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The Obvious Choice

December 12, 2010 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 26 comments

When life (or Kerrygold) gives you lots of butter and cheese, the obvious choice is to make a soul-warming, cozy dish of homemade baked macaroni and cheese.

I am not lying when I say I have a lot of butter and cheese. After a long run in the most bitter of temperatures on Thursday, I came home to a big box that included this.

Yes, 20 bars of Kerrygold butter! And 10 blocks of various cheeses, Kerrygold shopping bags, and a gorgeous Newbridge silver cheese knife. How nice is that?! Smile

I will be picking a winner for the Kerrygold giveaway tonight, so enter and spread the word if you haven’t already!

To make my mac and cheese, I consulted a few online recipes for technique and timing. I wanted to make sure I made the cheese sauce properly without making it clumpy.

I started with a few cups of whole wheat rotini.

While the pasta was boiling, I wrapped 6 garlic cloves in foil and popped it in the toaster oven at 400 for about 20 minutes, until I started smelling garlicky goodness.

Then I got to shredding the cheese. I used a mix of Dubliner and Aged Cheddar. Yum.

The base of my sauce was a quick roux, a mix of butter and flour cooked unti light brown in a pan. To that I added stuff I had left from baking adventures, 1/2 cup of light cream and about 1/2 cup heavy cream. After stirring the cream and roux and making sure it wasn’t lumpy, I added a scoop of Dijon mustard for some extra flavor.

I also grated in a bit of nutmeg, always a great addition to cream sauces. When the garlic was soft enough and cool to the touch, I squeezed it out of its skin and mashed it into the cream.

And at long last, I added in the grated cheese, stirring slowly on low heat to make sure it melted evenly and really blended into the sauce.

The cooked pasta got the royal treatment when I added it to the simmering, bubbling bath of cream and cheese. What could be better?

I poured the pasta into a buttered glass baking dish and topped all of this with Panko bread crumbs that had been mixed with a bit of melted butter in a frying pan on low heat.

Popping it into the oven for 20 minutes at 350 was all it needed for a golden breadcrumb crust. . .

And piping hot bubbly cheese. . .

The roasted garlic, mustard, and Panko really give this mac and cheese a bit of sophistication Winking smile and make it an ideal dish for a potluck, family dinner, or even as a workday lunch. Add a green salad, and you have a pretty complete meal!

I am already thinking of the lobster meat I have in the freezer for next time. . .

What is your favorite kind of mac and cheese? Do you have a special cheese you like to use or any fun additions?

Tags: Aged Cheddar, Dubliner, Food, garlic, Kerrygold, macaroni and cheese, recipe, whole wheat pasta

Caramel Glazed Cake

December 7, 2010 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 21 comments

With the holidays near, I have been trying out a bunch of new recipes, including the two unique recipes I developed and posted yesterday for a Kitchen Play assignment. For some reason, the thought of a caramel cake appealed to me, so yesterday I decided I was going to bake just that.

My baking assistant, Smuckers, and I decided to consult Epicurious.com for a caramel cake recipe and came across this one, which we determined was a winner. One of the things I really don’t like about baking is that I have to use real recipes, but alas, if I want delicious homemade baked goods, I need to start somewhere. Hopefully someday I will be confident enough with my baking skills to start making alterations to existing recipes without the fear it will destroy them.

Anyway, the recipe is as follows:

For cake

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature 30 minutes
1 cup well-shaken buttermilk

For caramel glaze

1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Equipment: a candy thermometer

Make cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Butter an 8-inch square cake pan and line with a square of parchment paper, then butter parchment.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture may look curdled). Add flour mixture in 3 batches, mixing until each addition is just incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour.

Make glaze:
Bring cream, brown sugar, corn syrup, and a pinch of salt to a boil in a 1 1/2-quart heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Boil until glaze registers 210 to 212°F on thermometer, 12 to 14 minutes, then stir in vanilla.

Put rack with cake in a shallow baking pan and pour hot glaze over top of cake, allowing it to run down sides. Cool until glaze is set, about 30 minutes.

Making the caramel was both the most fun and most nerve-wracking part. I don’t have a candy thermometer, so I just tasted it a few times, being careful not to burn my tongue as I did on the caramelize brown sugar salmon on Saturday. It was neat to watch the mix go from a very light brown to a darker brown and to taste as it went from brown sugar to caramel.

The caramel ended up thin but really delicious. The vanilla really added an extra depth to the caramel and made it very fragrant. The cake soaked up much of it, making the cake a bit sticky and gooey. It is a simple, creamy, not-too-sweet treat and would be perfect with tea and a bunch of friends.

I have spent a lot of time cooking and baking, organizing things around the house, catching up on laundry, doing yoga, and running these days. And while I do have blogging work, some work for Red White Boston, and my newest freelance job with go2media (please like go2boston on Facebook & follow on Twitter!), I am kind of enjoying taking care of the house. I know there are certain women out there (who I know!) who would have a total snark fest with that, but I am learning to be okay with it. I am very slowly learning that this time is a gift and that I should be making the most of the moment. VERY slowly learning, but that learning is turning out to be the main purpose of taking this time. I am trying to turn everything from yoga to cooking to dog walking and running into a mindful meditation, to slow down, and to realize just how unique these few months will be in the grander scheme of my life. You have all been really supportive and totally lift me up with your comments and emails, so thank you!

Are you a person who can live in the moment, or like me, do you constantly have a million things from the past, present, and future running through your mind, even in the middle of the night?

Tags: baking, cake, caramel cake, Food, recipe

Cooking Up a Pick-Me-Up

December 1, 2010 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 23 comments

A very long time ago in a conversation with someone I haven’t seen in years, I mentioned the thought that relationships should be 50/50. She, an older, wiser, and very sensible woman replied that it was almost never 50/50 in some of the best relationships she had seen. Sometimes one person can only give 30 while the other steps it up and gives 70 and vice versa. Lately, we have definitely noticed this, at the end of my job, I didn’t have the energy to do much of anything, and my husband, even working 12+ hour days daily, stepped up everything he did to help lift me up.

Right now he is working more than ever, and I have the most fortunate opportunity to take a break from the rat race, and since he has been flat out exhausted, I whipped up a pick-him-up meal, complete with homemade cookies. Yes, I baked!

I didn’t make up my own recipe for this one. After much searching, I found the blog Words to Eat By and this recipe, originally from Cooking Light, for Chewy Cocoa Fudge Cookies.

Chewy Cocoa Fudge Cookies (source)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 t. baking soda
1/8 t. salt
5 T. butter
7 T. unsweetened cocoa
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1-1/2 t. vanilla
cooking spray
1/2 to 3/4 cup of any of the following (mix and match!): chopped dried cherries, chocolate chips, chopped toasted pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine flour, soda, and salt; set aside. Melt butter (I do it in the microwave, but you can use a saucepan over low heat). Remove from heat and stir in cocoa powder and sugars (mixture will resemble coarse sand). Add yogurt and vanilla, stirring to combine. Add flour mixture, stirring until moist. If you’re using any of the add-ins, mix them in now. Drop by level tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until almost set. Cool on pans 2-3 minutes or until firm. Remove from pans; cool on wire racks.

The original recipe said that this should produce 28-32 cookies. Somehow I only got 12. My baking skills are still in their infant stage, but despite the low yield, the cookies did taste very good and were soft and gooey. Next time I will add more cocoa powder and some chocolate chunks for a little extra chocolate-y kick.

For dinner, I took advantage of our freezer full of fish and shellfish that my mother sent back with me after Thanksgiving and made a simple fish chowder.

I started by boiling the lobster tails, haddock, and shrimp until cooked through. I then removed them all from the boiling water, shelled the lobster and shrimp, and tossed the shells back into the boiling water, along with some cracked peppercorn.

I chopped the shrimp, lobster, and haddock and sprinkled them with chopped fennel and tarragon.

While the lobster and shrimp shells boiled in the water, I chopped up a bunch of purple potatoes and microwaved them for a minute, then set them aside.

I made a roux for the chowder using lots of butter and flour, making sure the flour was cooked to a golden brown, then poured the water that the fish cooked in through a strainer and over the roux. I added the potatoes and a cup of Chardonnay, brought it all to a boil, then lowered the heat to a simmer.

Toward the end of cooking, I added the fish and a few cups of frozen peas and waited until everything was nice and hot. After serving up the chowder in bowls, I streamed in light cream until the soup had a nice creaminess to it.

Sadly, purple potatoes were not the best choice from an aesthetic point of view. They lent a gray tinge to the soup which was mostly fixed after I added the cream. Luckily the color didn’t affect the taste at all. The soup was light with bursts of shrimp, lobster, and haddock flavors, not fishy, just mild and sweet. The fennel gave it a slight anise flavor and reminded me of Bouillabaisse, one of my favorite meals.

My husband definitely appreciated the pick-me-up, and the mood in our house was a little more cheerful and relaxed. There are countless things I love about food, and one of those things is most definitely how it can be used to take care of other people.

What do you love about food? What is your favorite pick-me-up when you are down?

Tags: baking, chowder, cocoa, comfort food, cookies, Food, haddock, lobster, recipes, shrimp

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