Every season has good things about it but summer is the best. Cut-offs, bonfires, every spare minute at the beach or in the river, watermelon and lots and lots of sunshine. I know everybody’s talking about boots and scarves right … Continue reading
Mountain cooking is an art and a challenge. I watched George G. and Randy F. and other mountainous men make cowboy coffee, seasoned ribs, smoked trout, and skillet pancakes over many fires on fishing and hunting trips growing up. Meals like that made even the roughest camps feel luxurious. Knowing how to pack for a substantial trip is a science, too. My Dad is really good at this. He knows how to bring enough provisions to feed 13 hungry people even if the fish aren’t biting, without overloading the mules or our packs.
This skillet recipe that Michaela invented is good whether you are working with an L.A. kitchenette or a mountain campfire. She made it for a bunch of people at my apartment last night. Because it is single-pan and all the provisions are durable except the cheese, it would be a good first or second-day meal for a pack trip. I’ll share more of our favorite camping and Dutch oven recipes soon.
Balsamic-Glaze Sweet Potatoes with Goat Cheese
3 sweet potatoes / yams
1 red pepper
1/2 onion
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon cumin
1 clove garlic
Salt & pepper
Goat Cheese
Olive oil
Saute onion, garlic, and red pepper in olive oil. Saute sweet potatoes in a skillet over medium high heat until browned. While the skillet is hot, add vinegar and allow to carmelize. Stir in spices, reduce heat, and cover until sweet potatoes are fork tender. Add sauted pepper mixture. Slice medallions of goat cheese over the potatoes. Cover & let melt before serving.
Here it is: our family’s favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, courtesy of Michaela and her kitchen and my cowboy apron (I like to take all the credit for whatever culinary masterpieces happen while the apron is being worn).
These cookies are the perfect combination of chewy and fluffy, with dense, moist centers and perfect flavor. Mmmm.
There is a weird ingredient in these cookies (cornstarch) that might make you a bit skeptical.
So just to make sure we weren’t alone in our regard for this recipe, we employed a very critical taste taster.
She approves.
So here you go! The best cookies ever.
Our Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies
slightly adapted from Kelsey, Apple a Day
Ingredients:
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cup all purpose flour
3 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 bar bittersweet baking chocolate (finely chopped)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy in a stand mixer with paddle attachment. Blend in eggs and vanilla.
Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt.
Stir in chopped chocolate.
Scoop dough onto a prepared baking sheet with a tablespoon or cookie scoop. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly golden brown around the edges. Let cool.
Yield: Approx. 36
If there is something that breathes home to the wandering soul of a college student more than fresh-baked bread…I do not know what that thing is. Not even fuzzy carpets or non-public bathrooms or singing loudly in your own shower or going sans make-up for days weeks a month.
We are big-time bread lovers/bakers at my house. We have several favorite recipes, but this is the latest that we’ve added. Michaela found it here, at Simply So Good. This recipe is great because it’s easy, requires only three ingredients, and tastes incredible. With bread, as with many things in life, simple is best.
That would be three cups white unbleached flour, 1 3/4 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon yeast.
Add 1 1/2 cups water.
Mix gentle. Take it easy with the stirring. Don’t worry about how messy it is.
Leave that lumpy mess of dough in the bowl (a big bowl because the dough will rise), cover it with plastic wrap, and let it sit on your counter for 12-18 hours (don’t refrigerate).
When the painful wait is over, preheat your oven to 450 degrees. When the oven is hot, put the pot that you’ll be cooking your bread in (with the lid on) into the oven, and let it preheat for 30 minutes. What kind of pot? Enamel baking ware or cast iron is ideal, but anything with a lid and a thick bottom (so the bread won’t burn) can withstand high temperatures is fine.
So. Dump the dough onto a heavily floured surface and gently shape it into a round ball. Transfer it to your heated pot (flour your hands, the dough will be sticky) and cook (lid on) for 30 minutes.
That’s it! So easy! Can you believe it?
And look:
Oh yes. Home.
Note: the finished loaf will be small, but not this small. Half of it was eaten by the time I was able to intervene with my camera. Ha.
A hot slice of this, with some butter and jam, is…you know. Fantastic. So next I’ll show you how to make blackberry (or any kind of berry) jam at home.
Michaela’s tip: if you plan on using this for sandwiches, etc. than make two, because you’re going to eat one.
BUMBADABUM….a brand-new series! For the next couple of weeks Michaela and I are going to share some awesome things that you can make at home. These will all be things that, in our modern world, are usually only purchased pre-made. We’ll show you how to make them from scratch.
See, out here it’s 20 or 30 minutes to the nearest grocery store or Starbucks or Wal-Mart, while a mall, nice restaurant, Target or Costco takes an hour and 30 minute drive. So it’s always been a fun challenge to see what we can make ourselves. Sometimes, we’ve even been able to improve on the original (at least in our opinion). For example, I broke my Starbucks addiction when I learned that I prefer my own coffee (both hot and iced). Fancy that! Wished I had this epiphany my freshman year, before spending my savings on copious cups of iced espresso. It’s ridiculous how easy it is to make good coffee!
I digress (for now). So imagine yourself on a Saturday morning, wanting the best weekend breakfast invented (doughnuts, clearly) and yet not desirous of the effort required to drive all the way to the nearest bakery. What to do? Make your own glazed, hot off the boiling oil orbs of doughy goodness, that is what to do!
little sister Anna and an early attempt at doughnut-making
My first experiment in doughnut-making came watching my Avó make filage as a little child. Filages are yeast doughnuts from the Portuguese Azore Islands and are actually really simple to make. I assume my grandmother learned the recipe from her mother, who would have brought it from Terceira. I remember watching Avó dropping these suckers in a vat of boiling oil, warning us to stay away from the drops that danced out, hissing and spitting on the counter. She sequestered us to a safe corner of the kitchen, where our job was rolling the funny-shaped lumps of dough in sugar.
One of these days, I’ll get her recipe for you and share it. But today, we’re making old-fashioned doughnuts!
she’s the boss of the kitchen
We found this recipe here at Christie’s Corner. It’s originally from the cookbook Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts: Secrets and Recipes for the Home Baker by Mark and Michael Kiebeck with Jess Thomson, because short of funky-shaped Portuguese confections we do not have an old family secret recipe for doughnuts…but trust us, these are INCREDIBLE. We’ve tried other recipes, but this is the hands-down best.
I’d try to describe the way these things taste when they are hot and the glaze is melty and all that…but I can’t. You just have to make them. All I can say is, first bite, and I wondered why I’d ever bothered buying a doughnut.
Sour Cream Old-Fashioned Doughnuts with Vanilla Glaze
Makes one dozen doughnuts and holes
Time: 1 hour active time, plus glazing or icing
Equipment: Doughnut cutter (or 2 3/4 inch | 7 cm and 1 1/ 4 inch 3 cm round cutters)Excerpt printed with permission from Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts: Secrets and Recipes for the Home Baker by Mark and Michael Kiebeck with Jess Thomson. Chronicle Books © 2011.
Sour Cream Old-Fashioned Doughnuts
- 2 1/4 cups | 255 g cake/soft-wheat flour plus more for rolling and cutting
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp iodized salt
- 3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 cup | 100g sugar
- 2 tbsp shortening/vegetable lard, trans-fat-free preferred
- 2 large egg yolks
- 2/3 cup | 165 mL sour cream
- canola oil for frying
Sift flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg together in a medium bowl, and set aside.
In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, mix the sugar and shortening/vegetable lard for 1 minute on low speed, until sandy. Add the egg yolks, then mix for 1 more minute on medium speed, scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, until the mixture is light coloured and thick.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in three separate additions, alternating with sour cream, mixing until just combined on low speed and scraping the sides of the bowl each time. The dough will be sticky, like cookie/biscuit dough.
Transfer the dough to a clean bowl and refrigerate, covered with plastic wrap/cling film, for 45 minutes (or up to 24 hours).
Using a candy thermometer to measure the temperature, heat oil (at least 2 in/5 mm deep) in a deep fryer, large pot or high-sided frying pan to 325°F/165°C. Roll out the chilled dough on a generously floured counter or cutting board to 1/2 in | 12 mm thick, or about 8 in/20 cim in diameter, flouring the top of the dough and the rolling pin as necessary to prevent sticking. Cut into as many doughnuts and holes as possible, dipping the cutter into flour before each cut. Fold and gently reroll the dough to make extra holes (working with floured hands makes the dough less sticky), and cut again.
Shake any excess flour off the doughnuts before carefully adding them to the hot oil a few at a time, taking care not to crowd them. Once the doughnuts float, fry for 15 seconds, then gently flip them. Fry for 75 to 90 seconds, until golden brown and cracked, then flip and fry the first side again for 60 to 75 seconds, until golden brown. Transfer to a rack set over paper towels/absorbant paper.
Simplest Vanilla Glaze
- 3 1/2 cups | 350 g confectioner’s / icing sugar, sift
- 1 1/2 tsp light corn / golden syrup
- 1/4 tsp iodized salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup | 75 mL plus 1 tbsp hot water, plus more if needed
Place the confectioner’s/icing sugar, corn /golden syrup, salt, vanilla and hot water in a large mixing bowl or in the work bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Using a whisk, or with the machine on low, blend until the mixture is smooth and all of the sugar has been incorporated, scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula if necessary. If the glaze seems too thick, add more water, a teaspoon at a time.
To glaze, dip one side of each hot doughnut into the warm glaze, and let dry for 10 to 15 seconds before serving.
Michaela’s tip: Work with the dough the least amount possible. It will be wet and falling apart, but try to resist! The less the dough has been handled, the better the doughnuts will taste.
In the days ahead, we’ll show you how to make homemade Greek yoghurt, jam, sushi, our family’s favorite (and super-easy) bread recipes, and more. I’m excited to share our secrets with you!
In the meantime, here are past tutorials from the blog:
And see all the recipes & DIY projects together in one place on this new page!
S K Y + B L U E 