Let's Eat Playdough!

My kids love their new little station in the kitchen--"It's so much fun to work on our projects in the kitchen with you, Mom!"  Mostly they've been rolling out playdough cookies and "baking" them in the old refrigerator we have in one corner of our kitchen (when it's not being used as an oven, the old fridge also makes a handy truck to bring all their things home from town in--such as the chocolate pie they had to pick up from Food Lion "on the way home" today). 

This morning, I thought it was time to make them some playdough they could actually make edible cookies out of.  I remember playing with this stuff as a kid, and of course eating most of it.  The original recipe came from Esther Shank's "Mennonite Country-Style Recipes" cookbook (which has an easy salt dough recipe on the same page--653.)  I halved and modified it as seen below. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Playdough

1/4 cup peanut butter

2 TBSP syrup (or honey)

1/4 cup instant dry milk powder

1 TBSP cocoa powder*

1 TBSP powdered sugar

water and all-purpose flour to correct texture as needed

Mix first 5 ingredients thoroughly in a bowl.  Knead and correct texture with small amounts of water and/or flour as needed to get a soft, pliable dough.  Different peanut butters will affect the texture differently.  My dough started out pretty crumbly, but got nice and soft with the addition of about a TBSP of water and a few TBSP of flour.

*The original recipe only calls for powdered sugar, but I used some cocoa powder because it's (a little) more nutritious and we like chocolate!

 See the "oven" in the background?

Making a chocolate pie (the same one that got picked up from Food Lion

later on).  Just overheard:  "Don't touch the pie to the baby's mouth 

because she's too little to have chocolate.  She's only one month old."  

Fresh from the oven.  Do not ask this girl to pose.  Trust me.

Roll, pinch, press, cut, "bake", decorate (we used raisins and nuts), and enjoy!  I gave my kids a little bowl of flour to keep the dough from sticking, and I think they had as much fun sprinkling that around as anything else!  You can see how well-floured their cookies are in the picture above.

Pears with Blue Cheese

It's not rocket science.  It's just a simple, fast, delicious fall treat if you like blue cheese.  An un-peeled pear half with a dollop of blue cheese where the seeds have been scooped out.  Warm for 20-30 seconds in the microwave.  Eat with your hands.  Elevate with a drizzle of honey and/or a few broken pecan pieces.  

Peanut Butter Dip

Here's a quick, easy recipe for peanut butter dip that is not too sweet and tastes great with apples.  A great any-time-of-day snack.  I think it could also be a great spread in a sandwich--the yogurt "lightens" the peanut butter and makes it more spreadable.  I use Zimmerman's Natural peanut butter which has no sugar and just a little salt.

 Peanut Butter Dip

1/2 cup plain (or vanilla) yogurt
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 TBSP sugar (or less if using sweetened yogurt or peanut butter)
splash of vanilla
pinch cinnamon


Whip ingredients together in a bowl until incorporated and fluffy.  Dip!

Pimento Cheese

As is so typical of my food saga stories, this one began with a craving, continued months later with a disgruntled me complaining of the mass-produced, store-bought version prompting a lengthy internet search for recipes followed by lots of testing, and ending--FINALLY--with a recipe I love and can call my own.  Of course, this all happened about a year ago too.  *smile*

Pimento cheese.  I honestly didn't know it was such a nostalgic southern thing until I started reading people's stories that went along with their recipes.  Memories of their grandmothers making dainty "pimenta cheese" sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off.  Hey now.  We'll have none of that here.  I wanted a good, stiff pimento cheese (not the kind dripping with mayo!) that could talk back to a crust and leave you wanting more no matter what side of the Mason-Dixon line you grew up in.

And here it is folks.  Oh, just a note about the peppers.  I know this is called pimento cheese, but I kinda cheated and used plain ol' red bell pepper.  Even at $1 a piece, it beats paying for a tiny jar of pimentos, and I thought it tasted just as good.  I made this with fresh, raw peppers as well as roasted ones.  It was delicious both ways. 

Pimento Cheese (and cheese ball--read to the end!)

2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese (may use 1/2 Monterrey Jack) about 1 lb.  1/2 lb. total

4 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 TBSP minced onion
6 TBSP mayonnaise
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped (usually 1/2 a pepper)

Place everything except 1/2 of the shredded cheese and the bell pepper in a food processor and blend until smooth.  Add the remaining cheese and red bell pepper and pulse until incorporated.  (I like my pepper pieces and some of the cheese to remain intact rather than  blended into one orange mess--see picture below)  Alternatively, place all the ingredients in a bowl and stir together until they're thoroughly mixed!  Tastes better after a day or two in the fridge.  If it lasts that long.   It will stiffen up in the fridge (which makes it a great pretzel dip!) so get it out to warm a bit if you want to spread it for sandwiches.  Other ways to eat it: as a veggie dip, on a burger, in a grilled cheese sandwich, tossed with mac n' cheese, or just straight off your tasting finger!

 the texture I like

size of onion mince vs. chopped pepper

 

To make this into a cheese ball, just add less mayonnaise (I used 4 TBSP instead of 6) and form it into a ball after it has been refrigerated.  The one below I rolled in a mixture of chopped parsley and toasted sliced almonds.  Use a small knife or cheese spreader to serve this.

Hummus, My Way

As if we all needed another recipe for hummus.  But after so many times of  randomly throwing hummus together and getting such varied results I finally started keeping track of what I did and got the recipe down the way I like it.  By the way, I costed this at about $1.65, most of that being the chickpeas.  If you cooked your own from dried beans, it would be even less!

Anita's Hummus
(servings:  ummmm . . . depends on the day!)

 1 16-oz. can chickpeas (1 1/2 cups), drained with juice reserved
1 clove garlic
2 TBSP tahini
2-4 TBSP lemon juice (towards the higher end if using fresh lemon)
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of cumin, pinch of black pepper
1 TBSP reserved liquid from chickpeas


Instructions

Place all ingredients except for the reserved liquid into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the standard chopping blade and whiz it smooth.  This is one food I can't seems to make the way I like it except in a food processor. With blenders, I seem to have to add too much liquid to get the texture I really want.  In the food processor I pulse and scrape, pulse and scrape a few times, and then let it whiz for quite a while until it is very smooth.  If you add too much liquid early on, the chickpeas will always stay a little lumpy/grainy, which is fine if you like that texture.  I like mine creamy, so I add the extra liquid (usually about one TBSP as written) at the end just to thin it a little.  You could also add olive oil to loosen it up if you like.  I like my hummus creamy and pretty thick, so that it is easy to scoop up on a pretzel.

Taste and correct the seasonings as you like it.  I like a bright lemon flavor, which is why my recipe has such a wide range of acceptable amounts.  Since it's cheaper and easier to always have on hand, I often use the bottled juice (forgive me!) which seems to take less to get the brightness I like.  Also, not all tahini is created equal.  I start with 2 TBSP and then add more if I have a mild tahini.

Speaking of tahini, it is the reason I costed my recipe.  It can be pretty pricey but if you tend to use it just for hummus, it will last a long time and the cost per batch isn't too bad (about 50 cents).  

I like to serve our hummus swirled about with olive oil and za'atar (a Mediterranean blend of herbs, salt, and toasted sesame seeds--I found a great source at Ten Thousand Villages in downtown H'burg) and scooped up with mini-pretzles (since Gibbles has been sold my new favorite is Utz Wheels) or flat bread.  YUM! 

p.s. and if you've figured out how to make thick, creamy hummus in a blender, let me know!

Pogaca

Pogaca are little cheese/herb-filled Turkish pastries that I got a sudden hankering for last week.  My sister-in-law has never been afraid of making Turkish foods that she loves, so I was inspired to try these even though I'd never made nor seen them made before.  

First off, we must work on our pronunciation.  It might be tempting to look at "pogaca" and want to say "po-gak-a".  Um, no.  I apologize for not having Turkish characters (or not knowing how to access them), but the "g" should have a curl on its head (making it silent, drawing out the preceding vowel) and the "c" really needs it's tail (making it a "ch" sound).  Thus, we say "poh-ach-a" with a kind of dip in the voice after the "o".  All right, then.  Practice makes . . . good enough.

I found a great recipe online that yields a dough with a kind of flakiness.  It was very easy to work with and the pogaca were delicious--cold or re-heated--several days following.  The only changes I made to the recipe were to make a 1/2 batch (which I made into 20 pastries) and to use a mixture of feta and cottage cheese rather than all feta to make the inside a little creamier.  I think next time I would even go 1/2 and 1/2 on the cheeses; I would also make a 1/4 batch and do something like 15 pastries to get more of a two-bite size rather than a four-bite. 

I shaped mine by taking the ball of dough in both hands, sticking my thumbs in the center and turning it as if making a vase or cup on a pottery wheel.  You don't have to kick your foot as you do this, though.  Once I had the "walls" of the dough thin enough I put about a TBSP of filling in, pinched it shut, then turned it over and smoothed it back into a ball shape. 

As the recipe says, there is no need to pre-heat the oven (fun!), but I would recommend checking on them after about 25 minutes to see if they're browned to your liking.  I thought 35 minutes got them a little too dark for my taste.

If you're looking for an easy, fun pastry project that tastes delicious and keeps well, try making pogaca!  Did you remember to say "poh-ach-a"?

Fig Birds

I came across this idea on the Martha Stewart website when I was hunting inspiration for the rest of my fresh figs. Of course, I could have just eaten all of them fresh and loved every bit of it. But hey, figs with soft cheese . . . sounded too good not to try. While Martha used blue cheese and pecans in her figs, I went for goat cheese because I love goat cheese and would rather have that left over than blue. What can I say?

Once the figs are washed and the hard bit of stem removed from the top, cut them open as seen in the picture above and stuff a little nugget of cheese inside--I have to admit, the pungency of blue cheese probably would have tasted fabulous with my mildly sweet figs, but no regrets!

After the cheese is in, wrap with a slice of prosciutto and secure with a toothpick. I drizzled mine with a teeny, teeny bit of both balsamic vinegar and olive oil, then dashed them with some fresh-ground black pepper.

I did this twice in the same week. The first time I baked the figs in my toaster oven, but I thought the prosciutto got a little tough that way, so the second time I broiled them just until they sizzled a bit and I could see some juices dripping.

Don't they look like darling, hungry little birds?!? I loved the sweetness/juiciness of the fig along with creamy goat cheese and subtly wine-flavored meat. Mmmmm . . . I'm a hungry little bird!