Happy Thanksgiving!!

Well ahem, actually, by the time this publishes, I'll be in beautiful Vancouver (actually, according to the weather reports, it's supposed to rain or snow every day I'm there...) for a short break. I'm not sure what we'll be having for Thanksgiving dinner, but I'm sure it'll be good (and will not be turkey). So anyhow, since I am going to be out of town, I went home and had a little pre-Thanksgiving celebration with my family.

For the last couple of years, we've deep-fried a turkey; this year, my brother decided to go with roasting. The turkey was brined with salt, oregano, and a LOT of garlic. Okay, usually I'm not down with roasting, because in my experience, it results in a dry turkey, but this one was juicy and delicious! And because of the brining, the skin was really tasty (I kind of just wanted to eat the skin, actually).


Side 1, brussels sprouts, parboiled and then sauteed with olive oil and lemon. I probably should have let them brown a bit more.


Side 2, chorizo and mushroom stuffing (using a loaf of my brother's bread). I loooove stuffing, but my stuffing still needs work. I hate to admit it, but I kinda miss the plain old Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix that we ate as kids. Or maybe that's just nostalgia talking. Not pictured are sides 3 and 4, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce (with orange juice and zest)--oh, and gravy. Another thing I need to work on!


My first plate (you know how I complain about not having enough natural light to shoot pictures with during the winter? Okay, in this case, TOO much light.) I won't tell you how many plates this is the first of.


And of course, you can't have Thanksgiving without dessert--I'm very proud of this crust edge.


Not that it stayed that way after baking, HMPH. But oh well, taste trumps appearance, and hey, how can you go wrong with pumpkin pie? This one wasn't as rich as I usually make them, since I had no sour cream on hand. Which is probably just as well!


And with the crust trimmings, I decided to make a little freeform cranberry sauce tart (what was I saying about too much light? eek!)


Hey, presto! Bonus dessert!

Okay, I must run--gotta pack! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! And if you overindulge, I recommend some restorative ginger tea. :) Me, I hope I have time to hit up Panda Fresh Bakery and maybe check out some of the other food trucks on the scene (like Kimono Koi Crepes! Mmm, crepes.)

My Brother the Bread Baker

Hey, did you know that I'm not the only baker in my family? My brother is something of a genius with bread (to me, at least--I am okay but not great at yeast, so I am always super impressed with what he makes. I hope he is as impressed with my pastries, hehe.) and lately he's been experimenting with sourdough, and more importantly, finally taking pictures of the stuff he bakes (I will consider that to be my influence...can it be long before he starts his own blog??) So, anyhow, I thought I'd show off some of his bread here. All of these photos are his.


And here's the sourdough starter--I believe all of the breads on this post are sourdough based (well, maybe not the melon pan, but I'll have to confirm). He gave me some a couple of weeks ago that I used for sourdough pancakes and the rest is languishing in the back of my fridge. I should probably feed it...yeah, I'll go do that, you guys look at the rest of these photos :)


Bad lighting, good breads!


Oh, I lied--this is the one photo I did take. It's a little blurry because man, he works fast with shaping the dough.


Check out the lovely texture on this bread...this is a fig loaf. Actually he made a new loaf of it today, and I TOTALLY FORGOT TO BRING SOME HOME. Because I am an idiot :(


Speaking of texture, how's this for a crackly crust?


Fruit loaf.


I think these maybe are rye?


More nicely textured bread innards.


Melon pan, before baking! (Melon pan, if you've never had it, is a sweet bread baked with a thin layer of cookie dough on top. Popular in Japan (but also in the rest of Asia).


And here's what they look like baked. I had one this morning for breakfast and they are deeeelicious.


One more gratuitous shot, just because I love the way these look. I keep joking with my brother that we need to join forces and open a bakery, if only we could come up with a catchy name. Anyway, maybe I will give him some pointers in lighting when he takes his photos, but what do you think, shouldn't he start his own blog?

Bread Failure=Delicious Pudding

I was browsing food blogs last week when I came across this post from Ping's Pickings with a recipe for a really soft Asian-bakery style bread. I was also intrigued because it's made with what is basically a pastry cream base, and her photos reminded me of the loaves of super rich, super soft bread I get at Boloniya (a Japanese bakery). Well, I think I may be in need of some new yeast, because my bread came out surprisingly dense!


I made a couple of mini loaves, and although the texture is nice and fine grained, it is almost like dense sandwich bread, instead of the soft bread that I was hoping for (the kind I buy just pulls apart into long bread "ribbons", if that makes any sense). I'm going to have to give it another try with some new yeast, and maybe a longer rising time because it would be awesome to be able to make this type of bread at home.


But of course, I'm not just going to let bread go to waste, right? And hey, this bread was just perfect for bread pudding! And since I had half a can of pumpkin left in the fridge (from the muffins I made last time), it made sense to go with an autumn-themed pumpkin bread pudding. This baked up nicely, almost caramelized along the bottom, crunchy on top, and custardy in the center, with little pockets of hot sugary ginger throughout. Have some bread to use up? Try this.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup raisins
3/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger
approximately 4 cups of bread cubes (3/4")

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg until smooth. Fold in raisins, ginger, and bread cubes, and let stand for 20-30 minutes, until most of the liquid is absorbed. Pack into buttered baking dish(es) (either an 8" square, or custard cups, or individual bakers, or whatever you feel like) and bake until an inserted knife comes out clean. I baked mine in two individual bakers and a mini loaf pan and it took about 30 minutes. Eat warm or hot. It would be great with a little maple syrup...or there's always ice cream!

Leisurely Sunday

Brr, it sure is getting cold here in NYC--the radiator occasionally kicks in but I haven't gotten around to taking my air conditioner out of the window, so it's still pretty nippy in the apartment. Fortunately I have lots of warm pajamas, and nothing warms the place up like cooking or baking. The farmer's market by me is still going strong, but the tomatoes and zucchinis of the summer have been replaced by potatoes (I picked up some gorgeously colored purple and pink ones), apples of an incredible variety, hard squashes, and jugs of cider. There's a great mushroom stand too, and I succumbed to a big handful of super fresh, beautiful mushrooms (they're going to be sauteed with olive oil and garlic and topped with an egg).


I also picked up a stalk of brussels sprouts. I know, this is a vegetable you either love or hate, or in my case, you start off hating it and end up loving it. I LOOOOOOOVE these now, especially roasted, and I extra love them when they come on a stalk like this. Not that I'm eating the stalk, but it looks cool--a brussels sprout spear! I also bought a bunch of carrots and some sweet potatoes, which I made into a sweet soup with a bunch of ginger. Perfect for fighting off any sniffles.


I went a little nuts buying apples--there were just so many varieties to choose from, so I bought one or two of each. For a quick, almost instant pie, I chopped up a winesap, a Mcintosh, and a golden delicious apple, tossed them with a bit of cinnamon and lemon juice, and packed them into a small baking dish (bought these on sale ages ago--great for single portions!) and then baked it with a square of puff pastry from Trader Joe's. So simple, so good. The apples are so sweet that they didn't need any sugar added, and they baked down into a lovely sweet, sticky consistency. Actually I could probably dispense with the pastry and just eat the apples next time. But it was perfect to eat while watching movies (Kiki's Delivery Service, so good) with, you guessed it, a big cup of tea.

Sunday's winding down, and tomorrow's the start of another busy week. I've got some cookie testing to do, too, but that'll probably have to wait until next weekend! (In the meantime, are any of you watching the Walking Dead? I can't decide whether I like this series or not, yet.)

Happy Halloween!

Just a quick note to say Happy Halloween to everyone! By the way, this is what happens when you are too lazy to lug a pumpkin home. Improvisation! :D (You can see Mr. Pumpkin-Duck trying to sneak in in the background.) Updates later with more photos, maybe, but for now I'm off to go buy ingredients for baking :D

Vanillekipferl

Man, I remember the days when I had time to post 3 times a week--those days seem so far away. I don't know how other bloggers do it (giving up sleep, maybe?). Although actually it's not even that I don't have time to blog, it's more like I don't have time to bake and therefore have nothing to blog about! Anyway, things were pretty calm last weekend (which I mostly spent sleeping--oh, sweet, sweet sleep) so once I finally woke up, I decided it was the right time to get back into it. And boy did it feel good (and taste better!) Plus, I got to use one of my alpaca cups that I brought back from the Sheep and Wool Festival--okay, I know it's not a good shot of the cup, but I assure you, it is cute :)


So, let's talk about Vanillekipferl! They are almond and butter based cookies from Austria (but popular in Germany as well) and are traditionally shaped in a crescent. Because they're shaped, they take a bit more effort than drop cookies or slice-and-bake ones, but I find it frankly relaxing to sit at my coffee table and roll dough. Of course, as you can see from the photo above, I did not exactly achieve consistency in the size or shape of my cookies, but that's okay. I like the rustic look, it says "homemade" ;).


Besides, with all these varied shapes, you are sure to find two that are perfect for eyebrows :). (This picture also gives you a better idea of the size of the cookies--pretty small! Almost bite sized.) If you find yourself with a spare hour or two, these would be a great way to spend that time. I mean, how can you go wrong with almonds, sugar, and butter? Especially with a cup of hot tea and some applesauce on the side....

There are a ton of Vanillekipferl recipes on the internet, but I used this one from Delicious Days; if you don't have a kitchen scale and don't feel like doing the conversions, then you can try this one.

(I hope this weekend I'll have time to catch up on everyone's blogs!)

Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck

What's that you say? Where's the food in my alleged food blog? Don't worry--there's some food in this post, and hey, there's even a recipe at the end! But I have to admit, I have not been doing much baking (or interesting eating) lately because I've been so freaking busy!! Still, it's my favorite season and I've had a few moments to enjoy the cool weather (perfect tea-drinking weather), sunshine, and this past weekend, we escaped the city for a little while to pet sheepies at the Sheep and Wool Festival! Yay sheep!! How can you resist a face like this?


Okay, that's not a sheep, it's an alpaca. But how gorgeous is she? I desperately want to move somewhere where I can have a mini farm which will be the home of a mini sheep, mini alpaca, mini pony, mini donkey...you get the idea, right?


This sheep reminds me of a friend of mine (same haircut, heh).


Rhinebeck is about a 2 hour drive north of NYC, so with that in mind, I made a batch of pumpkin muffins to tide us over until we could eat an appropriately unhealthy fair lunch. What's not to like about pumpkin muffins? These have a sprinkling of crystallized ginger inside and a dusting of pearl sugar on top; when I make them again (and you know I will!), I'll double the amount of ginger. In the end though, we were too busy talking on the drive to actually eat any--I ate one afterwards :) (Recipe is at the bottom of this post!)


It was a gorgeous day for a drive and along the way we saw lots and lots of fall foliage (I was driving though, so mostly I saw road, hah!). And when we finally arrived, we browsed a couple of buildings' worth of yarns and fleeces before we stopped for a snack:


It's not a fair unless you have something fried, and this fit the bill. I felt mildly queasy afterwards and so skipped the fried dough and other fried goodies available. Actually now that I think about it, those cheese fries were pretty much all we ate all day (except for my muffin later on). Oh wait, we also had cups of cocoa on the way out, more to warm up our chilly fingers! Enough babbling, here are some more pictures of sheepies and alpacas and goats!


An extremely regal and aloof alpaca. I don't know if you can quite see it, but his name tag is Emperor Alexander. Indeed!


Hooves.


Smiley sheep.


Eeeeevil sheep.


Inquisitive horned sheep!


We spotted this on the bouncy castle; I'm pretty sure this is a knight wearing assless armor-chaps. What's up with that? We remain befuddled.


An Ewok. No, no. It's a miniature sheep! And I desperately, desperately want one. Even though we left with no sheep, I had a lovely day out, so thanks to my buds for coming along, and thanks to the sheep for letting me pet you (soooo soft and squishy).

Gingery Pumpkin Muffins
Makes 12 muffins, one loaf, or 3 mini-loaves

1 cup pumpkin (canned is fine, but make sure you use plain pumpkin, not pumpkin PIE filling)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup flavorless vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 - 3/4 cup crystallized ginger, chopped
Additional ginger or pearl sugar, optional

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 12 muffin cups with papers (or whatever baking vessel you are using). Sift flour, baking soda and powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt together into a small bowl. Toss in the crystallized ginger bits and set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine pumpkin, sugars, syrup, and vegetable oil and beat until combined. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir the flour mixture in with a wooden spoon, just until combined. This is a fairly soft batter, so this should not be difficult. Spoon batter into muffin cups, about 2/3rd full (or pour into a greased and floured loaf pan or mini pans). Sprinkle with pearl sugar or additional ginger chips, if desired. Bake muffins about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. A full sized loaf pan will take about 45 minutes and mini pans will take about 30. Enjoy! Preferably with some hot tea...or maybe hot cider. Mmmm, cider...