brownies for a birthday boy

This weekend, there was a brownie lover in my midst. It was my sister's boyfriend, and we were all together to celebrate my mom's birthday. But as it turns out, the brownie lover would be celebrating his birthday soon, so at the last minute I was informed that we would be celebrating two birthdays at once. With my limited financial resources, I thought it wise to stay home and make his gift than hopping in my car to go buy something (which, feeling the way I was after my 15-mile run, seemed like a bad idea for me and everyone else on the road).

Now, I know the point of this blog is to post new recipes. And if you know me at all, you'll know that I am not a stranger to homemade brownies. In fact, I spent the better part of my college years baking them for various occasions: new roomies, finals, birthdays, welcome back from your semester abroad, etc. In those days, I was uberloyal to Mollie Katzen's recipe in the original Moosewood Cookbook. But looking at it now, I'm not so in love as I once was. It seems really . . . complicated. In comparison, How to Cook Everything was still on my kitchen table, and its brownie recipe seemed ridiculously simple. Plus, I'm running low on flour, and HtCE calls for just one half cup. Bittman 1, Katzen 0.

Danny's birthday brownies
Adapted from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
Yield: MB says 1 to 2 dozen. I say, are you serious?! I came out with nine. Granted, they were big, birthday-sized brownies, but still . . . you will get 1 to 2 dozen brownies only if they are very small
Time: 40 minutes

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped*
8 Tbps. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, plus a little for greasing the pan
1 c. sugar*
2 eggs
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. chopped toasted almonds
1/2 c. chocolate chips

*soooooo, I realized almost too late that I was using grain-sweetened chocolate chips, which are sweet but not very. I knew I'd probably want to add sugar, but I wasn't sure how much, so I nervously added some little by little, tasting the mixture a few times and worrying that the end result would either be shockingly sweet or taste like chocolate-laced cardboard. I guess I ended up adding 1/4 to 1/3 cup, but I don't know for sure!

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil, and butter the foil.

2. Combine chocolate and butter in small saucepan over very low heat, stirring occasionally. When chocolate is just about melted, remove from heat and continue stirring until mixture is smooth.

3. Transfer chocolate mixture to a medium bowl and stir in sugar. Then beat in eggs, one at a time. Gently stir in flour, salt and vanilla. Then stir in almonds and chocolate chips.

4. Pour and scrape into prepared pan, and bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until just set in the middle. It's better to underbake than to overbake them. Cool on a rack before cutting. Store, covered and at room temperature, for no more than a day.

produce galore

There's no mistaking the season in my kitchen this weekend. Check out the view:


Plenty of fresh produce! It must be summer! The frying peppers and itty bitty tomatoes came from the garden of my dad's co-worker and have been reserved for tonight's dinner: turkey-sausage sandwiches with peppers and onions (a ballpark-ified, sauceless version of one of my favorite recipes) and a tomato salad. The fruit is there just because we like it.

But wait, there's more! I have been on a salad tear lately--with the weather hot and lots of yummy things in season, I've been craving fresh, crisp, cool vegetables and not much else. Which is why, when I discovered that I would be eating alone on Saturday night, I decided on a big dinner salad. If I were cooking with my family, surely someone would cry out for protein or a starch, or otherwise insist on making this a square meal. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for balanced nutrition . . . in general, most of the time. But when my tummy is growling and the growls all sound like "Veggies, please!" I know that the best thing is to simply heed the call.


Arugula, potato, green bean and walnut salad

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen's adaptation of the original from Maratha Stewart Living (August 2007)
Makes 4 small or 2 large servings

1 Tbsp. walnuts
3/4 lb. fingerling potatoes (or red skinned, if like me you can't find fingerlings), cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
3 oz. haricots verts, green beans or wax beans, trimmed and cut into two-inch segments
1 Tbsp. white wine or other mild vinegar
1 Tbsp. plain yogurt
1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper to taste
1 Tbsp. walnut oil
1 1/2 oz. baby arugula (or more, if you're as hungry as I was. I used about 3 oz. for two portions.)

1. Preheat toaster oven or oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Toast walnuts on a baking sheet in oven until fragrant, just a few minutes. Let cool slightly, then chop coarsely and set aside.

2. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer potatoes to a colander to drain and cool. Set aside.

3. Prepare an ice-water bath; set aside. Return water to a boil. Add green beans and cook until tender and bright green. [The recipe says this should take 3-4 minutes, and I laughed at this. I cooked the beans about 45-60 seconds, and they were perfect. Do what you like, my friend.] Using a slotted spoon, transfer beans to the ice-water bath to stop cooking. Drain.

4. Whisk together yogurt, mustard, salt and pepper. Add oil in a slow, steady stream while whisking, until emulsified.

5. Combine arugula, potatoes and green beans in a large bowl, add dressing and toss to coat. Sprinkle walnuts on top, and serve.

granola with apricots and dates

This weekend, my cooking and eating and grocery shopping centered around a self-diagnosis that I am not eating enough iron-rich foods. I arrived at this conclusion while reading a thread on the RunnersWorld.com discussion boards about low iron levels, and although I don't have most of the symptoms that were described, I thought that at the very least I could stand to focus on incorporating a variety of iron-rich foods into my diet. I'm often quite fatigued after a long run, and lately also after some runs of less than an hour, so I figure it's worth tweaking my foods and seeing if that has any effect.

But, infrequent meat-eater as I am, the simple solution to eat more beef is not the route I'm taking. Quick Internet researching yielded apricots and several seeds and nuts as good sources of the stuff. This, combined with my ever-mounting guilt about buying packaged foods, pointed me in the direction of homemade granola. (Above photograph is before baking; below, the end result.) It's ridiculously simple to make, with less fat and sugar than most store-bought varieties, and it allows me to continue this trend of eating oats for breakfast without getting sick of oatmeal ... which, I can sense, is about to happen, as I made it almost every day last week.

As usual, I looked to Mark Bittman as my guide. His recipe from the New York Times (January 10, 2007) seems simpler than the slightly different version in How to Cook Everything. His recipe includes 2 cups total nuts/seeds and 1 cup total fruit; I doubled the fruit, and while I eyeballed my nuts and seeds (and wheat germ!), what I had in the house amounted to less than 2 cups total. So the amounts below are suggestions only.

Granola
Adapted from Mark Bittman
Time: 40 minutes
Yield: About 9 cups, or at least 18 servings

6 c. rolled oats (not quick-cooking or instant)
1/2 c. raw almonds, chopped
1/2 c. raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 c. raw sunflower seeds
1/4 c. sesame seeds
1/4 c. wheat germ
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
Dash salt
1 c. maple syrup
1 c. chopped dried apricots
1 c. chopped dates

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a very large bowl (I used a shallow, wide soup pot), combine oats, nuts and seeds, cinnamon, salt and maple syrup. Place on a sheet pan and put in oven. Bake for 30 minutes or a little longer, stirring every 4-6 minutes to brown evenly and prevent burning. Says Mark: "The browner it gets without burning, the crunchier the granola will be."

2. Remove pan from oven and add dried fruit. Cool on a rack, stirring occasionally until granola reaches room temperature. Transfer to a sealed container and store in the refrigerator; per Mark, it will keep indefinitely.

A caveat: This makes a LOT of granola. I've filled a large tupperware and almost a whole freezer storage bag, too. You might want to halve the recipe the first time ... which I tried to do, but then had a little mishap with the salt. I read the measurement of the cinnamon, though it was the quantity for the salt, and halved it. After dumping in the half-teaspoon into my bowl with everything else, I realized the mistake, and rather than throw everything out, I proceeded with making the full recipe to balance out the salt. It turned out saltier than I wanted, but it is hardly overpowering or unpleasant.

Mark also suggests other exciting flavorings, which I can't wait to try--notably, vanilla and peanut butter (though probably not together). Endless experimentation seems possible, and I'm already thinking about this as a contender for 2009 Christmas gifts.