Sweet Potato-Onion-Fennel-Paprika Quiche
1 medium sweet potato, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 onion
1 bunch fresh fennel
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 prebaked pie crust
3 eggs
1cup milk (or almondmilk)
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1 tsp paprika
salt & pepper
woke up in a cooking frenzy and decided to make a bunch of things in my underwear. there you go.
Chinese Tea Eggs
6 eggs
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 Tbsp five-spice
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
2 tea bags
for a recipe N made up, at 3:30am, when unable to sleep, without even putting in contacts, this bread turned out really awesomely and both loaves are already gone. Made monday night, baked tuesday evening.
Insomniac Honey Wheat Bread
Combine flours and salt in a large mixing bowl. In another bowl, combine 1/3 cup honey and 1 cup hot water to make a honey simple syrup. (You can just do this in a 2 cup measuring cup, it’s easier.) Add the packet of yeast to this honey simple syrup, stir, and let sit for five minutes, until you can see yeast has activated and is foaming (maybe bubbling a bit).
Add this mixture to your flours. Add the remaining 1 and 1/3 cup water. Mix until incorporated, then knead five to ten minutes. At the end of this time, form dough into a ball.
Wash out and dry the mixing bowl. Add 4 tbsp vegetable oil to coat the sides of the bowl. Place dough in the bowl and turn so all sides are coated with oil, then set in the bottom of the bowl.
Cover with a towel and allow to rise until around noon the next day (or until dough has doubled in size). Divide dough in half, roll into logs, then place into two loaf pans. Preheat oven to 400.
After loaves have risen for an hour (or until they’re as tall as you’d like), put in the oven and bake at 400 F for 45 minutes to an hour.
Eat while still warm.
first, the song:
Joanna Newsom - Peach, Plum, Pear
then, the pie:
Peach, Plum, Pear Pie
a special recipe for people who love fruit, pies, and Joanna Newsom, by N. for anyone feeling blue and unwell.
(note: this is the first time N has ever used refrigerated, buy-at-the-grocery-store pie dough, and not made her own. IT IS SO MUCH FASTER. You don’t have to dread making pie dough anymore!)
Filling:
Topping:
Preheat oven to 400.
Slice pear, peach, and plums into very thin, long strips. Thinner the better. Put them in a bowl together and add sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir it all together and let it sit while you prep the crust and topping; that way the sugar will bring out the juices in the fruit.
Mix the oats, brown sugar, and melted butter together (in the measuring cup is fine). These oats don’t really cook in boiling water, so use rolled oats—you can eat them without cooking them and it’s fine. These just get a little crunchy on top.
Put pie crust dough into your pie dish. Set the peach, plum, pear sugar/spice filling into the pie dish, and cover the top with the oatmeal topping.
Bake at 400 degrees fahrenheit for 10-15 minutes, until crust is brown and done.
Eat this pie! Rejoice, because thanks to this pie, you no longer feel blue or unwell!
the thinly-sliced peach, plum, and pear
the adorable PI pan (get it ahhhh it’s so cute) with the peach/plum/pear
the finished pie.
A longstanding tradition of ours is brunch. (Dating back to our very first dates. Dawww.) Every weekend we’re together we cook Sunday brunch, even if it has to be squeezed before/after other obligations.
The very first brunch ever (in March, after N/B’s collective birthday, on Lundi Gras morning) was German pancakes with honey and lime and iced tea (sugary sweet, of course). Unfortunately there are no pictures of this momentous initiatory brunch moment of our relationship history; the next best thing is this poolside brunch orchestrated by B in April:
according to N’s year-planner, this was officially brunch #3.
N by the brunch and the pool.
B not holding still for the camera and wearing a silly Hawaiian shirt.
This brunch included eggs over easy (two each), 3 links of sausage, a vegetable hash (consisting of potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and…..other things, knowing B), some broccoli-cheese soup (recipe from Cooks’ Illustrated, B’s subscription), N’s basic bread, fresh strawberries, strawberry and apricot jam, coffee, and mimosas with orange juice and champagne. Probably the $6 kind you find at Winn-Dixie.
close-up. It looks lovely. It tasted lovely, too. Tablecloth, decanter full of orange juice, and presentation all by B.
And, since N cannot find a suitable online recipe, the recipe (from memory) that she uses for then “whenever-I-want-bread-the-next-day” kinda bread:
(picture from august 2010. Been making this bread for a year and a half now, and not disappointed us yet!)
Everyday Bread
(adapted from reading a bunch of online slow-rise recipes, none of which a quick google can reveal, so it’s not like she’s stealing an idea that belongs to anyone…)
Activate yeast by adding to 1c warm water—very warm tap water is usually fine. Wait for it to start foaming so you know it’s active; if it takes a few minutes, feel free to add a tbsp or so of sugar to the water, give a good stir, and give it more time.
(fun fact from N’s cell and molecular biology major: yeast, also known as saccharomyces cerevisiae, metabolize glucose and lactose, so you can prep yeast in sugar or milk! Sugar, however, will be much faster, as yeast only process lactose when there’s no glucose present. For details, go to a genetics class during the lac operon lecture.)
Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl with a wooden spoon. Add the activated yeast/water mixture, as well as the remaining 2c warm water, and stir until incorporated. Dough will be clumpy and not very wet.
Coat the top of the dough with a dusting of flour and cover the bowl in saran wrap. Allow to sit overnight (at least 6 hours, if you do it in the morning for bread a night). Dough should double in size. (At this point, feel free to eat the raw dough off the spoon. N always does and it is always more delicious than you think it will be.)
When you’re ready to bake, preheat oven to 450 F. Punch dough down and divide in half. If you want, you can roll into two balls and place onto a floured cookie sheet, or flour two loaf pans and drop balls into each. N’s done both successfully.
Bake for 35-35 minutes until top is browned and outside is crusty. Take it out and eat immediately, because for four ingredients this is some crazy good bread.
last-minute “someone mentioned meatloaf? we can make meatloaf!” dinner. With B’s leftover amazing cranberry barbecue sauce (recipe from Whole Foods), and some leftover vegetable kebabs from the Garden Juggling thing. They had mirliton, green bell, creole tomatoes, little purple potatoes, sweet potatoes, and apples, all sprinkled with a bit of oil, s+p, and marjoram.
The meatloaf was of B’s invention, and not entirely an exact science.
Braden’s Cranberry Barbecue Buckwheat Meatloaf/Kufta Magic
Serves 2.5
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients thoroughly. Add more oats if it’s too wet. Form the mixture into two rough loaves, and place them next to each other on a rimmed baking pan. Sprinkle with extra rolled oats, and drizzle (fancy z-dripping verb) with more cranberry barbecue sauce. Throw it (forcefully) into the oven and come back in 35 to 40 minutes. You know it’s done when the loaves are brown throughout, and the buckwheat berries are soft and a little chewy.
Serve with extra barbecue sauce on the side, and maybe some tea, water, idk, what do people drink with last-minute meatloaf? Despair?
No really, it was great. Enjoy. (it did make N’s top list of 2011).
(also from the garden. table decorations! how fancy!)
About nicole bakes for braden cooks for nicole
