Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Breakfast-in-Rome Lemon Cake
March 12, 2024 at 5:04 pm | Posted in breakfast things, BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 12 CommentsTags: baking, brekkie, cake
Somehow neither The White Lotus nor seemingly the entire world’s fabulously dreamy Instagram summer vacay pics have spurred me to book a flight to Italy yet, but this Breakfast-in-Rome Lemon Cake may do the trick. I can imagine being pretty happy for a few days to wake up to a double espresso and a slice of the breakfast/snack tube cake known as chiambella. Until I get my passport renewed, luckily Dorie has provided us with her Italian vacation version to bake at home. She makes a lemony separated egg sponge that results in a tall, light, bouncy cake. Berries are optional, but since I had some frozen blackberries in my mess of a freezer, I rummaged around and found them. If I’m going all the way to Italy, I’m not just going to Rome…I’m also going to the Almalfi Coast, so I drizzled the top of my cake with a little limoncello while it was still warm and at its most absorbant for another hit of lemon.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Potato Flake Biscuits
March 12, 2024 at 1:47 am | Posted in biscuits/scones, breakfast things, BWD, groups, other savory, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 2 CommentsTags: baking, biscuits
You’d think that with Cook the Book Fridays being behind us, I’d not have so much trouble spitting out just bi-weekly blog posts, but here I am, two weeks late with these Potato Flake Biscuits. At least I did bake them on time for last month’s posting, I promise! I don’t make biscuits or scones very often. It’s not that I don’t like them, I just never crave them like I do cake or ice cream, and I have to be a bit choosey where I spend my pastry calories. I made a half recipe of these biscuits for a more controlled amount (just four squares) for the two of us, allowing me to fairly quickly resume my standard diet of cupcakes.
These savory biscuits came together easily. They are flavored with sautéed onion (I used scallion for extra green bits), some herbs and some Parm. Instant mashed potato flakes are their secret ingredient, which I think gives them a lightness. Really, they had great texture and flavor. I have two of them unbaked in the freezer, and I think I’ll do like Mardi and bake them off to go with chili before the weather warms up.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Everyday Dorie: Rosa Jackson’s Bourride
February 23, 2024 at 12:01 am | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things, snacks | 8 CommentsTags: everyday dorie, fish, savory
Here it is– our final Cook the Book Fridays posting! We started cooking from Everyday Dorie back in 2018, and at that time, I thought I’d just join in occasionally rather than cook my way through the whole thing. Having such a fun and dedicated group of buddies to cook and chat with really kept me motivated to show up (almost) every other week. I admit that I skipped six recipes, but I made over a hundred, so that’s not too shabby. I’ll miss it. Big thanks to Katie for tackling the admin duties.
Rosa Jackson’s Bourride is quite an elegant recipe to see us off. Bourride is a Provençal fish stew with aioli. This one has a mix of vegetables along with a nice chunk of fish (I used a thick piece of cod loin), and it’s really easy to cook since the veggie/fish combo basically steams in its own juices. I’m not the world’s best fish chef, so I appreciate a technique like this. A homemade aioli is added at the end of cooking to make a sauce. I put a pinch of turmeric into my aioli to boost the color for the photo, but maybe that boosted it too much?? It turned kind of neon…lesson learned. This was really so good, for everyday or for a special day.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays one last time to see how the group liked this one.
Everyday Dorie: Citrus-Marinated Fish with Mango Salsa
February 22, 2024 at 10:46 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things, snacks | Leave a commentTags: everyday dorie, fish, savory
I have one last catch-up before our final Cook the Book Fridays recipe– Citrus-Marinated Fish with Mango Salsa. Dorie makes hers with halibut, but I couldn’t find that on the day I went shopping and used swordfish instead. The lemon-orange dressing used to marinate the fish also becomes a sauce that’s used to glaze it once it’s cooked…love the dual-purpose. My fish looked more like a steak in the end, as I added an unmeasured quantity of paprika to my marinade to stand in for the pinch of cayenne, which I didn’t have. The marinade took on quite a reddish color, which then darkened in cooking. It tasted good so I didn’t worry about it. The fish gets served over a bright, sweet and tangy mango and cherry tomato salsa that is a delicious accompaniment. Glad to have made this recipe, albeit two and a half years late!
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 BWD: Copenhagen Rye Cookies with Chocolate, Spice and Seeds
February 13, 2024 at 9:30 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 10 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
I am not loyal to one chocolate chip cookie recipe– I want to play the field and try them all. These Copenhagen Rye Cookies with Chocolate, Spice and Seeds are the latest to have caught my eye. At first glance, these seem pretty similar to the Mokonuts ones we made a couple years ago, but these swap the dried fruit for a strong hit of spices (coffee, cinnamon and cardamom) and use a mix of seeds (sunflower, flax, poppy and sesame for me). Dorie says you can put either milk or dark chocolate in these, so I naturally had to go with a combo. I’ve taken to usually creaming any spices in a recipe into the butter and sugar, rather than just stirring them into the flour. A lot like rubbing citrus zest into sugar, I feel like that bashing and smearing in the mixing bowl really makes spices pop, too. Creaming in the espresso powder at this early stage also helped to make my cookies look extra-dark. Before baking, I basically rolled the dough balls in more of the birdseedy mix (plus flaky salt) for good coverage, including on the bottoms. These cookies have so much complex flavor and a great texture with chewy middles and a crisp, toasted seed coating. Even if it is onto the next CCC, I’ll circle back to this one for sure.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Everyday Dorie: Lemon-Fennel Chicken in a Pot
February 11, 2024 at 11:11 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things | 4 CommentsTags: chicken, everyday dorie, savory
Lemon-Fennel Chicken in a Pot is the third Dutch oven-roasted chicken dish we’ve made. Kind of strange since they were all similar (a whole chicken cooked in a pot with some aromatics and liquid), but this was my least favorite of the three, and it seems like the most of the group also thought so.
I added a couple of carrots and potatoes to the bottom of the pot along with the fennel, lemon and shallots. Once the chicken was set on top of all that I think maybe I just had too much stuff in the pot. My chicken was sitting so high it was touching the lid in spots (and I ripped the skin off those spots when I took the top off the Dutch oven at the end of cooking–oops.). I don’t think it needed to roast for 90 minutes either, which was my bad, as I knew from the pan-sauce vinaigrette version that a small chicken would be done earlier, but I wasn’t paying attention. Anyway, it was fine and we ate it all up, but if I were to make something similar again, I think I’d really just take the pan-sauce version I mentioned above (that sauce was so good!) and add fennel.
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.
Everyday Dorie: Warm Squid Salad
February 2, 2024 at 4:45 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, salads, savory things | 4 CommentsTags: everyday dorie, fish, savory
I eat a big salad most days; usually that means a hastily hacked up heap of lettuce, cuckes, tomatoes, and whatever other veggies I find rummaging through the fridge. This Warm Squid Salad is a little more refined and prepared with a bit more intention than those…a “weekend salad,” perhaps I’d say. I enjoyed making a pretty plate of quick-cooked squid, boiled baby potatoes, slices of avocado, celery and red onion, cherry tomato and bell pepper in a citrus dressing. I enjoyed eating it, too. I don’t cook squid often, but it was super easy to just give it a quick simmer. Also, it required basically no preparation since my fish guy sells it already cleaned. I like the tentacles the best (is that gross?), so I asked for extras. With the light dressing, this felt very fresh and healthy.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays (this is a make-up recipe for me) to see how the group liked this one.
Everyday Dorie: Braised Chicken with Tomatoes and Olives
January 26, 2024 at 7:28 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things | 1 CommentTags: chicken, everyday dorie, savory
This Braised Chicken with Tomatoes and Olives isn’t the most photogenic dish I’ve made, but I guess not everything needs to wind up on my IG feed. Sometimes it’s nice to not sweat the photo and just enjoy what you’ve made, especially when it’s so tasty.
The “real” version of this dish is made with lamb shanks, but I modified it for my own dietary preferences (aka weirdnesses) by using bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. I first browned them off and then removed the skin for the braising portion of the cooking, which also included onions, carrots and oil-cured black olives, a head of garlic and a can of tomatoes. I flavored my braise with rosemary like the recipe said, but I can see lots of different herbs, spices or blends working well here, depending on what you have or what cuisine/culture you feel like “visiting.” I only oven-braised the chicken thighs for about 45 minutes, as I didn’t think they needed the full time the lamb shanks would have. Lifting the lid off the braiser, I had moist chicken, soft carrots and a nice stewy mix…a perfect winter dinner. I’m looking forward to giving the leftovers the treatment Dorie suggests– shredding the meat and serving it and the sauce over pasta. Or maybe over polenta?
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 BWD: Spinach-Mozzarella Pie with Parm Crumble
January 23, 2024 at 5:31 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, other savory, pies & tarts, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 8 CommentsTags: baking, savory, tarts
If you’re wondering how to get cheese and custard and green stuff and pastry all in one dish, the answer is a Spinach-Mozzarella Pie with Parm Crumble! What we have here is basically a spinach quiche dotted with cubes of mozzarella and topped off with a Parmesan-loaded crumble. It’s salty and cheesy and textured and great warm or room temp for any meal of the day.
Last year, I tested the recipes for an upcoming savory baking cookbook and I’ve had an empty par-baked pie shell sitting in the freezer ever since. I almost never bake a full-sized pie for the two of us, but I’ve been itching to reclaim that freezer space (and that pie plate), so when this recipe was nominated, I decided to use the crust here. It’s different than Dorie’s flaky crust, in that it’s a press-in situation with a shortcrust texture, and it’s also in a standard-sized plate instead of a deep dish, but it worked out well in this pie by slightly scaling back the custard amount. Another thing I had in the freezer from those testing days was an almost-full bag of frozen spinach, so I pulled that out, too. Rather than wilting down and squeezing fresh spinach, I thawed the frozen stuff and squeezed the heck out of it before adding it to my sautéed aromatics. Technically, my spinach-to-custard ratio was a bit higher than Dorie’s because I wanted to use up all the spinach that was in the bag. My filling was more like creamy greens and lacked a separate quiche-like layer, but more green stuff is always fine with me. Also, I like a bit of heat, so I added some pepper flake to the filling.
After the spinach mixture and the creamy custard are inside the par-baked shell, on went cubes of mozzarella and lots of parm crumble, and then it was into the oven. I only made 3/4 of the crumble and it still seemed plenty to cover the pie. We’ve had this with a salad the last couple of nights for dinner, and since I made a full-sizer, we can have it for a couple of lunches, too.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it twice a month. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Chunky Citrus Cornmeal Cake
January 9, 2024 at 10:42 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, brekkie, cake
Dorie’s Chunky Lemon Cornmeal Cake is a sunny loaf, getting color and flavor from cornmeal, lemon zest, chopped up lemon segments and sumac. I happened to notice a few bags of cute, tiny, bright orange calamansi at my neighborhood grocer. I’ve only ever come across calamansi here as frozen juice at some of the Asian grocery stores, so I snapped up a bag. Even though I didn’t have any plans for them, I like to be sure to buy things that I don’t normally see on the shelves so my store knows people are interested.
I sat on the calamansi in the fridge for a few days and then thought I could use them in this cake. Prep was super easy, since you can eat the whole fruit…they have thin, sweet skins with almost no pith and puckery, tart insides. I simply quartered each calamansi, popped out any seeds or membrane I found and used them in the simple one-bowl cake batter just like that. I left out the sumac, but I had about a tablespoon and a half of spiced sugar left from some holiday cookies and I sprinkled that on top of the cake batter before I put it in the oven for a little crust.
This was so tasty with the little pops of calamansi and it stayed fresh for several days. I loved the color and the texture (just a bit gritty from the cornmeal) and was super pleased when I cut into the cake.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
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