Soft Pretzel Bites

I once took a memorable trip to Chicago with my family when I was 19 or 20.  I’ve been to Chicago many, many times, mostly to visit my Aunt Suzy, whom I adore for too many reasons to count, including that she ALWAYS has M&Ms in her fridge.  This trip was especially memorable though, because we (my parents, siblings and I, Aunt Suzy and Uncle Dan, Aunt Carol and Uncle John) played a game wherein we had to shock each other with facts nobody knew about us.  Hilarity ensued.

My fact was that I love mustard so much that if it were socially acceptable, I would eat it with a spoon.  Aunt Carol later made me prove it at dinner, which I did, happily and willingly.  She was making it socially acceptable!!!!  Hers was that she hadn’t read a book in 5 years.  All Monaghans present during the game nearly died of horror and disbelief.  She maintains to this day that it’s okay that she doesn’t read books because she reads many periodicals.  (She does, too.  I believe she reads the paper back to front, every single day.  Probably even the sports section.)

Soft pretzels are, to me, a vehicle for mustard.  A pillowy, tender, salty vehicle for mustard.  I usually buy the frozen kind that you heat up in the microwave for 1 minute and then dip in lots of salt and mustard.  Homemade pretzels were better than the frozen ones much like homemade dressings are better than bottled.  SO MUCH BETTER THAT BUYING THEM EVER AGAIN HAS BEEN RENDERED OBSOLETE.

This recipe makes a boatload of pretzel bites, I was nearly forcefeeding them to people and I still had lots leftover.  The good news is I reheated them in the toaster oven for a few minutes and they were fantastic again.  These seem like a lot of work, because there are a couple of stages, but make them anyway.  I promise, I swear on my love for French’s yellow mustard, that you will not be disappointed.  When I made these pretzels, for my shoot with Kelly of Capture Photography (whose talents I will not stop shilling, ever, she’s seriously talented and creative), I made my own mustard, too.  That post is coming later, but you can see how pretty my mustard is in the pictures of the pretzels.

Soft Pretzel Bites, from Tracey’s Culinary Adventures

1 1/2 cups warm water (about 110 degrees, it says, but I figured if it felt warm to my hand, it was good)

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 package instant, active dry yeast

6 tbsp butter, melted and cooled a bit

2 tsp salt

4 1/2-5 cups flour

3 quarts water

3/4 cup baking soda

1 egg, beaten in a small bowl with 1 tbsp cold water (this is what they call an egg wash)

kosher salt for sprinkling

Method:  In a large bowl, mix together the warm water, yeast, butter and sugar.  Let sit for 5 minutes, it should bubble and be weird.  Add the salt and 4 1/2 cups of flour and mix together on low speed with a hand mixer.  (I don’t have a standing mixer, but if you do, you can do this in it, just use your dough hook and keep the speed low.)  Keep mixing slowly until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 3-4 minutes.  If the dough  is too wet, add flour a tablespoon at a time until it pulls away from the bowl and comes together.

Form the dough into a ball, spray another big bowl with oil, spray the dough a little with oil too and put the dough ball in the bowl.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and keep in a warmish place until the dough doubles in size, about an hour.

When you’re ready to make them, pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.  Spray two baking sheets with vegetable oil.

Bring the 3 quarts of water to boil in a saucepan, then add the baking soda.

Remove the dough and reform it into a ball in your hands.  Gently karate chop the ball into two equal pieces, then those two pieces into halves, then each quarter into two, making 8 equal pieces of dough.

Roll each piece into a rope about 2 feet in length.

 

that's my real hands! you can tell from the way they're not cute.

Cut the ropes of dough into 1 inch pieces to make pretzel bites (you could make whole pretzels too, at this stage).

Drop the bites into the boiling water/baking soda solution for 10 seconds or so.

I did each rope one at a time, putting them all in, then fishing them out with a slotted spoon and placing them onto the baking sheets, making sure they weren’t touching.  This step is what produces the beautiful brown crust on the pretzels.

When you’ve filled two sheets with pretzel bites, brush each one with the egg wash.

Sprinkle liberally with salt and put into the oven for 15-18 minutes, until beautiful and golden brown.

Serve with mustard!  Kelly’s idea for shooting these was circus-ish, which is so adorable with the blue background and the soda.  Makes me want to go on the Tilt-o-Whirl.

- Cat

Falafel

this is the most beautiful picture of food EVER.

I have said a lot of questionable things about vegans and vegetarians, on this blog and also to anyone who will listen.  Sue and I were just having a conversation, in fact, wherein I expressed my fear that my kids will grow up and become vegans, because kids rebel.  I’ll raise them to love pate and understand why it’s perfectly acceptable to keep bacon fat in a jar, and they’ll grow up and only eat raw kale.  It’s the way of the world.

The truth, though, is that I like food with no meat in it.  I eat it all the time.  Just now I had a brownie.  No meat.  Yesterday I had some Doritos.  No meat.  (I don’t think.  Erg.)  I’m about to eat some bread and butter pickles.  No meat!

My mild acceptance of food with no meat intersects with something I LOVE: Middle Eastern food.  Babaghanouj is so delicious, it makes hummus look like its uglier, less charming cousin who just won’t give up on “your mom” jokes.  The smoke of babaghanouj pairs so wonderfully with the fresh tang of tabbouleh.  Tabbouleh is fantastic also because it’s a snack that’s good for you.  You think you’re having a nice bar snack with your beer, but you’re not.  You’re having a salad.  It’s so good you don’t even consider throwing it on the floor and demanding jalapeno poppers with ranch.

Sidenote: Dom and I were going out to dinner this past weekend, and I wanted to go to this Middle Eastern place I’ve been eyeing.  It took some convincing to make it happen, because they don’t have beer, but we got there in the end.  We get there, the kid says 35 minutes (lie), so we go stand out in the cold for an hour playing the celebrity name game, during which Dom said that not only was O.Henry not a celebrity, but didn’t count because O. is not a first name.  Untrue.  Anyway, the meal was good and the portions were enormous, but the restaurant itself sucked, terrible ambience, harried and sour looking servers, seated too far away from each other to have a private conversation, etc.  We both complained for some time, before Dom goes:  “But all that aside, I know you’re so happy to be taking this home to keep in the fridge right now.  I also would like to make a wager that you break back into this babaghanouj before the night is over.”  I did not take that bet.

All that is why falafel is on the good vegetarian food list.  It’s wonderful, and also gives me a chance to demonstrate one of my Central Tenets of Home Cooking.  To wit, deep frying at home is never necessary.  I bake my falafel.  I do douse it a bit with olive oil so the patties get nice and brown, and I bake them on high heat so they don’t dry out.  It’s taken some doing to get my falafel right.  I like them a little on the wet side, that ensures them staying moist and tender.  Also, there’s a secret to making perfect falafel: refrigerate it overnight and bake it the next day.  It lets all the flavors meld together, and firms it up for easy patty-making.  Falafel was one of the things I made for my food shoot with Kelly Goode of Capture Photography.  She is amazing, which you already know, because you see the pictures.

Falafel

2 cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1 onion, chopped roughly

1 cup parsley leaves

1 cup cilantro leaves

juice of 2 lemons

5-6 cloves of garlic

4 tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp chipotle powder (or a combination of smoked paprika and cayenne or red pepper flakes)

copious salt and pepper

2 eggs

2 cups panko

Method:  In a food processor, combine all ingredients but the eggs and panko and pulse until smooth and well-combined.  If your food processor is WAY too small to accommodate this much stuff, like mine is, you can do it in stages, like I did, and dump it all into a big bowl and mix it together there.  As long as the ingredients are all in really small pieces, you’re good.  With everything in a big mixing bowl, mix in the eggs and panko.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.  Drizzle some olive oil onto a cookie sheet and spread it around.  Using a spoon or your hands, ball up the falafel into 1 inch or so balls, flattening each slightly so they form little patties.  (This is a judgement call, lots of falafel is round, I just like the way patties sit more nicely in a pita.)  Lay them onto the cookie sheet and drizzle the tops with a little more olive oil.  Bake for 10 minutes or so and then flip and bake for another 10 minutes or so.  The falafel should be deep brown and crunchy when you touch it.

Serve in sandwich form like I did, with greens, cherry tomatoes, pickled beets, pepperocinis and tzaziki, or in any form you like.

Tzaziki

1/2 cucumber, grated, taking care to save the juice

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 cup plain, nonfat yogurt

copious salt and pepper

Method: Grate the cucumber into a bowl.  Mix in all other ingredients and serve.

mmm garlicky. thanks Kelly for the beautiful picture!

- Cat

Gluten Free Pasta with Roasted Garlic Goat Cheese Sauce

AND broccoli, peppadew peppers, artichokes and grilled chicken.

Lately I have been trying to eat from my fridge, because so often I end up wasting things after forgetting about them. Such as using half a bunch of asparagus and leaving the rest in the drawer. It’s not always possible to create a meal around ingredients in your fridge- let alone more than one ingredient. This time, however, it managed to work…and work really well!

I had another challenge presented to me during my menu planning; one of my dinner guests was gluten free. Ten years ago this may have presented a bit of an issue, but today there are practically gluten free isles at the market. I had been planning on a pasta dish when I remembered my friend was gluten free. Cat told me she is not a fan of brown rice pasta, she said she thinks it’s too sticky*. I went to Whole Foods to see what other options they had. What they had (along with brown rice) was quinoa pasta.

It was absolutely wonderful…and what I actually mean by that, is it tasted just like regular old pasta. I was seriously impressed. Not to mention the added bonuses of having extra protein, low sodium, and no cholesterol. The price was not overly expensive either, it’s like buying the store brand pasta versus the fancier brand of boxed pasta. I liked this pasta so much I would consider buying this in place of regular pasta.

The plan for this pasta was asparagus,artichokes, peppadew peppers, chicken, and goat cheese cream sauce. As it turns out the boyfriend had already used  the asparagus (and I don’t mean eaten, because he doesn’t do that, he shared it with other friends who were over earlier in the week). Since I had already gone to the store to get the pasta, I looked at what else was available. Broccoli it was. I was not disappointed in the least, the broccoli was perfect (but asparagus would be good too and I would prepare it the same way).

Ingredients:

4 oz goat cheese

1 /4 cup Greek yogurt or sour cream

1/2 tsp salt

1 can artichokes in water (or frozen hearts)

1 medium head of broccoli

1 head garlic

6 peppadew peppers

1 lemon

3-4 chicken breasts

Salt and pepper, for chicken

Method:

Preheat the oven to 400. Chop off about ¼ inch off the top of the entire garlic clove; you want to just expose the cloves. Place the garlic on a piece of foil, drizzle heavily with olive oil, and twist into a little pouch. Place in the oven for about 45 minutes or until the garlic is soft and roasted and smells like heaven (in my world, heaven smells like roasted garlic). While the garlic roasts, make the rest of the dish.

Slice the peppadew peppers into thin strips (or whatever your desired shape is) and set aside. Try not to eat too many of them while you cook everything else.

You will also be roasting the broccoli but it doesn’t take as long as the garlic. To prepare the broccoli chop the head into small florets. Make a foil packet to put the broccoli in**. Drizzle the broccoli with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. The broccoli will take from about 20 minutes depending on how crisp you like your broccoli.

Start a large pot of salted water to boil on the stove for the pasta. In a medium skillet, sauté the drained artichokes and the juice of one lemon over medium heat for about 3 minutes; remove from heat and cover, the steam will help the lemon juice flavor to penetrate.

For the cream sauce, in a small sauce pan over medium low heat combine the yogurt and goat cheese and melt until a thick sauce forms. Add a dash of milk if the sauce seems too thick. By this time the garlic should be roasted. Squeeze the softened cloves directly into the sauce, along with the 1 tsp of salt and whisk to combine. Keep the sauce on low heat while you complete the final steps.

Salt and pepper the chicken and grill. While the chicken is grilling, cook the pasta.  After the past is cooked, and drained, toss the pasta with the goat cheese sauce. Toss the broccoli and the artichokes with the pasta, and top each portion with the sliced chicken and the peppadew peppers.

Absolutely delicious, not to mention gluten free, and healthy. I will be making this often.

A few notes:

My gluten free friend tells me she quite likes rice pasta but apparently there is an art to making it, involving soaking, rinsing and things like that. I will find these things out and share them with you, but until then- I recommend the quinoa pasta.

You could also roast the broccoli in a roasting dish, but I like the foil packets because they lightly steam while they roast (and there is one less dish to wash). Whatever your preference is fine.

-Sue

Pico de Gallo Slaw

I was out to lunch with some girlfriends the other day and we went to this little Mexican restaurant in a strip mall. Well let me tell you, this was no crappy Mexican restaurant in a strip mall at all. I had these wonderful pulled pork tacos, served with flavorful rice (you know sometimes that stuff can taste like cardboard) and delicious refried beans. Would you like to know the highlight of the meal? It was the salsa-slaw type stuff that came free with chips. I have had a lot of good (and bad) free salsas at Mexican restaurants in my life…but I have never had anything like this before. It became an immediate obsession. I had daydreams of eating this on my roof top patio while sipping a margarita (or more realistically cheap white wine).  I put it on my pulled pork tacos and it was to die for. I immediately thought of how delicious this would be on fish tacos. There is a Mexican restaurant a few blocks from my house that serves the BEST fish tacos I have ever had. I can’t say anything about their other food because the only thing I ever get is their fish tacos. They are mahi mahi topped with pico de gallo, radishes, cabbage and then topped with a creamy chipotle sauce. That’s right, I said radishes. I LOVE radishes, I used to hate them when I was a kid but over the past few years I have developed a bit of a crudité crush on them, I used to go straight for the celery, but now it’s all about the radishes. Radishes aren’t something you commonly see in Mexican food (at least I don’t) but they are a wonderful addition to the fish tacos….so I thought I should add them to my slaw as well.  I don’t regret it, and neither will you.

Beautiful radishes

The other odd thing is this recipe is jarred jalapenos (cringe). I have never used jarred  (or pickled) jalapenos, I never saw the point. I have always just used fresh…because why wouldn’t you just use fresh? When I first saw the slaw at the restaurant, I was not impressed by the clearly non-fresh jalapenos…but I’m here to tell you that in this recipe, jarred is the way to go. They add just a bit of acidity and just enough heat to bring this “slaw” together.

Ingredients:

½ head of cabbage, shredded

3 to 4 medium/large ripe tomatoes (or the equivalent of), seeded and diced

¼ cup diced yellow onion (or more to taste)

1 cup chopped cilantro (loosely packed)

4-5 radishes sliced thinly and halved

10-15 jarred jalapenos (more or less to taste)

1 Tbs liquid from the jalapeno jar

Juice of one lime

Salt to taste

Method:

Halve the cabbage and core it. Use a knife to cut out the triangular shape of the core out of the cabbage.

Slice the cabbage to your desired thickness. I would suggest thicker if you are using it as a slaw on a taco, and slightly thinner if you are using it for tortilla chip snacking.  Set aside the cabbage

Seed and dice the tomatoes. Dice the onion, and chop the cilantro. Combine these ingredients and add the salt and lime. The salt will draw a bit of moisture out of the tomatoes, helping to bring the slaw together.  Taste at this point (this is your basic Pico without the heat) and add more salt, cilantro or lime to taste.  Wash and slice the radishes.

Mix together the cabbage, radishes, Pico, the jalapenos and the tablespoon of jalapeno juice and toss together.  Taste and add more jalapenos if desired.

Beautiful isn’t it? Also, delicious

A few notes:

Like I said this would be delicious on fish tacos

I would have posted my recipe for those, but it needs a little tweaking- I’ll post it later this summer when it’s prefect

I have big plans for canning this summer, and on that list is pickled jalapenos…this could possibly make this dish even better

When making Pico, or Pico slaw, use the BEST quality tomatoes that you can find. If the ripest ones are small little ones on the vine, use those. If all the other tomatoes besides the cherry tomatoes look like crap….quarter the cherry ones. The quality and texture of the tomatoes can really make or break something like this. Bad tomatoes are flavorless, and grainy. Find the best ones you can

-Sue

Savory Gruyere & Scallion Quick Bread

is it wrong to put cheese on cheese bread?

Not to belabor the point, but I like snacks.  Here are some of my favorite snacks:

Cheddar Flavor Blasted Goldfish – At one point my mother was stashing bags of these under her pillow.  One of the primary ingredients is crack cocaine.  Ask anyone.

Salami, Cream Cheese & Dill Pickle Roll-ups – Smear cream cheese on a piece of salami, roll up around a dill pickle. Best snack ever.

Assorted Pickled Things – Pepperocinis, bread and butter pickles, olives, pickled beets, etc.

Pretzels and Spinach Dip – Regular deli kind.

Radishes, Butter and Salt on Bread – Try it, you will love it.  And also feel French.

Enter Gruyere & Scallion Quickbread.  Delicious at breakfast*, as a during-cooking-dinner snack, also as a post-cooking-dinner-watching-X-Files-Season-2-on TV snack.  And you know, with soup and stuff.  Also, extremely easy.  The time it takes between thinking “I should make some Cheesy Scallion Bread” and putting the pan in the oven is about 7 minutes, provided you  have the ingredients.  You could easily omit the scallions if you don’t have any, you could mix nuts into the batter, anything really.

* That reminds me of something I want to rant about.  Why are all breakfast pastries sweet, if they are not bagels?  The huge majority of muffins, breads, rolls and biscuits are sweet, and for god’s sake, sometimes I don’t want 30 lb of sugar first thing in the morning.  Besides which, I just started putting sweetened condensed milk in my coffee in the mornings, so another really sweet thing is overkill.  Have we learned nothing from the popularity of the Bloody Mary?  People like some savory breakfast options.  That is all.

Gruyere & Scallion Quick Bread

1 3/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp ground pepper

3 eggs

1/3 cup milk (I used 1%)

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese (or cheddar, or parmesan, or any kind)

3 scallions, finely diced

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and Pam a loaf pan.  In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients and set aside.  In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, oil and mustard.  Fold the wet ingredients into the dry, taking care not to overmix.  Fold in the cheese and scallions, pour into the loaf pan and sort of flatten it into the pan.  Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the top is golden brown.

that's my pretty butter bell next to it. i love it.

- Cat