Category Archives: 31 in 2011

Apr 10 2012
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31 in 2011, Candy, Chocolate, Dessert

Marshmallows

I made marshmallows! Big, fluffy, vanilla marshmallows.

I had several egg whites left over after making mango ice cream last week, so rather than dumping $0.75 down the drain, I decided that I’d make marshmallows.  After spending well over a year thinking about doing it, it took me about two minutes to find a recipe and start gathering ingredients. It’s funny how that works.

As with any new experience largely centered around beating egg whites and making a hot sugar syrup, there were a few tense moments (Am I doing this right?  The recipe said not to let the mixer splash syrup onto the sides of the bowl, but the bowl is now covered with beads of hardened syrup! I’m supposed to coat the pan with powdered sugar and cornstarch, but I don’t have cornstarch!), but in less than an hour I had a giant marshmallow cloud resting on a sheet pan.

I left the pan on the counter overnight, and in the morning I dusted the cloud with a generous layer of powdered sugar and used kitchen shears to cut it into squares.  I did have a problem with the bottoms being a little damp (according to the troubleshooting tips from the recipe it’s because I didn’t beat the final mixture long enough to cool it down), but I turned them over to let them dry out, and a few hours later I had a few dozen marshmallows ready for consumption.  Very exciting.

A few days later, inspired by chocolate-dipped Peeps, I melted some bittersweet chocolate chips and made a good thing even better.  I will also note that just like Peeps, homemade marshmallows are delicious when slightly stale.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with chocolate-dipped marshmallows, but I couldn’t resist adding sprinkles to a few of them.

Apr 09 2012
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31 in 2011, Breakfast

Easter Brunch: Ham and Cheddar Waffles

I accomplished a lot this Easter. I had a religious experience when I ran/walked up Ramsey Hill with my mom (we ran by several churches and the cathedral, too – contact high!), I cracked the code to the long answers on The Onion’s crossword before Matt did, and I fulfilled my long-running desire to stuff waffles with ham and cheese.  Being that it was a holiday and we had a houseguest, I might have missed a great opportunity to make scotch eggs, but waffles that are both sweet, savory and rimmed with crispy cheddar bits are quite possibly superior to hard-boiled eggs encased in breakfast sausage.

I made Marion Cunningham’s raised waffles for the base, which I’ve made once before to break in my waffle iron, but this time I remembered to add the eggs and baking soda right before cooking them.  They weren’t bad the first time, but they were definitely better with all of the ingredients – go figure.

To make stuffed waffles, I poured half of the normal amount of batter onto the iron, my mom quickly sprinkled on maple ham and sharp cheddar, and then I ladled more batter over the top.  You could also pour all of the batter onto the iron and then top it with ham and cheese (seen here), but I like the idea of layering and having a surprise in the middle.

As you can see, the tops of the waffles didn’t crisp as well as the bottoms (bottoms up on the left, tops up on the right).  Judging by pictures of other people who have made them, it might just be this particular recipe, but it also might have been me or my waffle iron or, most likely, the fact that the bottoms had a longer time to cook while we sprinkled and poured on the remaining batter.  Even though both sides weren’t evenly golden, the waffles were fully cooked and fully delicious.

I know I said this the last time that I made waffles, but this is my new favorite waffle recipe.  Given the choice between a sweet or savory breakfast, I will choose savory almost every time, but with these waffles you don’t have to choose.  You get a little of both – the slightly sweet waffle and the crispy bits of ham and cheese.  You can push them further into sweet territory by dousing them with maple syrup, or you can stick to savory and top them with a fried egg (I haven’t done this yet, but I plan to do it with the leftovers).

We rounded out our waffle feast with bacon, fruit, mimosas, and coffee.  The Peep was just a spectator.

Can you believe I made it to the end of the post without making a “they have risen” joke?

Apr 03 2012
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31 in 2011, Cookies, Snacks

Graham Crackers

It may be four months past my deadline, but I can finally cross another item off of my list – I made graham crackers!  They were incredibly easy, and I can’t believe that I’ve been denying myself the pleasure of fresh-out-of-the-oven grahams for so long.  More importantly, why didn’t I make them a month ago when I had a bowl of leftover strawberry cream cheese frosting?

I used a recipe from Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy, and while I was initially a little disappointed in the low level of sweetness, I proceeded to eat about a dozen of them within five minutes of them coming out of the oven and realized that I was perfectly fine with them being just mildly sweet.

Also, do you know what brings out the sweetness of graham crackers?  Cheese.  We had a few bites of fontina and taleggio left after dinner, and rather than wrapping them up and returning them to the cheese drawer, we paired them with graham crackers and didn’t stop snacking (desserting?) until we ran out of cheese.  The grahams remind me of a slightly sweeter version of Carr’s Whole Wheat Crackers, which I haven’t had in years, but I used to love eating them with any sharp or tangy cheese.

While I thoroughly enjoyed this graham cracker recipe, I believe that like chocolate chip cookies, there’s no need to settle on just one version.  Here are some others that I’m planning to try:

 Graham Crackers – 101 Cookbooks

Chocolate Graham Crackers – King Arthur Flour

Homemade Whole-Wheat Graham Crackers – Marcus Samuelsson

I was actually surprised in reading a lot of recipes that most of them use some combination of whole wheat flour, whole wheat pastry flour, and all-purpose flour.  The ones that I made used graham flour and oat flour, so I’m anxious to see how the flavor changes with other flours.  The less graham flour I use for graham crackers, the more I have for when I finally get around to making homemade grape nuts, which are also on the list.

Oct 03 2011
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31 in 2011, Weekend Eats

Weekend Eats – 10/3/11

It’s been months since I’ve had a weekend with enough food-related happenings to make a Weekend Eats post worthwhile, but I am back in the game. At least for a couple of weeks, and then wedding mania resumes. I’m all for marriage and celebrations and making a decent living, but a weekend free from work and weddings was heavenly. I slept in, I cooked, I baked, I watched hours of college football, I caught up on blog reading, I relaxed.  The only non-relaxing thing that I did was to wake up at 5:45 on Sunday to run the Twin Cities 10 Mile, but even that was pretty fun, and it was followed by hours of hanging out outside on a beautiful fall day to drink bloody marys and cheer on marathoners, napping, and the ultimate reward of dinner at Brasa and dessert at Grand Ole Creamery.

Best weekend discovery: cottage bacon.  It’s like bacon on steroids, but not in a let’s-inject-this-hog-with-steroids way.  Instead of being cut from the pork belly, it’s cut from the shoulder, so it’s about 3-inches wide.  Gigantic.  So gigantic that we could only fit two slices of it at a time into a 12-inch skillet. Booyah. That’s good bacon.

Cheesy hash browns, for your health.

Breakfast spread: bacon, cheesy hash browns, over-easy eggs, bagels, bagel spreads, coffee, crosswords.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Pizza dough in the making – one for now, three for the freezer.

Running fuel: pizza with ham, roasted pepper, kalamata olives, fresh parsley, mozzarella, provolone, and parmesan.

For dessert and marathon spectating: pumpkin snickerdoodles.  Make these!  They’re full of fall spices, and although they don’t need any adornment, I imagine that a maple glaze would take them over the top.  For Iowa people, the raw dough tastes just like pumpkin shakes from Whitey’s Ice Cream – one of my favorite fall treats.

It turns out that running a few miles about once a week, doing one 6.5-mile long run, and eating plenty of pizza and ice cream over the course of a few months is the secret to shaving a minute off of my previous 10 mile record.  In your face, training!

The highlight of cheering for the marathoners: spotting Sven Sundgaard as he ran by, cheering wildly for him, and getting a big grin in return. I made eye contact with Sven. That’s better than a finisher’s medal or nut rolls.

Ending the day on a high note: chocolate chocolate chip and marshmallow man.

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