It’s the time of year when Americans make fun of fruitcake … which, having seen the strange brick-shaped thing studded with something that claims to be candied fruit … yeah, that thing sucks. But real fruitcake and other breads with real candied fruit/peel are incredible. I’ve got a bunch of fruit and peel candied and have been making breads.
This panettone got scorched at the bottom – I think it was the tin on which I set the baking paper. I’ll use something else next time.
Not sure why no one seems to sign up to provide the healthy snack for Anya’s preschool parties … I guess it’s not as much fun as providing the unhealthy snack that you know everyone is going to love. We’ve been volunteering; and it’s an opportunity to find interesting, festive, but still healthy snacks. For the Christmas party, we made pita trees. I found them on the Betty Crocker web site.
These are pitas cut in sixths (pie-shaped wedges). They are topped with a spinach hummus and finely diced red pepper (we’ve made them with multi-color peppers, tomatoes, carrot shreds … basically any colorful combination of vegetables). A thin pretzel stick is inserted into the bottom to make trunk – but leave that to the last minute, otherwise you have soggy pretzels! You cannot pick them up by the trunk, although pretty much every kid tried.
Spinach Hummus Recipe
1/4c tahini
1/4c fresh lemon juice,
About a cup of dry garbanzo beans
Package of frozen spinach (thawed)
Pressure cook the garbanzo beans for 45 minutes on the high pressure (yes, that’s massively overcooked – I get a much smoother hummus by overcooking the beans), then allow to cool. Blend the tahini and lemon juice in a food processor until it is smooth. Add the drained garbanzo beans and run the processor until smooth. Squeeze the spinach to dry it out, then slowly add to the hummus and blend to combine. I was going for color – I wanted a bright green.
We made some pumpkin pies yesterday – one of which is for Anya’s preschool “Feast”. I wanted a lightly sweetened, creamy, pumpkin pie. The recipe makes two *deep* dish pies (the Emile Henry ruffled pie plate)
Ingredients – Pie:
58 oz tinned pumpkin puree
36 oz whole milk, simmered down to half
4 oz cream
6 eggs
9 T Penzey’s pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
Incredients – Crust:
16 oz gingersnap cookies (make sure they are good gingersnaps)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 T flour
2 T sugar
Ingredients – Apple Caramel:
2 cups apple cider
Method: Preheat oven to 425.
Making the pie crust – run the ginger snaps through a food processor to make a sandy powder. Mix in the flour and sugar. Melt the butter and add to the crumbs. Make sure the mixture is moist enough to compress into a crust. If it isn’t add another tablespoon of butter. Press the mixture along the bottom and sides of the pie plates. Bake crust at 425 for five minutes, then set aside to cool while you mix the pumpkin filling.
Making the pie – Combine the milk, cream, and eggs and whip together. Whip in the spices and molasses. Fold this into the pumpkin puree. Gently transfer the pumpkin mixture into the cooled pie crusts. Bake for fifteen minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350 and bake for 50 minutes. Remove pies from oven and allow to cool for several hours (if you pierce the pie to test it, it is apt to crack … I made two pies so I was able to test one and have an un-cracked pie for the party).
Making the Apple Caramel – Put apple cider into a pan on high heat. Boil, stirring constantly, until it is almost all evaporated and very foamy. Remove from burner and let it sit a few minutes to cool. It will thicken as it cools.
I found a recipe for alkaline noodles — well, Scott had been craving ramen noodles. And I cannot say I know where to get them. The Styrofoam bowls with paper covers that you peel back and add water … it’s been a while since I’ve been to CAM (Cleveland Asia Market), but I totally know where to get those. But a cheap pack of ramen noodles — I looked around at the grocery store and didn’t find any. I thought they were fairly ubiquitous no-money/no-time/no-cooking-skill items.
So I googled how to make ramen noodles – and it turns out real ramen noodles are alkaline noodles. I found a really good sounding recipe that uses rye flour, and then found a simpler one that I went with (since I didn’t have rye flour on hand). I rolled them out too thickly, but it’s a cool way to make something like an egg noodle without needing eggs.
We made the tangerine pumpkins for Anya’s preschool Halloween party – they are awesome:
Sliced the potatoes & sautéed in an herb infused oil (olive oil, thyme, pepper)
We made burritos for dinner tonight, and Anya decided to cut the tortillas with cookie cutters. So we had snowman burritos:
Anya’s preschool has a sign-up for Halloween party volunteers — and no one took “healthy snack”! We have a couple of lot of Halloween parties this year for which I’m coming up with non-candy but still Halloween-y treats … what’s one more?
So my current Halloween snack list is:
Friends Parties: tangerine pumpkins and witches’ broom pretzel/cheese snacks
Friends Parties: Scarecrow veggie platter
Mmmmm!
Ingredients:
Method:
Soak raisins in warm water for 5 minutes, then drain.
Add 2T sugar to warm water and stir. Sprinkle yeast on top of water and let sit until yeast is frothy.
In a stand mixer with bread hook attachment, combine flour, 2T cinnamon, and salt. Mix to combine. Add milk, egg, 3T of butter, and water. Mix for about five minutes. Knead raisins in by hand to avoid crushing them.
In a small bowl, combine the remaining 6 Tbs. each cinnamon and sugar. Melt 4 Tbs. of the butter.
Today was Anya’s turn to bring a snack to preschool. She wanted to make apple faces like we made for Halloween last year, but the school has a strict no-nuts policy. Shorter ingredient list — just Fuji apples, fresh strawberries, and unsweetened carob chips. Omitting peanut butter made affixing the carob chips to the apples more challenging. I debated using tahini – apple and sesame goes well together. But that didn’t seem to mesh well with strawberries and carob … so I decided to make little holes to hold the carob chips.
To start out, you need something to prevent the apples from oxidizing after they are cut. Lots of choices – submerging them in plain water, ascorbic acid, citric acid, or honey and water. Just make sure the apples get treated after each cut.
Core each apple. I used a really sharp tournée knife and pared out little eyeball sockets. I used the same knife to pare out a mouth – cut a straight line for the top and a concave curve under the straight line. The curved point of the knife popped the slice out quite nicely.
Then drop the carob chips, points down, into the socket. Voila, a tray full of apple faces.
The “juice” I made is strawberry lemonade — almost two pints of strawberries, juice from half a dozen lemons, and eight cups of water. It is sweeter and more strawberry flavored than I usually make, but I wasn’t sure if *lemony* lemonade would be palatable to everyone. I put the strawberries, lemon juice, and two cups of water in the blender and blended until it no longer had chunks. Put four cups of water into the jug, then added the strawberry/lemon puree. Capped, shook, and tasted. Mmmmm! It’s better cold, so we brought a couple of ice packs along – Anya’s owl bag is insulated, so the jug should stay cold.
