed
  • 3 large eggs at room temp
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

  • Adjust the oven racks to the middle position; heat the oven to 350º F. Meanwhile, grease a and line the bottom of a 13x9 pan with parchment. Combine the chocolate and cocoa in a medium bowl; pour the boiling water over and whisk until smooth. Sift together the flours, baking soda, and salt onto a large sheet of parchment paper; set aside.
  • Beat the butter in the bowl of a standing mixer at medium-high speed until it is creamed, about 1 minute. Add the brown sugar and beat at high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatual. With the mixer at medium-high speed, add the eggs 1 at a time, beating 30 seconds after each addition. Reduce the speed to medium; add the sour cream and vanilla and beat until combined, about 10 seconds. Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl. With the mixer at low speed, add about a third of the flour mixture, followed by about half of the chocolate mixture. Repeat, ending with the flour mixture; beat until just combined, about 15 seconds. Do not overbeat. Remove the bowl from the mixer; scrape the bottom and sides with a spatula and stir gently to thoroughly combine.
  • Pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan on the middle rack. Bake until a toothpick or skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool the cake on a wire rack for 15 to 20 minutes. Run a knife around the perimeter of the pan to loosen. Invert onto a large plate; peel off the parchment paper and reinvert onto a rack. Cool completely. Sprinkle a light dusting of powdered sugar on top or apply your favorite frosting.
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A picnic lunch

It seems we’ve moved past spring and gone right into summer. It was 72º on the river today. When you have days like that you need to pack the car and enjoy.

What’s for lunch gets packed into Ello© glass boxes and loaded into the cooler. Today we had chopped salad, grilled chicken, summer sausage, havarti cheese, crackers and chips, chocolate sandwich cookies, snicker bars and some fresh strawberries.

The cooler has  ice extender tubes but also cubes in a ziplock. The sealed glass boxes are stacked on one side and then nestled up to the ice are cans of beer and soda.

When it’s lunch time you have a smorgasbord of goodies to spread out on a picnic table and enjoy.

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Pie for Dinner

Today’s quiche features cauliflower, carrots, kale, onion, and bell pepper, with a mix of monterey jack and parmesan cheese.

So, you are at home and out of harm’s way, good.

Now what’s for dinner? We came up with a new take on an old classic … Deep Dish Quiche.

By cooking it in an eight inch spring form pan, there is more room for the vegetables, cheese, and other fillings. Same amount of egg custard, just more of everything else. JQ never really liked the egg part anyway.

We’ve always used the Quiche Lorraine recipe out of Beard on Food (see attached). But we totally change out the fillings to suit whatever is in the fridge. This makes a perfect quarantine meal.

So the basic custard or crust ingredients are the same. However, it took about twice as long to bake … hey, it’s twice as thick! The results are a nice slice of dinner (or lunch) goodness.

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Quiche (Lorraine)

Classic quiche uses bread dough, but this is a pastry shell and then fridge raid to fill.

Ingredients

Pastry Shell

  • 2 cups AP flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 lb unsalted butter cut in small pieces at room temperature
  • 1 egg
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice

Filling

  • 3 egg yolks
  • 2 eggs
  • 2/3 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • pinch pepper or more, if you like
  • 1 cup shredded cheese some or all Parmesan, we like a mix of cheeses
  • 1 to 2 cups lightly steamed vegtables and / or cooked meat

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 425º. LIghtly butter the bottom of an 8 inch spring form pan (Beard uses an 8 to 9 inch tart tin) and cover bottom with a round piece of parchment.

Pastry Shell

  • Place flour in a food processor and add butter, then pulse until butter is cut into flour. Whisk egg with lemon juice and add to processor. Run processor until a ball forms. You can add additional cold water if dough is too dry. Turn out onto lightly floured surface, form into a ball. Chill for 30 minutes.
  • Roll dough out between parchment sheets to about 1/8 inch thick and transfer to the spring form pan. Be careful not to stretch the dough as you form it to the sides of the pan. Crimp the top edge. Fit parchment to the inside of the pan and weigh it down with a couple cups of uncooked beans. This will keep the pie crust from puffing up. I also add a foil shield around the top of the shell crust to prevent it from browning too quickly.
    Bake at 425º for 18 minutes. Remove the beans and brush the inside of the shell with a thin coat of mustard. Return to oven and bake an additional 3 minutes. Allow to cool a bit before filling.

Egg Custard and Filling

  • Beat yolks and eggs along with cream, salt and pepper in a small bowl.
  • Chop and saute onion in skillet until soft. Add chopped vegetables and cook no more than two minutes. Place this mixture on the bottom of the shell.
  • If you are using cooked meat, add that to the shell.
  • Cover with grated cheese, then pour egg mixture to cover all of the ingredients. I like to top with a sprinkle of pepper.
  • Bake in a 375º oven for about 60 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Near the end of bakiing (last 10 minutes), remove the foil shield to allow crust to brown. (If you are using a shallow tart/pie pan, cooking time is about 25 minutes.)
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Biscuits with Fruit Compote

Berry Cobbler featuring a mix of tired blueberries and raspberries. WOW! This biscuit is great!

It is recommended you eat more fresh fruit and veggies as part of a defense against the virus. That is all well and good, but what is fresh about a stay-at-home scenario?

In these times, going to the grocery store has been reduced to a once in a month activity. This requires suiting up before you go, sanitizing along the way, and disinfecting upon return.

Perfect for breakfast, second breakfast and tea … okay, delicious anytime of the day.

The few remaining apples we got on the last supply run are starting to show their age. Grocery re-stock is a week off. So, I core, peel and slice the apples, cover with some sugar and cinnamon do a light saute and serve them with a biscuit.

These aren’t just any biscuits. These morsels came as part of a cobbler recipe. We’ve found that you don’t need berry cobbler to enjoy a really tasty treat. It’s kind of healthy … and they are delicious slathered with butter and jam.

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Blueberry Cobbler

Ingredients

filling

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbsp corn starch
  • pinch cinnamon
  • pinch salt
  • 6 cups berries
  • 1 1/2 tsp lemon zest
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice

Biscuit topping

  • 1 cup unbleached AP flour
  • 2 Tbsp stone-ground cornmeal
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 4 Tbsp unsalted butter melted
  • 1/3 cup buttermilk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 tsp sugar

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 375º and adjust rack to lower-middle.

Filling

  • Stir the sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and salt together in a large bowl. Add the berries and mix gently with a rubber spatual until evenly coated; add the lemon zest and juice and mix to combine. Transfer the berry mixture to a 9- inch glass pie plate (8-inch square works too). Place on a rimmed baking sheet, and bake until the filling is hot and bubbling around the edges, about 25 minutes.

Biscuit

  • Whisk the flour, cornmeal, ¼ cup of sugar, baking powder, soda and salt in a large bowl to combine. Whisk the melted butter, buttermilk, and vanilla together in a small bowl. Mix the remaining 2 tsps sugar and cinnamon in a second small bowl and set aside. One minute before the berries come out of the oven, add the wet to dry ingredients; stir with a rubber spatula until just combined and no dry pockets remain.

Assemble and Bake

  • Remove the berries from the oven. Increase the temp. to 425º. Pinch off 8 equal pieces of biscuit dough and place them on top of the hot berry filling, spacing them at least ½ inches apart. Sprinkle each mound of dough with cinnamon sugar. Bake until the filling is bubbling and the biscuits are golden brown on top and cooked through, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool the cobbler on a wire rack for 20 minutes and serve.
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A Peanut Butter Cookie

If you don’t like peanut butter … well that’s just wrong … but also you won’t like this post much either.

We’ve long been fans of Alton Brown and “Good Eats” … even saw his stage show in PDX a few years ago.

Brown’s take on cooking and food is unique and always entertaining. Check out his YouTube channel.

As the days at home stretch out, you might be looking for a treat and this recipe has five ingredients, is quick, flourless and full of peanut goodness. Enjoy!

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Alton Brown's Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients

  • 268 g smooth peanut butter
  • 120 g brown sugar
  • 120 g white sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp soda
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350º and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  • Cream peanut butter together with sugar(s) until fully incorporated.
  • Add egg, soda, vanilla, and salt. Beat until smooth.
  • With a 1 ½ Tbsp scoop (1 oz), measure and transfer balls of dough to cookie sheet. Leave 2 to 3 inches of space - that is 8 dough balls on each sheet.

With a fork press to flatten the balls and then slide the fork off, first in one direction and then 90º to those indents to create the classic cross hatch pattern.

  • Place both sheets roughly in center of oven and bake for 5 minutes. Turn the pans and bake an additional 5 minutes (10 minutes total).

Cool on sheets for 5 minutes and transfer to racks. Allow to cool completely before storing in cookie jar.

    Notes

    Here is the YouTube video with Alton making these cookies.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nalyEGpuSs&t=0s