buttermilk & tarragon biscuits

Homemade morning biscuits. Ahhh, nothing quite like it right? I mean the smell alone drifting through the house, mixing with the smell of brewing coffee. Those smells are so comforting to me. This past weekend was all about comfort to me. I had a crappy week. The house hunting, the process of the down payment, price of houses not coming down as I thought they would like the rest of the country, higher than normal property taxes over here, these are all things that we are getting our way through as we try and finalize which house or houses to start the bidding on. So nothing is more soothing, comforting rather, than baking some comfort food that smell so good. Plus, I also curled with with one of my favorite feel-good movies: Sex & The City. Watching that movie always makes me feel so relaxed; those girls are in a way my feel-good friends, they lift me up, they get to play dress up, they get to be spoiled if only for an hour and a half and they have fun. (I know it's a bit of a fairy tale, but it makes me feel good and reminds me there is good in the world and all will be ok). I love how Carrie finally gets treated right. After all those years of bad dating, bad men, bad relationships she finally gets a good relationship (or rather Big finallys shapes up!). Best part of the movie? The part where Carrie & Big are apartment hunting and they see the perfect place with views of Central Park. Carrie freaks, and falls in love with the place, the views, the layout and says to Big "can we afford this?" and Big leans in, winks, and says "I got it." Love that--what girl wouldn't?

This original recipe is from CI, but I've made a few adjustments, don't I always? Feel free to do whatever you want with this recipe; it's just so versatile, you can add almost anything or nothing at all. My adjustments are in parenthesis. And yes, I added in fresh tarragon, cheese and ham and still put my jam on top--will you trust me on that one? Heavenly!

Cheddar Biscuits
Slightly adapted from CI

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder (I used 1 TB)
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3/4 cup shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cups heavy cream (I used 1 cup buttermilk)
(I added in 2 TB fresh, chopped fresh tarragon)
(I added in a large handful of chopped sweet ham)

Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. Stir in 1/2 cup cheese. Add 1 1/4 cups cream and stir with wooden spoon until dough forms, about 30 seconds. Transfer dough from bowl to countertop, leaving dry, floury bits in bowl. In 1-tablespoon increments, add up to 1/4 cup cream to dry bits in bowl, mixing with wooden spoon after each addition, until moistened. Add moistened bits to rest of dough and knead by hand just until smooth, about 30 seconds.
Pat dough into 8-inch circle, cut into wedges, and place on prepared baking sheet. Bake until just beginning to brown, 7 to 9 minutes. Remove baking sheet from oven, sprinkle 1 1/2 teaspoons remaining cheese on each biscuit, and return to oven, rotating baking sheet from front to back. Bake until golden brown and cheese topping has melted, 7 to 9 minutes. Serve warm. Should make about 8.

butterscotch-banana bread

Calling all banana bread lovers out there! Have I got an insanely delish banana bread for you. This banana bread will take you to a whole other banana bread level--yes it's that good! Why? Well, the flavor of the butterscotch is so gentle and melds so perfectly with the banana. I think the trick was finding the right amount of butterscotch to put in, and of course the mascarpone cheese adds a lot of smoothness. You know how the flavor of butterscotch chips is kind of strong and chemicaly-testing? Well, I added just the right amount of butterscotch chips to meld perfectly with the bananas, and cheese to give it a wonderful light-sugary, banana taste. The taste is so hard to describe, but trust me, this banana bread is fabulous. No butter or cream cream will be needed on your slice of this. The leftovers, I swear only get better with time. Seriously, you need to make this.





butterscotch-banana bread
kind of, sort of adapted from The Secrets of Baking
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2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 TBSP baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup mascarpone cheese
6 ounce unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
3 fully ripe bananas, mashed
½ cup butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9-x-5-3-inch loaf pan. (I did 2 of these). Make sure to grease and flour, do not skip this step!
Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
Combine the buttermilk and mascarpone cheese in a small bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl beat eggs then combine them to the buttermilk & mascarpone mixture.
Using a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the butter with the cinnamon on high speed until soft and creamy, about 1 minute. Slowly add the sugar beating continuously on high speed.
The mixture should be light, fluffy and creamy white in color. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Add one third of the flour mixture to the batter and beat until it is just incorporated.
Add one third of the mascarpone cheese mixture and mix until just incorporated.
Add the flour and mascarpone mixture in two more additions, mixing until addition is incorporated before adding the next.
Fold in the mashed bananas and butterscotch chips.
Pour the batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. (mine was done in an hour, so watch your bread as the hour-mark approaches, but I have a convection oven that seems to have a higher heat than most ovens; so your bread my take longer than an hour. always use a cake tester to judge if it's done or not).
Cool in the pan on a rack for 5-10 minutes, then remove from pan and set on rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature. Note: you might be tempted to add nuts to this - don't! I did and it just didn't taste the same.

hoisin glazed corned beef with hoisin-ginger reduction over spicy sauerkraut relish

Ok so I'm a little late posting for St. Patricks day. But I didn't make this until Sunday. We didn't get or rather have time for a meal on St. Patty's day. But this meal did turn out wonderful and I knew all my friends would love to see the photos and try it out as well.
I was inspired on this dish by a wonderful cook over at 5 Star Foodie Blog. She made the original dish and once I saw it I knew I had to make. I love hoisin-glazed salmon and just knew that a hoisin glaze must taste amazing on corned beef. I love corned beef, but sometimes it can be a little boring unless I put enough apple cider vinegar and horseradish on mine then it's good. So after seeing this recipe, I tossed it around in my head and decided to kick it up a few notches by adding my famous sauerkraut relish and a hoisin/ginger reduction. I did serve potatoes with it, but the potatoes were not pictured as they were camera shy.
But that charred top, the charred bits of ginger? Oh heavens -- so good. So so so good.

hoisin glazed corned beef w/ hoisin-ginger reduction

inspired by 5 star foodie
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corned beef:
2 or 4 lbs. corned beef brisket
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon pickling spice
1 tablespoon whole peppercorns

glaze & reduction:
1/4 cup Hoisin sauce
1/4 cup honey
2 TB Soy sauce
1 ts fresh ginger, minced
couple dashes of pepper

In a large stew pot, combine water, brisket, garlic, pickling spices and peppercorns. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 2 or 2 1/2 hours, or until meat tenders.
In a small bowl, mix hoisin sauce, honey, soy sauce, pepper, and ginger together. Take half of this glaze and reduce it down in a small saucepan till it's a bit thicker (you can add more honey of you want it thicker). After it's reduced, strain sauce through a mesh to remove any big chunks of ginger left; set back in small saucepan to keep warm.
Preheat the oven to broil. Remove brisket from cooking liquid, and place fat side up in a high-temp safe baking dish or cast iron pan. Spread some of the hoisin glaze all over the brisket. Put under broiler until a nice crispy top is achieved, I'd say about 4 minutes or until your likeness.
Put a nice amount of sauerkraut relish on plate, then top with a good slice of corned beef, then pour some reduction sauce on the sides. Serve with potatoes or whatever you like; remember to always slice corned beef against the grain.

sauerkraut relish

1 1/2 - 2 cups sauerkraut, drained really well (I used whole foods brand)
4-5 TB ketchup
3 TB dark brown sugar
Couple dashes of hot sauce (about 5 to 7),optional but wonderful
1 TB Worcheshire sauce
A couple pinches of celery seeds

In a medium saucepan combine the well-drained sauerkraut, ketchup, hot sauce, dark brown sugar, worcheshire sauce, and celery seeds. Heat through.
The sauce should thicken up, if not just let it reduce for a while on low heat. Makes about 2 cups; I'm certain halving this recipe is ok.

coconut cream cheese cookies

Coconut kick. It's a term and a lifestyle for me lately. Just been loving coconut lately, and still wanting to bake with it like crazy. Orignially I wanted to try a coconut cheesecake, but the oven I have in our rental is so old and so not reliable. I have to save that recipe for when we move into our own home (yes, we hope that's coming soon too!). So instead I tried (first time) coconut cream cheese cookies. I found these little gems over at CI (cooks illustrated). I love CI. Wouldn't it be fun to spend like a weekend retreat over at the test kitchens and just bake all weekend long; creating new recipes, tweaking old ones and perfecting the brand new recipes?
Cooking Notes: I made some with pecans as well, put on the top. Just thought this cookie needed a crunch to it. Keep in mind these cookies cook fast. They should not turn golden brown, only slightly light brown; they do burn fast! My changes are in parenthesis.

coconut-cream cheese cookies
adapted from BakingBlonde (original recipe from Cooks Illustrated)
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2 cups plus 3 TB all-purpose flour
1/2 ts baking soda
1/2 ts salt
12 TB (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted & cooled until room temp
5-6 oz. cream cheese softened (I used 8 oz)
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 ts vanilla extract
2 cups coconut toasted (I used 2 & 1/2 cups)

Adjust oven racks to upper & lower -middle positions & heat oven to 325. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread coconut evenly on baking sheet.
Once oven is preheated place coconut in oven. Bake for 10-20 minutes stirring every 5minutes for even toasting. Remove from oven when light brown. Do NOT burn. Remove from oven. Allow to cool completely before adding to dough.
Re-line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Whisk dry ingredients together; set aside. With electric mixer, or by hand mix butter and cream cheese together with a mixer until smooth. Add sugars and beat until thoroughly combined.
Beat in vanilla until combined.
Add dry ingredients & beat at low speed just until combined. Stir in cooled coconut.
Chill dough overnight.
When ready to bake cookies preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Drop dough onto parchment lined baking sheets and bake for 12-14 minutes or until edges are set and bottoms are light brown. Do NOT overbake!
Cool cookies on sheets until able to lift without breaking and place on wire rack to cool.

can't-stop-eating moroccan roasted chickpeas

I love experimenting with spices, don't you? Can I just say while these chickpeas were roasting, the smell in the house was wonderful. It brought me back to those many days of summer I would spend living with my friend, who lived on st. marks street (8th street) of nyc. During my many walks up and down st. marks street, in the hot thick air of summer I would always smell curry, coming from any random walkout or open basement door. I love all the random food smells on any given sidewalk in the city. It was wonderful and comforting at the same time, even though the temperature in the summertime in the middle of the city would be close to 90 degrees. That smell of curry would just make me forget how hot and humid it really was. Even as a kid I've always loved the smell of curry, and I love the taste of it too. I never had a problem eating hot curry in the hot days of summer--oh that taste was so worth the burn. The original recipe of these Moroccan chickpeas does not call for curry, but when I taste-tested the spice mix it was begging for a pinch of curry to be put in. And it made a world of difference. For those of you that like spices you might like these. I love plain roasted chickpeas too, have made them with a bit of salt & pepper and some olive oil and a pinch of sugar, but never made them this way. Make sure to see my changes in parenthesis; you may or may not want to do what I did, since I don't know what level of "spice-love" you have.

moroccan roasted chickpeas
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1 can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1 TB olive oil
½ ts Moroccan Spice Mix (I used one and a half teaspoons (ts) of this)
salt to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp sea salt)

Moroccan Spice Mix:
2 ts ground cumin
1 ts ground coriander
1/2 ts chile powder (did not use this, didn’t have any)
1/2 ts sweet paprika
1/2 ts ground cinnamon
1/4 ts ground allspice
1/4 ts ground ginger powder
1/8 ts cayenne pepper (I used ½ ts)
a pinch ground cloves
1/2 ts sugar (I used 1 ts)
1 ts curry powder (this is my own addition)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Drain the chickpeas into a colander and rinse well with cold water until no more foam appears. Let beans drain for 5-10 minutes, then pat dry with a cloth or paper towel if they still look wet.
While the chickpeas drain, make the spice mix. (store leftover spice mix in an airtight container for other uses.)
When the chickpeas are well-drained and dry, toss them together with the olive oil, spice mix, and salt. Arrange in single layer on baking sheet.
Roast 40-50 minutes, (my chickpeas were done in 40 minutes) or until they are slightly browned and make a rattling sound when you shake the baking sheet. Serve warm or cool.