a whisk and a spoon

Everyday Dorie: Kale and Onion Frittata

April 9, 2021 at 12:23 am | Posted in breakfast things, cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things | Leave a comment
Tags: eggs, everyday dorie, savory

Back in May, when we were all picking whatever recipe we could easily put together with our limited pandemic pantries and fluctuating focus levels, I made the Western Frittata (or some riff on it). A frittata is one of the best fridge clean-out concepts going– the variations are endless— so I actually make one for breakfast about twice a week. There are always some stray things to use up, and I’m still providing breakfast and coffee service for the home office worker upstairs, so it seems the thing to do. I thought I’d give the Kale and Onion Frittata variation in the book a try, since I had everything for it anyway. For good measure, I also tossed in some royal trumpet mushrooms that were starting to look a little shriveled. This was a good combo, and it’s nice to have a bit of dark green stuff in the morning. A frittata isn’t just for breakfast though…it makes a perfect lunch or light dinner, too. An anything goes, anytime of day dish, it’s incredibly easy and versatile.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Fennel-Orange Shortbread Wedges

April 6, 2021 at 1:43 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, savory things, snacks, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 Comments
Tags: baking, cookies, savory, shortbread, snacks

These Fennel-Orange Shortbread Wedges are an apéro hour delight. Just a little sweet with a salty zip, they are finely flavored and fragranced with orange zest and cracked fennel seeds. They have that crisp yet tender texture that earns the name “shortbread.” These are really good with olives and a piece of cheese. And a glass of wine…don’t forget that. I made half of the recipe and patted the dough out into a six-inch cake pan for baking.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and please join us anytime!

Everyday Dorie: Mediterranean Shepherd’s Pie

March 26, 2021 at 8:11 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things | 3 Comments
Tags: everyday dorie, pie, savory

My usual Saint Patrick’s Day dinner is a shepard’s pie. Well, this year’s been unusual, so I made it with a twist. This Mediterranean Shepherd’s Pie was like Ireland on vacation. And wouldn’t we all like to go on vacation right about now?

This shepherd’s pie has the standard mashed potato blanket on top, but what’s underneath has some surprises. The filling is a mix of sound meat and sausage (I used the turkey versions of both), much like you’d expect, but it’s unexpectedly flavored with sumac, cumin, za’atar and harissa. While I normally use peas and carrots as the veg in my pies, here I added in spinach and winter squash. This was so satisfying and good and I loved the spices. I just made half a recipe, but I still got four pretty hefty servings out of it. I’d never really though about the flexibility of shepherd’s pie before, but now that I’m wise to it, I’ll make it more than once a year!

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Peanut Brownie Sablés

March 16, 2021 at 2:11 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 2 Comments
Tags: baking, chocolate, cookies, nuts

Peanut Brownie Sablés…when two become one. You do actually need to make two different doughs to make this recipe, something that initially sounded very annoying to my lazy self but is actually no biggie. First mix up a peanut butter sablé dough then get cracking on a brownie batter. The brownie just uses cocoa, so there’s no messing with a water bath (also, I followed Mardi’s lead and used room temp butter for that batter). The two separate mixes get paddled together to become the final hybrid dough.

This cookie mash-up was a hit for me. Chocolate and PB is a most winning combo, and these cookies are nice and soft in the middle. I have some more dough in the freezer that I’ll bake off this weekend.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll.

Everyday Dorie: Tangerine-Topped Cheesecake

March 12, 2021 at 12:01 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, everyday dorie, groups, simple cakes, sweet things | 5 Comments
Tags: cake, cheesecake, everyday dorie

I’m looking at this photo of a slice Tangerine-Topped Cheesecake and am wondering why I didn’t actually top it with any tangerine segments. They’re all in the bowl in the background! Ah well, it’s a pretty nice-looking slice anyway, and that citrus did eventually find it’s way on top. This cheesecake has a blend of cream cheese and ricotta, which, along with a long beating time, keeps it light. It’s also basically a crustless cheesecake, with just a dusting of crumbs on the bottom to keep it from sticking. A thick slice of NY-style cheesecake often hits me like a brick (of cream cheese), so I really liked this lighter style. I do enjoy a proper graham cracker crust, though, but I don’t see why I couldn’t make one for this next time. Since we’re just two cheesecake-eaters here at home, I scaled down the recipe and made a third of it my 6″ loose-bottomed pan.

No futzing with a water bath makes this pretty easy to make. The cake mix has plenty of tangerine zest in it, but you could use any other citrus zest or the seeds of a vanilla bean for flavor instead. And who’s to say it has to be tangerine-topped? Berries, figs, poached pears or stewed dried fruit all sound like good toppers to me.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see all of our cheesecakes this week.

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Ms. Corbitt’s Pecan Cake Fingers

March 2, 2021 at 3:35 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 Comments
Tags: baking, nuts

Ms. Corbitt’s Pecan Cake Fingers has a name that makes me giggle and is a vintage recipe straight out of the late 50s. A pecan-loaded brown sugar meringue bakes up into something that I guess could be called cake-like, although still recognizable to me as a chewy meringue, and is topped with a thick brown sugar and vanilla-speckled icing.

When I took my baked meringue out of the oven, it had formed a shell that was a bit souffléd with a hollow gap above the rest of the base. This maybe…probably…had to with my mixing, but I knew that wouldn’t cut or ice easily. I decided to dampen the raised shell slightly, press it down onto the rest of the base and pop it back into the low oven for ten minutes to dry and fuse. Success! It seemed fine.

Dorie and Ms. Corbitt make a stiff, moldable icing that is hand-formed onto the tops of the individually sliced cookies. Boy, that sounds time-consuming, even for the 1/3 sized batch I made. I also didn’t want to handle my cookies quite so much (after I’d already had to squash them into submission once), so I altered the icing a bit to be a spreadable frosting that I could more gently apply to the whole slab before cutting. I let my browned butter set to a soft room temp before stirring in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Then I added just a few drops of milk to get it moving. I frosted the slab, let it set up in the fridge for a few and it was good to slice.

These are sweet, for sure, and it’s no wonder our friend Ms. Corbitt cuts them into slim “fingers,” but they are excellent with a cup of strong coffee. The browned butter icing, whichever way you choose to get it on top, is not to be skipped.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Everyday Dorie: Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea and Noodle Soup

February 26, 2021 at 3:42 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, savory things, soups | 7 Comments
Tags: everyday dorie, savory, soup

It’s now been almost a year that I’ve been providing daily WFH lunch (with clean-up service) to the other person in this house, and I’m always looking to cook things that will do double duty as dinner one night and lunch the next with minimal extra effort. Bonus points for things that make enough for a couple of lunches, as is the case with this Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea and Noodle Soup. This soup is Dorie’s version of harira, a traditional Moroccan soup with tomatoes, chickpeas, lentils and lots of spices. I’ve seen recipes for versions of harira with and without meat, and versions with and without noodles…this one has both, so it’s very hearty and filling.

The optional meat in this soup comes in the form of meatballs, or really balls of meat, as they’re just straight-up ground meat (I used turkey) rolled into small balls. While they do cook in the simmering soup, the balls can definitely use some s&p or they will be under-seasoned.

Overall, though, this soup is very flavorful. I did reduce the 3.5 tablespoons of ground ginger, which sounded like so much (I didn’t even have that much!), it was possibly a typo. Not sure about that, so I’m interested to see what others did. I left out the saffron entirely because my small supply was already reserved for something else, and this soup has so many other strong, fragrant spices in the mix that I thought I could get away with it. The noodles I cooked in separate pot, because I knew I’d have leftovers and didn’t want them to get bloated while sitting in the soup.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Lucky Charm Brownies

February 16, 2021 at 10:27 am | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 Comments
Tags: baking, brownies, chocolate

If you are here expecting a brownie topped with pastel mini marshmallows and cereal bits, you will have to look elsewhere (they do exist, I checked the Google). These Lucky Charm Brownies have a different sweet treasure, both on top and in the batter- amaretti cookies.

The brownie batter contains many of the usual suspects…melted chocolate, cocoa, butter, sugar and eggs…but it’s gluten-free, as the flour is replaced with a mix of pulverized almonds and amaretti. The whole batter is actually whizzed up in the food processor, which makes it super quick and easy. It bakes up into a fudgy, truffle-like slab.

You could just stop there and cut them up into rich little squares. But why would you, when you could also dress them up with chocolate glaze and more crushed amaretti cookies? This makes them even richer but also even more irresistible, which is lucky for everyone who gets to try them.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Everyday Dorie: Dark Chocolate Pudding

February 12, 2021 at 9:05 am | Posted in everyday dorie, groups, puddings, custards, mousses, sweet things | 3 Comments
Tags: chocolate, everyday dorie, pudding

I do love a good homemade pudding, but I only seem to make it when a recipe rolls around for a blog group. That’s the case today, with this Dark Chocolate Pudding. This is delicious- thick, rich and luxurious. It comes together quickly in a pot and with constant whisking, you can skip the immersion blender whiz at the end (which is great, since I don’t have one). Not all pudding recipes call for eggs, but this one does, so I did push it through a strainer at the end, mostly to make sure all the little egg chalaza squiggle bits were gone.

Dorie suggests serving the pudding with a sprinkling of cocoa streusel crumbs she calls “chocolate crunch,” but I didn’t feel like firing up the oven for something that would have otherwise been a no-bake dessert. I went freezer foraging instead and came up with a handful of leftover misshapen almond macaron shells. I decided to turn them into my own crunchies by roughly crumbling them and coating them in melted chocolate. Once the chocolate set up, I had some nice rubbly bits to scatter on top of the pudding…or on top of the crème fraîche on top of the pudding.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see all of our pudding cups this week.

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Major Grey’s Roll-Ups

February 2, 2021 at 4:09 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, savory things, snacks, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 Comments
Tags: baking, cookies, savory, snacks

I know we just did a rugelach cookie last month, but I had a half-finished box of Triscuits left from holiday times, as well as an open jar of chutney in the fridge, that I wanted to get crafty with. So, here we have Major Grey’s Rollups, a savory rugelach-style cookie with a cream cheese and ground Triscuit dough and a mango chutney filling. It sounds like a bizarre thing to turn crackers into cookies, and it kind of is, but this uses the same dough as the Triscuity Bites we made a couple of years ago.

I only made a quarter-recipe of these cookies, which not only means I still have Triscuits left(!), but also that I ran into the same “issue” that I did last month. My rolled out dough circle wasn’t big enough to really form them nicely…I knew that would be the case and I just went with it anyway. I sprinkled my roll-ups with some nigella seeds before popping them into the oven.

The dough is flaky, crisp and buttery, and the finished cookies have that sweet and salty combo that does go well with a cocktail.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and please join us anytime!