Cornmeal Berry Pancakes

Now that my storebought buckwheat pancake mix is finally long used up and gone, I get the fun task of making up homemade pancake recipes. Last weekend I made use of cornmeal and berries in my freezer to whip up these babies. I used raspberries because that's what I had in my freezer, which gave the pancakes a surprisingly floral note, but I think blueberries would be better.

 I liked the crispiness of the cornmeal (but maybe maple syrup will make almost any pancake taste good), but I thought they cooked a little too dark because they took too long to cook through the middle. So some kind of recipe tweaking will have to happen on my next batch to prevent that problem.


Cornmeal Berry Pancakes

1 cup flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 tbsp sugar or honey
1 tbsp baking powder
4 tbsp melted butter
1 egg
1 cup plus 2 tbsp milk
1 cup berries
syrup

If using frozen berries, rinse them quickly in water to thaw and let dry on paper towels. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a well and stir in wet ingredients. If batter is too thick, add more milk, one tbsp at a time. Gently stir in berries. Heat a spoonful of butter in a skillet until foamy. Pour pancakes out in pan to desired size, flip after a few minutes, and remove when browned. Serve with real maple syrup.

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Chicken and Hot Pepper Pizza

I made pizza again and look at how beautiful it is! I'm always surprised at how it comes out looking and tasting like real pizza, minus the whole charred crust blackened by an 800 degree brick oven of course. This one was topped with tomato sauce, diced chicken, hot pickled peppers, and parmesan.

I know everyone loves Peter Reinhardt's whole wheat pizza dough as featured on 101 Cookboks, but whenever I make it, the crust is just too thin for my liking. It works great for the grill, but now that I've got my oven back, I'm sticking with my other go-to pizza dough recipe, which is what I used here.

Mmm pizza. I guess it's a good thing it's so time intensive with all that rising, or I'd be making and eating pizza to much for my own good.

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Roasted Root Vegetable and Bean Casserole

While the pumpkin was roasting on Sunday night, I also roasted up this squash casserole for dinner. This is one of our favorite go-to fall/winter dishes, so I thought I'd bring it back from the archives for you.

I like making it best with butternut squash, potatoes, onions, and a couple different kind of beans, but you can throw in whatever you have on hand. Other kinds of squash, carrots, parsnips, celery root, and leeks also work well. If you only have a squash and a can of beans, you can make a small batch like that, or you can make a huge casserole with all the vegetables in your fridge, but the fuller your casserole dish, the longer it will take to roast. Either way, at the end you will have a dish of tender roasted vegetables and beans that are slightly softly falling apart on your fork, enhanced by creamy melted parmesan.

Roasted Root Vegetable and Bean Casserole

1 butternut squash
2 small or 1 large potato
2 small or 1 large carrot
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 can white beans
1 can black beans
extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper
dried rosemary and/or sage
parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Peel the squash (but not the other vegetables) and chop vegetables into 1 inch pieces. Dice the garlic. Rinse the beans. Coat the bottom of a casserole dish with olive oil. Throw all the ingredients in, add the spices and another glug of olive oil, and lightly stir to create an even mixture. Cover with aluminum foil and cook in the oven for 20-45 minutes until tender. Remove the foil and cook for another 10 minutes, until vegetables are soft and browning slightly. Grate and stir in parmesan cheese.

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Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies

Now that fall has finally come to Brooklyn for real, with leaves turned yellow and fallen on the ground, it's time to start cooking all that hardy squash lying around. I picked up a sugar pie pumpkin from the farmers market and roasted it this weekend so that I'd have real, fresh pumpkin puree instead of canned glop to bake with. Sugar pie pumpkins are a little smaller and darker orange in color, and also better for baking, than regular pumpkins.

Roasting the pumpkin was easy. First I sliced the whole pumpkin in half and scooped out the seeds and stringy bits. Then I laid it in a baking dish with about a half inch of water so it wouldn't burn, and roasted it in the oven at 425-450 degrees for about an hour. Check on it every now and then to make sure you don't overcook it. The pumpkin is done when you can mush down the flesh with a fork. Next, let it cool for a while so you don't burn yourself. Finally, peel off and discard the skin, and mash up the flesh with a fork so you're left with creamy pumpkin puree. Store in an airtight container for future use within about a week.

At first I couldn't decide what type of pumpkin-flavored baked good to make, but I ultimately decided on cookies because that way there's lots to go around when I bring them into work. Lacking chocolate chips and nuts, I decided I needed something else to amp up the cookies, so I decided on a cinnamon-sugar coating, inspired by yummy snickerdoodles. But since these are pumpkin cookies, I took things even further and added extra spices like nutmeg and ginger to both the batter and cinnamon-sugar mixture to bring out the autumn cheer.

The cookies came out a little cakier than I'd hoped, as often happens when cooking with moist pumpkin puree, but nevertheless delicious. They're like mini muffins of heaven and spice and crackly sugar. If they stay just as good tomorrow, these will be in the running for Thanksgiving day dessert (because, yes, I'm getting to cook Thanksgiving this year!)

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking soda

Cinnamon-sugar-spice coating
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream softened butter and sugar until fluffy. Whisk in egg, pumpkin, and vanilla one at a time. Dump remaining dry ingredients in the bowl and stir until all combined. It might seem dry at first, but keep stirring until it comes together as a dough.

In a shallow dish, combine sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon. Take a teaspoon of dough, roll it around in the cinnamon-sugar mixture until coated and then flatten between the palm of your hands, coat with cinnamon-sugar again, and place on a greased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining cookies.

Bake for approximately 10 minutes. Makes about 36 cookies.

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Wedding Inspiration Board: Pink and Blue Birds

Don't worry, I'm not the one getting married. One of my oldest friends, Elaine, just got engaged, and I thought it would be fun to try to put together an inspiration board for her, inspired by all the pretty pictures over at Snippet & Ink. I felt a theme of pale pinks and blues with sweet lovebirds would be fitting for Elaine, my petite, kind,and funny friend. I wanted to show that even though she's probably going to have a fall wedding, the decor doesn't have to be the staid orange and red and brown route that so many fall flower arrangements and events seem to go.

Click the photo for a full size image



1. Birds Nest decor, via Once Wed
2. Hairpiece, by the Tijusai Etsy shop
3. Ring pillow, designed by Debbie Notis, photo by Corbin Gurkin via Once Wed
4. Invitation, by The Paper Door Etsy shop
5. Pink champagne, photo by Joel Flory via Snippet & Ink
6. Cupcakes with bird toppers, from Maple Sugar via Snippet and Ink
7. Designate the bride and groom's seats with pretty ribbon, photo by Billy Winters via Snippet & Ink
8. Mason jars with big pink flowers, photo by Heather Forsythe via Snippet & Ink
9. Blue shirts for the men, photo by Jose Villa via Snippet & Ink
10. Fall foliage, via Once Wed
11. Necklace, by Lisa Leonard
12. Guests can drop kind notes into this birdcage, photo by Allison Garrett via Snippet & Ink
13. Seating cards photo by Still Weddings, via Snippet & Ink
14. Ribbon wands for guests to wave during the ceremony, from Blogger Brides
15. Flowers arranged in rustic pitchers (though the peonies would have to be replaced by another pink flower more in season for the fall), from Peonies and Polaroids
16. Pink bridesmaid dresses, by Ann Taylor Loft, photo by Sandra Coan via The Knot
17. Table number cards by eeBoo
18. Flowy feminine wedding dress, by Kim Grayz via Snippet & Ink
19. Cake by Rebecca Thuss
20. Simple table settings with pink and blue ribbon wrapped around napkins, from Peonies and Polaroids
21. Vintage blue vases with single buds, styled by Molly FitzSimons via Snippet & Ink
22. A bouquet of white, pink, and blue wildflowers, from Martha Stewart Weddings

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Rhode Island Style Calamari

I'm a big fan of fried calamari, and almost always order it when I see it on a menu. On my way back from Maine this summer, I stopped in at Portsmouth Brewery for dinner and drinks on a very rainy night. I blindly ordered "Rhode Island style calamari" from their menu, not realizing what that meant until it arrived, fried calamari mixed in with hot peppers - so hot, in fact, that I struggled to finish the dish.

Recently, when I tasted my second batch of pickled peppers this weekend (and whoo boy are they hotter than the first batch - throwing in a couple jalapenos really worked) it immediately called to mind a chance to make Rhode Island style calamari at home. I've been jonesing to make fried calamari for ages, and I figured I would go milder with the spicy peppers by throwing in just in enough for some kick.

This was also my first attempt at deep frying, and I now don't know what I was always so scared of. It takes a lot of oil, but other than that, it's no problem. I heated two inches of olive oil in a big pot over medium heat, and I don't have a cooking thermometer, so I just winged it and figured that the oil was probably hot enough after five minutes or so.

Meanwhile, I removed the squid (pre-cleaned, from the farmers market of course) from from its soak in a bowl of milk, salt, and pepper, drained it, and dredged it in a mixture of half flour-half cornmeal and more salt and pepper. Into the pot they went, about five at a time for about 2 minutes at a time, and then I removed them with a slotted spatula and let them drain on paper towels. Use a LOT of paper towels - the massive oil coming off the calamari soaked right through my paper towels. To finish it off, I warmed up a heaping half cup of tomato sauce with the pickled peppers, and tossed it all together.

As you can also see, the calamari looks rather long and tubular. I stupidly forgot to slice the squid into little rings before dredging and frying them. Don't make that mistake - you'll get more crunchy fried surface area and a more tender bite if you cook them in small pieces. For some reason, a lot of the flour-cornmeal mixture fell off in the cooking process, so it didn't have that restaurant-quality all-around crunchy coating, but it was good enough for us. The peppers, on the other hand, got pushed to the side for being too hot again. Next time I'll leave out the peppers and make a fun mayo dipping sauce.

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We Did It!

via mindseyecards on etsy
A little after 11 last night I was fiddling around in my kitchen to make a grilled cheese sandwich for election-viewing-snacking, when I heard an eruption of screams from the bar next door, and I knew the good news before I even had a chance to turn on the TV and see it for myself. I almost didn't think it would happen, after the last two elections ended in disappointment, but we did it, we beat the greedy Republicans! Standing in line for over an hour to vote was all worth it.

EDIT: I thought I heard a helicopter or plane just circling and circling loudly last night! Chrysanthe has the scoop - apparently police were in riot gear on Bedford too trying to control the crowds.

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