savory | a whisk and a spoon

Everyday Dorie: Roasted Squash Hummus

December 14, 2018 at 10:21 pm | Posted in groups, savory things, snacks, veggies | 2 Comments
Tags: savory, vegetables

You know I’m having an exciting Friday night when I’m writing up a blog post about hummus! At least this Roasted Squash Hummus has a little something different going on. In place of the traditional chickpeas, this hummus gets its body from a roasted squash. Of course there’s tahini and lemon, but also some cool ingredients like za’atar and pomegranate molasses. I used a small carnival squash, and although Dorie just has you mash together the ingredients with a fork, I put everything into my mini food processor and gave it a whiz. I plated it up with a smear of thick yogurt, drizzles of olive oil and more pom molasses and a sprinkling of toasted pumpkin seeds. It’s earthy and creamy with a touch of sweetness. This was more interesting than my normal Sunday football food, and I thought it made a nice dip for veggies and pita chips.

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: Maple-Syrup-and-Mustard Brussels Sprouts

November 9, 2018 at 12:01 am | Posted in groups, savory things, veggies | 19 Comments
Tags: savory, vegetables

I was never the kid who pushed away the dish of brussels sprouts. In fact, they were always a highlight of Thanksgiving dinner, right up there with stuffing! I know…weird, right? When I make sprouts at home, I usually just simply roast them with a little s&p. Sometimes I shred and sauté them. I’m always happy to try out something new, though. These Maple-Syrup-and-Mustard Brussels Sprouts are steamed first and then they’re finished off in a skillet, where they take on some color before being combined with the maple and mustard and some crispy bacon (of the turkey variety for me). They’re sweet and savory and a little zingy. And steaming is a really easy way to cook them, so I don’t know why I haven’t done it before. I have a little container of leftovers that I plan to heat up and top with a fried egg, and I’m so looking forward to it!

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: Cranberry Five-Spice Cookies

November 6, 2018 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, savory things, snacks, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 Comments
Tags: baking, cookies, savory

When these Cranberry Five-Spice Cookies were being floated around in the month’s nominations, I didn’t realize that they are in the “cocktail cookies” section of the book. This is the section where the cookies lean more savory than sweet…nibbles to go with a glass of wine or an aperitif. These ones have the texture of sugar cookies, but they are only very lightly sweetened, and are flavored with tart fresh cranberries, salty peanuts and Chinese five-spice powder, an exotic mixture of ground cloves, cinnamon, fennel seeds, star anise and Szechuan pepper.

A lot of times, I like to cut roll-out cookies like these into squares rather than rounds so I don’t have any waste. I sprinkled these with a little mix of extra sugar, salt and five-spice before baking. Even though they weren’t quite what I had in mind when I cracked open the book to make them, I did like them. I thought a bit of spreadable goat cheese on top went rather nicely.

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

My Newest Gougères from Everyday Dorie

October 26, 2018 at 7:37 am | Posted in groups, savory things, snacks | 20 Comments
Tags: choux, savory

In case you can’t tell from the over four hundred posts I’ve written, dedicated to the over four hundred recipes I’ve made from her books, Dorie Greenspan is one of my favorite cookbook authors. Anytime she comes out with a new title, I can’t wait to dive in, and of course that’s the case with her beautiful brand-new Everyday Dorie! I have at least two dozen recipes I need to get down to business with soon, but I’m beginning with what she calls “My Newest Gougères,” and I’m making them along with the Cook the Book Fridays group. They’re starting today to cook their way though Everyday Dorie, and I’ll join in as often as I can.

Gougères are made with choux paste, one of my favorite things to make. This newest version is a cheese puff not only loaded with cheese (of course), but also chopped nuts and a bit of Dijon mustard. You can play around with the cheese and nuts. I went pretty classic with a Gruyère and walnut combo. These make a great salty, cheesy snack to have with a glass of rosè. The nuts give them more substance than other gougères I’ve made. I have some more in the freezer and I think they’ll go really nicely with a bowl of tomato soup, too.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan (you can even watch her make them in this video), and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group kicks this one off!

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Rosemary-Parm Cookies

August 7, 2018 at 12:46 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, savory things, snacks, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 Comments
Tags: baking, cookies, savory

I like baking savory cookies because it gives me an excuse to open a bottle of wine. Hello apéro! A drink, a snack and a podcast make getting the rest of dinner on the table less of a chore. The Rosemary-Parm Cookies are from the “cocktail cookie” section of the book. They are savory shortbread cookies, delicate and crumbly, and flavored with parmesan, pecans and rosemary. I cut mine into (imperfect) squares rather than rounds so I wouldn’t have any waste, and sprinkled them with a bit of extra grated cheese before baking. They’re salty and cheesy, and I can verify that they go quite nicely with white wine!

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

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Goat Cheese and Chive Cookies

May 16, 2017 at 8:05 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, savory things, snacks, tuesdays with dorie | 8 Comments
Tags: baking, cookies, savory

These Goat Cheese and Chive Cookies are part of Dorie’s special “cocktail cookies” collection…little savory bites to pair with drinks. I went with white wine, but Dorie says they are great with Prosecco. Maybe I’ll give that a try with the rest of the dough still in the freezer. These are roll-out cookies, and I definitely rolled mine a little thinner than I should have, but you can see that they have flaky-biscuit like layers. They aren’t super-crisp cookies, but that means you can hold a glass of wine in one hand and a cookie in the other and not have them crumble all over your shirt while you snack and mingle (and maybe dance around the backyard like a dork!).

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. It is also Dorie’s #cookiesandkindness selection for the month of May, so you can find the recipe on her site, too. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and please join us if you haven’t already!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Persian Naan

April 5, 2016 at 12:02 am | Posted in BWJ, groups, savory things, tuesdays with dorie, yeast breads | 8 Comments
Tags: baking, bread, savory

This Persian Naan flatbread from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid uses the very same dough as the Oasis Naan we did almost four years (what the –??) ago. So I’ve kinda done this one before, but it’s been a while. The dough is actually as simple as it gets– water, flour, yeast and salt. One proof, then shape and bake. The book instructions call for making it by hand…last time I used the food processor…this time I used the KitchenAid…do what you like and rest assured that it will all be good.

The dough bakes up nice and puffy and chewy. It didn’t brown so well on top, so I brushed a little melted butter on at the halfway point and gave the naan an extra couple of minutes in the oven to get a bit of golden spotting. This was a nice bread to have with our Sunday morning fried eggs and avocado. It kind of reminds me of the grocery store Turkish pide bread that I fell in love with when we lived in Oz, but can’t get here.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. There’s also a video of Alford, Duguid and Julia making the bread together, and the authors wrote this article that gives more naan tips. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Parmesan Puffs

November 17, 2015 at 7:32 pm | Posted in BWJ, groups, other savory, savory things, snacks, tuesdays with dorie | 3 Comments
Tags: holiday, savory, snacks

It doesn’t matter if I’ve made it myself or if I’ve bought it at the store, I try to never waste a scrap of puff pastry. So much potential in those little buttery off-cuts…pigs in a blanket, palmiers, Michel Richard’s Parmesan Puffs…I could go on, but let’s focus on the Parm Puffs. Take your leftover bits of puff, cut them into willy-nilly shapes and fry them up in a bit of oil till they’re puffed and golden. Then sprinkle them with salt and shower them in good grated parmesan. Cheesy, buttery and salty– they are the perfect holiday party nibble. My hostess-with-the-mostess tip of the day: Champagne and fried stuff is a match made in heaven. Continue Reading Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Parmesan Puffs…

Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Torte Milanese

October 6, 2015 at 11:41 am | Posted in BWJ, groups, other savory, savory things, tuesdays with dorie, veggies | 5 Comments
Tags: savory, tart

This is my “take two” of Michel Richard’s Torte Milanese recipe. I did the first take last fall, when we prepared Richard’s homemade puff recipe and did other stuff with it. Pictures of that version were lost, unfortunately, and were never to be seen again, except perhaps by the hackers who encrypted them a few weeks later. Hope those bastards got hungry.

The only silver lining to all that mess is that I was encouraged to make this tasty torte, which is a full meal of layered scrambled eggs, cheese, veggies and meat encased in puff pastry, again. And I got to play around with it a little this time. I used chard in lieu of spinach for the greens, I left out the ham layer and instead crisped up some bacon and cooked them into the scrambled eggs, which I flavored with the herbs I had on hand (thyme and basil), and I used a mix of cheddar and Swiss cheeses. Even my roasted red pepper layer was actually a combo of red and yellow ones. I would say that the puff stayed the same, except I used store-bought instead of homemade this time. Its savory, salty (in a good way) and very filling. Plus, the tall slices look great with all those layers of good stuff.

The recipe says to bake the torte at 350°, but I don’t think puff pastry bakes well that low, so I started it at 400° and turned it down at the halfway point for the rest of the bake.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

TWD BWJ Rewind: Cheese and Tomato Galette

September 29, 2015 at 1:04 pm | Posted in BWJ, groups, other savory, savory things, tuesdays with dorie, veggies | 13 Comments
Tags: baking, savory

Flo Braker’s Cheese and Tomato Galette is more of a revisit than a rewind. I first made this one with the group a couple of years ago, but I’ve also made it many times since. I hope I’ll still see tomatoes at the Greenmarket here for a couple more weekends, so I can squeeze in one more of these this year!

The dough is the only tricky part about this galette. It bakes up nice and crisp, but it starts out super sticky. I roll it well-chilled and directly on the parchment I’m going to use for baking so I move it as little as possible. After the dough is rolled into a circle, it’s then easy to just slide the parchment onto the baking sheet, top it and pleat it up.

The recipe specifies the filling as tomatoes, basil, mozzarella and jack, but I play around with the herbs and melting cheeses depending on what’s in the fridge. I’ve used dill, cilantro or parsley (even pesto–which is amazing!) to replace the basil, and while I do always like to use the mozzarella in here, I’ve subbed the Monterey jack with cheddar, provolone, etc. Also, I like to season the tomatoes with salt and pepper. If the tomatoes give off some liquid while the galette bakes, I just tip it out with a spoon at the half-way point so it won’t make the tart watery.

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, or look around…it’s out there. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll for other rewinds this week!