Up My Kilt!

Dark Chocolate Shortbread

mcnee — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:32:03 +0000

This goes in the “I want to try” pile, from “Real Food” free promotional magazine I picked up a local grocery store.

Dark Chocolate Shortbread

Ingredients

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, very soft
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup high-quality cocoa

Directions

Whisk together butter, sugar and vanilla
Sift together flour and cocoa. Using a fork, stir flour mixture in to butter mixture just until flour is no longer evident.
Scrape dough in to a large plastic bag and tap in to lower half. Fold back over and press dough across back from seam to seam in to a flat, 4-inch wide block. refrigerate 30 to 45 minutes, or until firm
Position a rack in middle of oven and preheat to 375F
Break off one-third of dough, keeping flat. Dust a work surface with flour and roll dough to about 1/4-inch thickness, pinching together any edges that crack. Repeat with remaining dough or free up to a month.
Using a 2-inch cookie cutter or a small glass, cut cookies then, if desired, dust each cookie with sugar and/or optional salt. Using a metal spatula, transfer to an unlined cookie sheet, positioning cookies at least 1 inch apart.
Bake 10 minutes, remove from oven and leave on sheet to cool. Store in pairs (underside facing underside) and layer between parchment paper in an airtight container.

These cookies were presented as part of an overall ice-cream sandwich recipe. Like most shortbreads they are not overly sweet and that’s why they suggest dusting them with sugar.

When I do try these, I’ll likely be using whole-wheat pastry flour.

Grilled Romaine Salad

mcnee — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:50:16 +0000

I read about this on a blog… and now I can’t find which one to give that person some credit. Sorry. Anyways, this isn’t really a tough thing to do… you basically take a romaine heart, slice it in half the long way, brush with a bit of olive oil and grill. It doesn’t take long… 2 minutes or so each side. Top with some onion, a flavorful cheese like bleu or gorgonzola, drizzle with your favorite balsamic vinegar dressing and serve immediately.

It’s January here, and while it’s actually nice enough out to grill lately, it was dark. So instead I used my Grill Station. A George Foreman type grill or other panini press type grill would easily work as well. I figure even a nice hot cast iron skillet (especially if you have one with the “ribs” for indoor grilling) would work fine as well. Since it’s a press type grill I put them cut side down for about a minute, then closed the top and let them cook about another 90 seconds.

quick hint, use an olive oil based non-stick spray to easily get a light coating on your romaine.

I had my onion sliced (nice and thin) and the cheese crumbled and ready to go. The dressing was mostly just plain balsamic vinegar with a bit of olive oil and some fresh ground black pepper. Use your favorite bottled dressing if you prefer. This would probably be nice with some sweet vadalia onions as well.

Soon as I took the lettuce off the grill I topped with the onion and cheese and drizzled with the dressing and dug in. Cooking lettuce seems kind of different, and I didn’t cook it so long that it got rid of the crispness. It did enhance the overall taste a bit though. I’m interested in trying this again when I can do it on the grill, see if imparts any smokiness to it.

Beef Tortillas With Balasamic Onions

mcnee — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:58:50 +0000

The original recipe called for using sliced roast beef, look for a low-sodium brand. Otherwise, this works great with skirt or flank steaks, the same cut usually used for fajitas. These meats are a bit tougher so be sure to slice across the grain. This dish is meant to be served “cold”, so leftovers make for a tasty lunch the next day. It also works great when the steak is fresh off the grill and onions are right out of the pan.

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
2 medium red onions, thinly sliced
1 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
6 tbsp beef broth (or substitute in some red wine)
12 oz cold roast beef , thinly sliced
4 whole wheat tortillas
handful of baby spinach
fresh ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a saucepan over low-medium heat, add onions and cook about 10-15 minutes until they caramelize.

Add the sugar, vinegar and broth/wine and cook another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool, season with fresh ground black pepper.

Arrange some spinach leaves on each tortilla, top with beef and balsamic onions, roll up and serve.

Try this topped with a bit of tzitki sauce or maybe some fresh guacamole.

Gluten Free Pizza Crust

mcnee — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 03:32:41 +0000

This is based on the recipe for Low carb, high protein pizza with homemade sauce I found on instructables.com – I’ve portioned it down for a meal for 1-2. The crust is made from a blend of cream cheese and Parmesan cheese with egg to help bind it all together.

Ingredients

1-3 oz package cream cheese – at room temperature
1/2 cup grated or shredded Parmesan cheese
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350F

In a medium bowl mix together all three ingredients until well combined.

Spray an 8×8 baking pan or 9inch pie plate (I used a 9-inch cast iron skillet) with non-stick spray and spread the cheese mixture evenly in the bottom.

Bake about 25 minutes until set and lightly browned.

Turn oven up to 425F, top your crust with your favorite sauce, toppings and some cheese. Bake for about 10-12 minutes until the cheese is melted.

Notes: The recipe this is based on has what looks like a decent recipe for some sauce as well. Or use your favorite canned/jarred sauce (pizza or pasta). The pizza in the pic used a sauce I made along with pepperoni, onion, jalapeno and chicken. This is a decent sized meal for one, or split with someone and put a nice salad or something else on the side.

Below are some of the “in progress” photos I took…

Here is the “dough” after having spread it out in my skillet – ready to go in the oven.

Out of the oven, ready for toppings. It’s weird how much this pile of baked cheese resembles a dough type crust.

Ready for the oven, topped with homemade sauce, pepperoni, onion, jalapenos, chicken and cheese.

Protein Pancakes

mcnee — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:50:55 +0000

This is a recipe I continue to play with, always trying to improve. You can also vary it depending on your own tastes and nutritional desires. It started out using all “oat flour” (basically ground up rolled oats), but they make for a very dense pancake. So recently I’ve tried making them using a mix of oat flour and a multi-grain baking mix. I’ve been using this one from Bob’s Red Mill.

Ingredients

1/4 cup oat flour
1/4 cup pancake or similar baking mix
1/4 cup protein powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup cottage cheese
1 egg
1/2 cup milk

To make some oat flour, just take rolled oats and “grind” them up. I use the flat blade in my Magic Bullet blender. A food processor should work too. You can sub another 1/4 cup of this for the pancake mix, or use your favorite mix – Bob’s makes some gluten free ones if you want/need to go that route.

Mix the dry stuff together, I use an unflavored/unsweetened whey isolate protein powder. Use your favorite… even if it’s flavored. You can leave it out, but reduce the milk to 1/4-1/3 cup.

Blend together in a blender or food processor the cottage cheese, egg and milk. I use soy milk, because it’s what I keep on hand. But I’ve also used the whey liquid I get after straining my homemade yogurt. Then mix this in to the dry ingredients.

Heat your skillet or griddle to 350ish, use a bit of no-stick spray and pour out the batter – you should get four pancakes that are about 4-5 inches across. Let them cook about 4-5 minutes before flipping. These pancakes tend to be fairly dense, so you may or may not get the usual tell-tale bubbles that many cooks use to tell when they’re ready to flip. Cook about another 4-5 minutes on the other side.

Serve with your favorite topping. I make a double or triple batch and freeze them. Lay them out on a sheet pan to cool, place in freezer. When frozen, store in zip-top bag. They reheat well in the toaster – I have some for breakfast almost every day lately with peanut butter and jelly.

Feel free to toss in some berries or chocolate chips or whatever when you are cooking these if you want. Also, try mixing in about 1/4 cup of pumpkin puree (along with some ground cumin) or maybe peanut butter right in the mix to change things up a bit.

Gingerbread Marshmallows

mcnee — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:05:43 +0000

I’ve never been much of a fan of store-bought marshmallows really, unless they’re in something. Even on s’mores I’m not a fan. I’ve wanted to try making my own ever since seeing the Good Eats episode where Alton made some. But it took this gingerbread version to finally push me over the edge to try my hand at them.

This is from a recipe I originally found at Fat Girl Trapped In A Skinny Body - with some of my own notes on the whole experience.

Ingredients

3 packages unflavored gelatin
1-1/2 cups brown sugar (Loosely packed)
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1-1/2 tsp ground ginger
1-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
Confectioners’ (powdered) sugar, for dusting

Directions

Line a 9×13 pan with parchment paper and LIBERALLY dust with the powdered sugar. This is what keeps the final stuff from sticking. I didn’t use enough and it took some work to separate the marshmallow from the parchment – learn from my mistake! Cutting some slits in the parchment at the corners can help it fit in to the pan better.

Pour the gelatin in to a large bowl and add 1/2 cup of cold water and allow this to sit while you make the syrup. If you have a stand mixer, use it with the whisk attachment.

In a small saucepan combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, salt and 1/2 cup water and cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, then raise the heat to high and cook until the syrup reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. If you don’t have a candy thermometer suspending a probe thermometer so the tip does NOT touch the pan should work as well. (I had both, so wanted to compare them.)

Remove the pan from the heat, and with the mixer on slow speed slowly pour the syrup in to the dissolved gelatin. My gelatin was a “solid” mass in the bottom of the bowl, but the heat from the syrup seemed to dissolve it all fine. Add the spices and turn the mixer up to high and whip until the mixture is very thick. It takes about 12-14 minutes. Then add the vanilla and mix it in for a minute more.

Pour the mixture in to the prepared pan and use a silicone spatula to help spread it out. Dipping it in some cold water can help keep it from sticking, but I really didn’t have to do much, it spread out across the pan pretty well on it’s own.

Dust the top with more powdered sugar, something I forgot to do, but will next time. Then, let the pan to sit uncovered overnight (or for at least 4 hours). Turn the marshmallow (it’s just one large one at this point!) out on to a cutting board and peel off the parchment paper. If it’s sticking (like mine did), dust with some powdered sugar as you peel off the paper, it lets you hold it in place as you pull the paper off. The marshmallow will stretch a bit as you peel the paper off, but it bounced back pretty good.

I think about the easiest way to cut these is use one of the wheel style pizza cutters. Dip the blade in powdered sugar and run it across. I cut mine in six rows the long way and ten rows the short way, so you should get at least 60 – these would be good “roasting size”. Next batch I may try making them smaller or maybe finding some small gingerbread man cookie cutter to use and cut up the scraps for mini-marshmallows.

After cutting, dust them with powdered sugar, this keeps them from sticking together, so be generous. I thought I did pretty good and they’re still sticking together a bit. They pull apart easy enough, but still.

Now, of course if you wanted to make just regular marshmallows, skip the cinnamon and ginger and use white sugar instead of brown sugar… everything else is the same.

If you’re a Good Eats fan like me, you’ll want to watch the episode on marshmallows…

Homemade Vanilla Sugar

mcnee — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 03:40:51 +0000

Making your own vanilla sugar is pretty darn easy. It takes about five minutes of work, but then at least two weeks of waiting. So plan ahead.

You basically immerse a vanilla bean in sugar, let it sit for at least two weeks in an air-tight container so the vanilla goodness can get all infused in the sugar, then use it in coffees, sprinkle it on some berries, toss a bit in your baking recipes. You’ll find all sorts of ways to use it.

Each vanilla bean will flavor 2 cups (about 1 pound) of sugar. Basically you just split the bean, scoop out the insides, mix it all together and seal it up for a couple weeks. I got my beans at Penzys – they came in a 3-pack, so I did 3 pounds of sugar. If you get them somewhere else, make sure they’re fresh, they should be soft – not dried out at all.

After splitting each bean, I used the back edge of the knife to scrape most of the “seed”, but that won’t do the whole job. This video here helps explain what I did, using the sugar sort of like sand paper to rub more of the vanilla-y goodness off the pod.

Then after mixing it all in I threw the pods in as well, burying them in the sugar. In a couple weeks I’ll be transferring it to some canning jars to give away for Christmas presents.

Ok, once again… here’s the directions…

3 vanilla beans
3 pounds (about 6 cups) granulated sugar

Split and scrape the beans and add the seeds to the sugar. Rub the inside of the split bean with sugar. Toss the beans and seeds with the sugar until combined.
Put the sugar and beans in an airtight container. Let sit for at least 2 weeks before using.

Baked French Toast

mcnee — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 03:10:55 +0000

Ok, this recipe was inspired by one by The Pioneer Woman. It’s just me… so I reduced it a bit. The bowls I use are about 6 inches across. You could do this in individual bowls like I did.. our if you were to basically double the recipe, it would be good in a say an 8×8 dish. As it is, I had one for dinner tonight and will re-heat the other one tomorrow morning. Now overall, this is very easy to do, but it takes time in the sense that you start it the night before to bake the next morning. Or, as I did today… start in the morning to have “breakfast for dinner”.

Ingredients

2-4 slices whole wheat bread
2 eggs
1/2 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Topping

2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar (packed)
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon ground cinamon

Ok, the bread I used was two of the whole wheat and a white baguette pieces from Panera Bread. I would have done all wheat, but they were about to close and only had two. I wanted to make sure I had enough, so I got a third that was white just in case, and am glad I did. See, I don’t don’t buy bread. I don’t eat it much at home. So for me, rather than buying a loaf at the store, it just made more sense for me to do it this way. It’s good to use some stuff that’s slightly stale too. If you buy a loaf, let a few slices sit out on the counter for a bit till it starts “drying out”. As for how many slices, it depends on the slices. If you’re using some thick sliced bread you may only need two. If they’re thin, you’ll need more. Basically use what it takes to fill your dish.

Either butter your baking dishes before you break up the bread or do I like did and use butter flavored no-stick spray. Then tear up the bread in to bout 1-inch sized cubes and loosely layer in your dish(es).

Mix up the eggs, soy milk (you could use whatever type of milk you have on hand by the way), vanilla and cinnamon. I also threw in a bit of fresh ground nutmeg for good measure. Pour this over the bread. Cover this with foil or plastic wrap and put in the fridge for about 8-10 hours or so.

Preheat your oven (I did mine in my toaster oven) to 350F, then take the foil or plastic wrap off and pop these this is what you’ll get. The egg mixture soaks in to the bread, there’s a bit in the bottom of the bowls still. Now while the oven is preheating, take your topping ingredients… mixing the flour, sugar and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Cut the butter in to a few chunks and cut the butter in to the dry ingredients.

I couldn’t find my pastry cutter, so I just used a fork.. and my fingers… to basically work the butter in to the flour/sugar until you get a sort of crumb/strudel type mixture. Once you have that, sprinkle it over the top of the bread cubes and pop in the oven for about an hour.

This should give you a nice crispy top to it… if you don’t want it crispy, shoot for about 45-50 minutes. I went for crispy…

As you can see from the photo up top, I had this with a side of ham and some blueberry topping I whipped together. And as you can see from that photo, the egg that doesn’t soak up in the bread gives you a sort of custardy layer. Next time I’m going to try having less left over in the bottom… or maybe pour out the excess after the bread has soaked up all it can.

Freekey Joes

mcnee — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:01:31 +0000

By subbing in a whole grain for some of the meat, this version of sloppy joes gives some added nutrition as well as being a bit easier on the pocket book. For this recipe I used freekeh, but other whole grains like quinoa or brown rice should work fine too.

Ingredients

1/2# ground beef (or whatever ground meat you’d like to use)
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup cooked freekeh
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp granulated garlic
1-2 tbsp hot pepper sauce – optional
salt and pepper to taste

If you’ve never used freekeh, you could sub some quinoa, farro, brown rice or whatever grain you would like.. maybe even some cooked beans if you’d prefer.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat, add a teaspoon or so of oil and heat the onion for about 3-4 minutes until softened and slightly browned

Add the ground beef and brown, using wooden spoon to break the meat up as it cooks.

Mix the tomato paste, water, vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, garlic and hot sauce (if using) in a medium bowl. When the meat is browned add to pan and stir to fully distribute.

Add the freekeh and stir to distribute. Leave on burner until heated through, stirring as needed. If sauce is too thick, add some water about a tablespoon at a time until you get the desired consistency.

Salt and pepper to taste before serving. Makes four to six servings.

Sweet Miso Salad Dressing

mcnee — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:09:58 +0000

Dresses one head of lettuce. Double the recipe for pasta salad.

1 tsp. Balsamic Vinegar
1 Tbs Sweet White Miso (heaping)
1 Tbs Dijon Mustard (heaping)
1 Tbs Granulated Sugar
2 Pinches Salt
Fresh Cracked Black Pepper, to taste
3-4 Tbs (approx) peanut or canola oil
1 Tbs Hot Water

Add balsamic vinegar, miso, mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper into a bowl. Use a whisk to mix ingredients thoroughly. Slowly drizzle in the oil while whisking constantly, creating an emulsion. Dressing should turn shiny and thick. Taste and re-season if necessary. Whisk in hot water to thin.
Let stand for a few minutes and whisk again before serving