Dainty Rates: Snickers Peanut Butter
February 17, 2011 § 1 Comment
Bleh. Save your dollar.
I’m a HUGE fan of Snickers from back in the day. Hungry? Grab a Snickers. The original power bar. Chocolate, nougat, caramel, peanuts—it’s all right there and in great proportion. And, it gives your molars and jaw something to really get workin’ on. They aren’t kidding when they say Snickers really satisfies.
So, I’m thinking a peanut butter version of Snickers, let me have it, right? This is gonna be awesome. I LOVE peanut butter.
It’s a dollar I’ll never get back.
Thumbs down, and here’s why:
- The nougat was too … too … what’s the word … whipped. More like a Musketeer than a Snickers. It didn’t have that Snickers nougat density.
- And was that nougat supposed to taste like peanut butter? Because that flavor hit me like bad cooking oil.
- Hello? Peanuts? Did you forget to jump in?
- Something had a crystalline texture to it. Was it the chocolate? The “caramel”? Whatever it was, I had a mouthful of tiny crystals. Like when you bit into some bad candy. Was that texture there on purpose? Who’d want that?
- There was no satisfying chew. My jaw was disappointed.
- It left me feeling heavy. Like I had just too much oil. Not a good feeling.
As a life-long Snickers fan, I was looking for and expecting a Snickers with peanut butter. What I found was nothing like a Snickers. Take the name off it and call it something else, folks, and save your brand.
Dainty Rates: 0 Dots
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
February 16, 2011 § 2 Comments
I’m taking this time while getting an oil change to tell you about this AMAZING soup. This soup is so friggin’ easy and so friggin’ good, you’re gonna scream with the pain of realizing how dumb you’ve been for not making it before. That’s exactly what we did. Actually, we slapped ourselves.
Before I move on, I’m gonna give credit where credit is due. What’s that Mexican show on the Food Network? Mexican Made Easy or something? With the cute bubbly Mexican gal. She cooked up something similar one Saturday morning. In her case, it had a chipotle cream somethin’ somethin’ added at the end. Not needed, especially if you’re hoping to limit unnecessary calories.
Ingredients
- 1 medium-large butternut squash (2-3 lbs)
- olive oil
- salt/pepper
- 2 medium-large carrots
- 1 large stalk celery
- 1 small-medium sweet onion
- 4+ cups vegetable or chicken stock
-Heat oven to 400F.
-Cut squash in half lengthwise. Leave seeds and such in for now. Sprinkle a bit of olive oil over each half and rub in. Season each half with a pinch of kosher salt and a twist of fresh cracked pepper. Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until knife inserts into squash easily. Remove from oven. Let sit until it’s cool enough to handle.
Roasted butternut squash - roasted goodness
-Meanwhile, chop onion, carrot and celery into 1/2-inch pieces. In a 4-quart pot, season vegetables and saute in about 1 tbs olive oil until they start to loosen up a bit – 5 minutes or so.
-When squash is cool enough to handle, scrape the squash from the skin and add to the vegetables. Add enough veggie stock or chicken stock to cover everything. It usually takes about 4-5 cups. Bring to a boil. Turn heat down and simmer for about 30 minutes.
All the goodness cooks together.
-When time’s up, get our your trusty immersion blender and whir away until it ‘s nice and smooth.
Taste that? Good, uh? It’s sweet and savory. Rich and deep. And all that flavor from just those few ingredients. Yup, you and we have been missing out on some serious goodness. Don’t worry, we all feel really stupid about now.
Somerville Winter Farmers Market
February 14, 2011 § 1 Comment
The Somerville Winter Farmers Market has been up and active since January 8th, and why haven’t we been before this weekend?? Maybe because we’re South Enders, and making it all the way over the river and through traffic can be rough-going. Or, maybe it’s been the weather. Or … maybe we just didn’t know what we were going to find. With “farmers markets” you just never know what you’re going to get—sometimes it’s not even food-related, you know? Screen-print shirts, artwork—come on, dude. 
We’re happy to say we found lots of food-related stuff in the Armory Building, which is a great place to hold an event like this. Not too big that the vendors get lost. Just large enough to encourage a good traffic flow on the floor. And an upstairs space for overflow vendors and chillin’ and listening to the musicians (Rodriguez someoneorother? Good choice).
Considering the heavens have dumped loads of snow upon us all winter, and spring harvests just seem so far off, it was really refreshing to see farmers and their produce. One farm looks like they have a connection with an organic farm down in Florida—they were selling fresh greens and even squashes that were shipped up from there. Do I have a problem with that? Not really. One cannot live by turnips alone all winter.
The Winter Farmers Market is also way more than veggies. Our first purchases, in fact, were unpasteurized apple cider and maple syrup. And there were seafood vendors, pork/beef producers, wineries, cheese makers, bakeries, orchards and prepared foods chefs in the house, as well. Lots to choose from.
All in all, we were happy with the hour we spent shuttling from booth to booth.
Our bounty from the Somerville Winter Farmers Market
Our loot: scallops, two varieties of apples, maple syrup, unpasteurized apple cider, kale, baby spinach, Rainbow Lights Swiss chard, mussels, two kinds of soft cheese (burrata and fresh mozzarella) two kinds of semi-soft cheese (swiss and hardwick stone), and a watermelon radish. I told Jennifer there had to be at least one thing we purchased that we didn’t have experience with—that would be the watermelon radish. Spicy sweet with a gorgeous dark pink coloring inside (the “watermelon” part), we julienned it and put it on a spinach salad with apple slices and goat cheese with a shallot balsamic vinaigrette. That salad accompanied our mussels last night. Yum. Yum. Yum.
Spinach salad with apple, watermelon radish and goat cheese
We’ve also already used the rainbow chard, which accompanied Saturday night’s sea bass and mango cous cous.
Sea bass with mango cous cous and rainbow chard
The scallops are our Valentine’s Day meal. Can’t wait for that.
Steel-Cut Oats
February 11, 2011 § 3 Comments
Where have you been all my life, steel-cut oats?
Ten years ago, I don’t believe I had ever eaten oatmeal. Maybe I had had one of those wimpy packet of instant oatmeal, if you want to call that oatmeal. Mom had a container of Quaker Oast around the house, but it was for cookies only, not breakfast. So, my uneducated and untested opinion of oatmeal was that its gloppiness reflected its taste and I wanted nothing to do with it.
Then Jennifer came along and made me the world’s best oatmeal. It wasn’t the instant stuff, and it wasn’t the quick oats, I don’t think. It was rolled oats, for sure, with that familiar flattened, flake-like appearance. Boil, stir, simmer, toss in some raisins for a minute and Whammo! Five minutes later there’s a tasty breakfast. With a pour of maple syrup and a smattering of slivered almonds on top, of course. Mmmm … nice and hearty. For the most part, I leave the oatmeal making to Jennifer. She’s good at it. It’s her job.
Steel-cut oats—they actually look like oats!
One day on a visit to New York, our friend Bernadett raved about the flavor of steel-cut oats. Now that’s a whole other animal, for sure, steel-cut oats. That familiar flaky oat appearance? Not happenin’ with steel-cut oats. When you look at rolled oats, you can’t really get a good idea of what that flake was previously. Not really. It is a smushed something. But when you look at steel-cut oats, its “grain-ness” just jumps right out at you. It looks like the oats we used to grow back on the farm—just chopped crosswise into smaller pieces. Cooking time—well, let’s say it’s not a breakfast food appropriate for a gotta-get-out-the-door morning.
Thanks to my baking of Flour’s Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and the depletion of our rolled oats, we found ourselves in front of the bulk bins at Whole Foods. Steel-cut oats in a bin to the left. Rolled oats in a bin to the right. We had experience with rolled. We knew we liked rolled. But we heard great things about steel cut. Plus, they were on sale. Steel-cut, it is.
Recipe (for 2)
- Put a scant 2 cups water in a small 2-qt. pot. Add a pinch of kosher salt. Heat on high until boiling.
- Stir in a generous 1 cup of steel-cut oats. IMMEDIATELY turn heat down as low as it can go. Cover.
- Set timer for 15 minutes. And go write your morning blog post.
- When timer goes off, stir in a handful of raisins. Cover. Set timer for 5 minutes.
- Divide into two bowls. Top with your favorite stuff. Enjoy.
Mmmmm ... breakfast.
*IMPORTANT NOTE! Jennifer just told me to leave the lid slightly ajar. This way we don’t get those flair-ups that result in oatmeal goo dripping down the pot and onto the stovetop that she just cleaned.
Don’t expect your typical oatmeal experience. Like I said before, this is a whole other animal. It’s more grainy. More chewy. More nutty. Less gooey. Maybe there’s less of a viscous texture because the oat hasn’t been smushed and there is less surface area. I dunno. But I do know that I prefer it.
Nutrition? Is it better for you? More nutritious? Maybe. Or maybe it’s the same. Honestly, I don’t really care about the details so much. I do know it’s oats, and it’s a whole grain, and it’s good for you. And, it’s filling.
Now I can be like my mom and keep that container of rolled oats exclusively for the cookies.
Apple Sourdough: Updates
February 11, 2011 § Leave a comment
No, I’m not obsessing over this apple-based sourdough. Not in the least.
But … I did keep an eye on it throughout the day on Tuesday. Good stuff was going on inside that quart container. Liquid pockets continued to build up around the apple chunks. I could see bubbling going on in there – they’d form lines from the base of the pocket going upward. Occasionally some bubbles would burst forth from that area, not unlike some undersea activity where bottom feeders send up the intermittent belch. The surface of the starter was covered with tiny bubbles, too. And, it smelled nicely fermenty. All good signs.
Wednesday, 5:57 a.m.: The layers have separated completely. No bubbles. Flour looks settled. Hmm … this happened to the grape starter, too. So, I move on to the next step, which calls for me to remove the apple chunks and add 36 grams flour. Stir well.
8:06 a.m.: I took a peek—bubbles seem to be appearing again. Bigger bubbles on the surface this time. But fewer. So far. A quick temperature reading says it is 75F. The starter pulls a bit as I bring up the thermometer. Fingers crossed.
Friday, 6:30 a.m. So, I just poured the starter down the drain. Again. Calling it starter is not correct—it was a mass of watery flour, that’s all. No bubbles. No yeasty activity. Nothing.
I don’t understand where I’m going wrong. I look online and I see all sorts of success with wild sourdough starters. Lots of bubbling! Lots of yeasty stuff going on! And me? The starters just … stops.
I will try again! I will. I just won’t blog about it—I’m getting sick of it.
BUT, if anyone out there (is anyone out there? anyone?) has some advice or a wild sourdough recipe or some suggestions of where to look for success, please let me know. Help a girl out, yo.
Obsessing with Sourdough Starter
February 8, 2011 § Leave a comment
There’s a fine line between baker and mad scientist. And I’m walkin’ that line.
I hate to fail. Hate it. And when the sourdough starter recipe from the Amy’s Bread cookbook failed miserably—TWICE—I was a volcano inside. Watch out, sourdough … I’ll get you yet.
The Amy’s Bread sourdough is, as I envision it, the sourdough the pioneers relied upon. They didn’t have a packet of Fleischmann’s Active Dry tucked into their bonnets. They used yeast, baby … real yeast just floating around in the air or found on … things. Like grapes. This is where I stop envisioning – I don’t want to know what else they used as yeast sources.
The Amy’s Bread sourdough used grapes as the yeast source. Organic grapes. Well … Okay. This is where I admit I went wrong with the recipe. I used conventionally grown grapes, not organic. I went to two or three different Whole Foods! Even the HUGE one in Legacy Place – nada! According to one produce manager, organic grapes are sparse this time of year. Conventional grapes didn’t have that yeasty bloom. What else could explain my lack of bubbling?
What to do …
This is where Dainty the Mad Scientist makes her appearance. Jennifer had related to me a scene from one of Anthony Bourdain’s books. Apparently he had a mad scientist of a baker who worked under him at one point. He was a drug-addled guy, but a baking genius. All sorts of funky smells emerged from his underground yeast lab. He had to be using all sorts of … things … to source his yeast. So, in the middle of the Whole Foods produce department I thought, “What would a drug-addled baker use?”
I didn’t go too crazy in my problem solving. I just looked around and picked what I thought would harbor the most yeast. I chose an organic apple. I figured that, while the smooth part of the apple would have been wiped or polished in some way, the indentations on both ends of the apple would have something native still hangin’ out in there. Now that I think about it, I bet an organic fig would be a good bet, too.
I added 113 grams of 75F-78F water, 72 grams all-purpose flour to a quart container. I chopped the apple into about a 16 pieces and added mostly the end sections to the other ingredients. Stirred vigorously. Put the cover on. Heated some water in the microwave to create a warm environment. Put the container inside at around 3pm on Sunday.
Monday: I checked on the dough periodically throughout the day. Small bubbles started to appear around the apple chunks. Pockets of liquid appeared later on. Lines of bubbles and flour appeared through those pockets. I heated the water about three times during the day to maintain a warmish environment. Hmm … could this possibly be working?
Tuesday, 5:57 a.m. 39 hours later, there’s definitely yeast activity in the container. The bubbles are bigger with the mixture. And there’s small bubbles – like someone took a straw and blew bubbles – on the surface. And, it smells like fermenting apples. Good sign! I stick an instant-read thermometer into the mix and it reads 70.7F. Not bad. Plus, when I pull it out, the substance is a bit gooey and pulls up with it. Yay!!
I move on to the next step – my first refreshment. I add 113 grams of 76F water and 72 grams of flour. Stir vigorously. Close container. Stick in a warmed microwave. Cross fingers.
The sourdough with apples begins to bubble.
Liquid pockets and bubbles appear around the chunks of apple
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
February 7, 2011 § 3 Comments
That’s Jennifer’s favorite cookie. So when presented with the roughly 18 cookie recipes in Joanne Chang’s Flour cookbook, I made it a priority to bake these. (I did make the oreo recipe first – how could I not attempt oreos??)
About three weeks ago, when I decided to make this recipe, I bought an oatmeal raisin from Flour Bakery in the South End, luckily just a couple blocks away. It was a sturdy cookie, but flexible. Easily chewed – and I chewed quickly. The flavor was unbelievable. The sweetness was exposed with just the right amount of salt. And, most appealing to me – the taste of fresh nutmeg.
Oh, yeah. Looking forward to this recipe.
I cracked open the cookbook, read over the recipe, and followed the instructions word for word. Three hours with the dough in the fridge to firm (that was a brutal waiting game), 1/4 cup dough scooped onto a baking sheet (or the volume of an ice cream scoop). 19-20 minutes in the oven. A couple of nibbles on the cookie dough assured me I was on the road to cookie oatmeal raisin perfection.
Not so.
What emerged from the oven was a cookie – yes. But it was a flat cookie. Not the sturdy cookie I had purchased from Flour the day before. They had spread too much and had cooked into each other. I can take blame for that last bit – I may have put my dough scoops too close together. BUT! why had the flattened into oatmeal raisin pancakes? You know exactly what kind of cookie I mean – flat, with remains of sugary bubbles on the surface. They tasted phenomenal, by the way, but come on, I followed the recipe word for word. . What happened?
Oatmeal raisin cookies, flat as pancakes
I did a little Googling, a little tweeting, searching for reasons why my cookies ended up like thin crisps. Baking soda. The problem lay in that little golden orange box. Expiration date: 2006.
It has an expiration date, really? I mean, I knew it had a date on the box. But those dates are just … made up to cover their asses in a lawsuit or something. I don’t know what I thought. Apparently, my baking soda’s effectiveness stopped four years ago. What a knucklehead.
A fresh box later, my second batch of oatmeal raisin cookies turned out to perfection. Really. They were perfect.
Perfection!
Again, I bought a sample from Flour to compare. Okay, so the original was perfectly round. And a tad bit lighter in color than my first half dozen – perhaps a minute less in the oven. But I have to say – comparing taste and consistency, my cookies certainly matched or exceeded Flour’s. Jennifer preferred my version – and she didn’t just say that because she loves me.
Which one is mine, and which one is Flour's? Both are delicious.
Four of these cookies became ice cream sandwiches last night for dessert. I scooped out … yikes, I’m looking through my measuring cups as a volume comparison … I’d say I put close to a 1/2 cup of softened French vanilla (from Whole Foods) between two of these 4-in. cookies and let them set for about hour. Firm cookie with firm, flavorful rich vanilla. I had been searching for cinnamon ice cream, but French vanilla was the perfect blank canvas I guess you could say to that featured the cookies’ profile perfectly.
No photos available – the cookie didn’t last long enough.
Most importantly, the point of this whole story isn’t that I made some really amazing cookies. The point for me is I had a success. In something. In a several week period where I’m feeling like an unaccomplished individual I did something right. I made something tasty. And although most of the Super Bowl crowd I hung out with last night didn’t eat my cookies, I felt pretty damn good about them myself. I may be a schlub when it comes to my day job, but I make a pretty fine ice cream sandwich.
Starting Starter, Again
February 5, 2011 § Leave a comment
Baby Dough is gone. Gone, Baby, gone.
On Friday morning I took Baby Dough out of his snuggly home in the microwave. No signs of life. No bubbles. Nothing. So I ditched him. My strategy of reinvigorating Baby with new yeasty grapes just didn’t work.
My main lesson here – just give the starter a bit more time I guess. See it bubbling away – and give it more time to bubble. It’s more of a fine art than I thought.
The other lesson – don’t name your starter. It makes it that much harder when you pour it down the drain.
Friday, 6:02 a.m. Wrapped 12 room temp grapes in a cheesecloth pouch – a few more than the Amy’s Bread recipe calls for. Smushed then a bit to break the skins. Put them in a 1-qt plastic container. Added 113 grams of 75F water and 72 grams all-purpose flour. Mixed it all together. The temp was about 73F. I screwed the top on the container and put it in the microwave with some boiled water. Remember, the heat dissipating from water warms the surrounding air – which, according to Amy, should be about 75F-78F. Like I said before, who’s house is that warm in February?
Friday, 4:58 p.m. Looking good. A thin thin thin layer of liquid is on top. But not bad. And it’s smelling a bit fermenty. Have boiled that cup of water throughout the day to keep the starter warmish.
Saturday, 9:16 a.m. There’s some bubbles – yay! So, there’s some yeasty activity going on. Smells more fermenty. Good sign. It’s been – let’s see – 27 hours. Recipe says to let it go 12-24 hours until it starts to bubble. I’m going to let it go a few more hours.
Saturday, 2:02 p.m. Hmm … bubbles disappeared. I’m thinking the yeast ran out of food to eat. So, I went on to the next step and added 113 grams 80-ish degree water and 72 grams flour. Gave it a stir. Pushed the grapes down in there. Fingers crossed!
Am I obsessing over my sour starter? Yes. I can’t help it – I can’t stand it when I fail. Can’t. Stand. It.
Sourdough Starter at 32 hours
Rye Bread: Do-Over
February 3, 2011 § Leave a comment
Thursday, 6:01 a.m. No signs of life in Baby Dough. Sad. So sad.
What did I do? Where did I go wrong? Tuesday morning Baby was full of life! Thick and gooey! Bubbly and giggly! Now … now it’s just some mass of water-soaked flour in a 1-quart container.
But, there’s no odor of death in there. It doesn’t smell toxic. Baby didn’t turn bad on me. There might not be a breathing and burping going on, but I don’t think there’s any rank, poisonous build-up taking place either.
So, I’m keeping Baby and attempting to do a Frankenstein-like operation here. I’m adding more grapes. Yeast – Baby has no more yeast (a good thing for a real child, but as a dough baby, it’s the stuff of life). Thinking back to Tuesday, Baby started going downhill once I removed the grapes. So, I’m adding them back in. Fingers crossed.
I saw a good idea from a YouTube video yesterday. Henrietta Homemaker put her grapes in cheesecloth for easy removal of the grapes. Brilliant idea. In those little grapes went, cheesecloth and all. It’s like Baby Dough has a diaper now.
So, Baby Dough is back in the microwave, tucked in there with some warm water. I’ll check on him tonight. Perk up, Baby.
Rye Bread: Day 3
February 2, 2011 § Leave a comment
Wednesday 7:37 a.m. Checked on Baby Dough. He’s supposed to be bubbly and active 12-24 hours after the last addition of flour, according to Amy’s Bread recipe. But he’s not so active. In fact, a layer of liquid has formed on top and he’s not gooey anymore. He’s runny. Hmm… Not quite sure what to do. Except put on my boots and shovel.
Wednesday 8:45 a.m. I gave him a good stir with a wooden spoon to see if I could incorporate that liquid. Big bubbles popped up right away then settled down a bit. It smells sourish – I guess that’s a good sign? I put him back in the microwave with some hot water. I’ll check back in around noonish.
Wednesday, 12:32 p.m. Baby Dough began to separate again with a layer of liquid on top. No bubbling means no yeasty activity. Hmmm… so I decided to take a leap of faith here and I went ahead and fed Baby Dough with 113 grams of 80F water and 72 grams of flour. I took Baby Dough’s temp around 11:30 and it was 77F, so that’s good. I don’t think he”s not warm enough. I just think he’s hungry. Or … maybe there’s no yeasty goodness left alive in there? Could that be? Let’s see what happens by evening.
Baby Dough at 68 hours
Wednesday, 5:58 p.m. I did a little YouTubing. This liquidy layer is normal. I think. It was on YouTube, so it must be right, right? And Baby Dough is supposed to be a bit runny. I think. My thought is I don’t have a whole heckuva lot of yeasties in there so it’s not bubbling tons. But it is bubbling.
So, reading over the recipe just now, I see I was supposed to have discarded half of Baby Dough and add the 113 grams water and 72 grams flour. Hmmm… I think tomorrow morning I’ll do a do-over on this step and do it right this time.
Gave Baby Dough a good stirring. Tucked him back in the microwave with some nice warm water. Sleep tight, Baby. Bubble away.
After a good stirring, Baby Dough's blowing some tiny bubbles.
The Dainty Dot 
