Pancakes

 

It's the last day of January and it's cold, although not snowy as the picture above shows since that was taken last week.  The cold puts me in the mood for hot pancakes today.

I made multiple batches of pancakes over the last few weeks.  I'm currently doing final tweaks on a pancake that will be made and then frozen and offered to everyone on the website so that that it can be taken home and stored until wanted, then warmed in the microwave.  

I don't usually do things like that, meaning making food that is to be warmed up in the microwave, but this pancake is especially good in that way.

Another thing I like about this pancake is that it has a nice even color across it's surface, a result achieved by NOT frying it in oil or butter in the skillet.  Instead, I simply cook it in a dry non-stick pan and it comes out with it's beautiful color.

I don't have any pictures yet to show, but they will come when I finish the final tweak.  And then they will be added to the menu.

Syrup?  For me, I prefer to use real maple syrup, or a berry-based syrup such as blueberry or boysenberry or raspberry.  Imitation maple?  I'd rather stick with the real stuff even though it is a bit more expensive.  To me, it's worth it.

That's all for today.  This is one final post for January.  See you all in February.

February is coming

Good morning!  January is just about gone, February is soon to be here, and then we can all start looking forward to spring, fresh plants, deer browsing the new greens in the yard, etc.  But today the weather is cold, and I feel like making hot chocolate and a chocolate tart.

This coming weekend, cookie dip and scones are ready for ordering.  Next weekend, we have a couple really great things for cold weather meals:  gingerbread mini-cakes with lemon zest, and smoky sloppy joe filling.  This filling goes great on buns, of course, but also in tortillas, and even just by itself by the spoon.  Give it a try!

This week I tried out my new food processor.  The old one was damaged when someone  (yeah, it was me...) dropped the plastic cannister at just the right angle to cause a very large crack in the side.  It had served me well for many years.  The new one runs very smoothly and is very quiet.  I think it's a great new addition to the kitchen as it is an upgrade from the old one which was decent but not great.  I learned to use it well enough for what I needed, but the new one is so much better.

Kitchens can easily get filled up with so many gadgets and utensils.  I try not to let that happen, but I have to admit that I have some things that rarely get used, some that I haven't used for years.  Soon I'm hoping to do a full reorganization of the kitchen and maybe then I'll toss a few things that seem to be doing nothing more than taking up space.    

Having a gadget or utensil that can serve multiple purposes is really a nice idea.  But I have some things that are specifically designed for one purpose, such as my strawberry huller.  These kinds of things sometimes do such a great job with their single purpose that it can be tough to consider eliminating them.  In fact, the strawberry huller is something I would never get rid of.  But it's certainly worth going through everything and trying to reduce the number of items sitting on shelves and in drawers that aren't being used.

Wish me luck.  And eat well, this coming week.  

The coming two weekends

 

Good morning.  My usual Sunday post is a morning late, but here it is.  

This coming weekend we have spritz cookies and French butter cookies ready to order.

The following weekend's menu has just now been updated with cookie dip and buttermilk scones.

We have snow forecast this week here in Kansas City, at least a few chances coming up.  And that means it's a good time for winter foods.  So this week, I will be making lots of hot chocolate, warm savory pies, and pancakes hot off the griddle, among other things.  My wife has been making excellent spicy dishes from lentils and also lots of kebabs and pakoras.

When the kitchen is busy with activity, I love the aromas that float through the house.  I step out to the get the mail and when I re-enter, I am bathed in these warm aromas.  I to go out to fill the birdfeeders and when I come back in from the cold, the aromas welcome me back into the house.

Food is one of the great luxuries of life.  

That's all for now.  Have a great day.  I will be back in a couple days with more to write about and perhaps a recipe to share.

Accidents and recipe tweaks

 

It's a chilly Thursday here in Kansas City.  Roads today threatened to be icy, but we escaped as the temperatures climbed up into the mid-30s.  I just finished a great brunch of French toast (made by my lovely wife), quesadillas, and cheese rollups, and washed down with a glass of cold milk.  A great meal.

I love making things with tortillas, and so I introduced my wife to chicken quesadillas.  I have a certain sauce I like to use with these.  And I made a double batch of the sauce, but neglected to increase the amount of one key ingredient, the chopped jalapenos and juice.  As I finished making the final quesadilla, I suddenly realized I hadn't doubled the amount of that ingredient.  Pleasantly, though, in fact, very pleasantly, I discovered that it actually made the sauce a bit better.  It wasn't quite as spicy or hot as the previous sauce, but the decrease in the heat from the reduced jalapenos allowed some of the other flavor components in the sauce to come out considerably more than before.

I still like the first sauce and it's heat.  But now this newly balanced sauce is even higher on my list.  I was very surprised.  But that's how it goes when little accidents result in recipe tweaks.  Sometimes the accident has a negative effect, and sometimes a positive effect.  And in this case, it was decidedly positive.

I am always excited when I do something wrong in a recipe (well, maybe not always) because sometimes these little accidents or missed details lead me towards something a little different that I hadn't foreseen.

So don't be afraid of any mistakes that are made when cooking.  Sometimes the result may pleasantly surprise you.

Oven thermostats

Happy Monday morning to you all!

This coming weekend we have sweet spiced roasted pecans and Swedish visiting cakes available for ordering.  The following weekend you can order French butter cookies and spritz cookies.

It's great weather for baking right now.  What do I mean by that?  Well, with the weather cool or chilly, it's great to be standing there in the kitchen on a cold morning and feeling the heat of the oven every time I open it to place or remove a tray of cookies or rolls or whatever else I might happen to be baking.  The warm air that rises at that moment makes me think of sitting in front of a fireplace or next to a wood-burning stove.  It is a wonderful thing.  The heat is intense and all-enveloping.  

I keep an oven thermometer hanging from the cooking racks in my oven.  I do that because you never know when your oven thermostat might be out of calibration.  Additionally, when you preheat your oven and the light comes on that says it's ready, it might not actually be ready.  The spot in the oven where the thermostat is found might be the right temperature, but that doesn't meant the entre oven is that same temperature.  And my oven thermometer shows that.  So I always wait a few more minutes before placing the baking sheet inside to ensure that the the entire oven is ready for baking.  I wait until my thermometer shows me that the temperature is correct and that it is stable.

Many recipes will say to turn a tray of cookies or rolls when baking so that everything gets baked with an even heat.  If baking a tray that is sitting closer to the oven door than to the back, some (depending on their oven) will see a difference in color after the baked tray is pulled from the oven.  The food along the side of the tray at the back is darker than those items just a couple inches away which are near the door.  Every time that door is opened, the area by the door decreases in temperature as the heat escapes and rapidly rises.  And this can affect the baking significantly.

I am fortunate that my oven heats quite quickly and maintains a temperature exceedingly well.  But not every oven does that.  I was at a friends house once and was baking something fresh for them, and I brought along my oven thermometer.  The thermometer showed a marked difference from what the oven thermostat said.  And then when the door was opened, the time it took the oven to heat back up to replace the lost heat was considerable.  This kind of thing details how important it is to know your own oven and to be mindful of checking temperatures if you want to have consistency in everything that is baked.

Today I'm making chicken quesadillas.  And this week I'm planning on a dark chocolate tart as well.  And I'm tweaking the final presentation of a new chocolate snack cake which will soon be on the menu.

That's all for now.  Have a great Monday!

Testing chocolate cakes

I'm a little late with my normal Sunday post.  Here it is on Tuesday already, and I'm just now getting around to it.

This upcoming weekend we have Swedish oatmeal cookies for you to order to satisfy your sugar cravings, and for those who want something a little different, you can order whipped balsamic vinaigrette dip.  This dip is great for raw vegetables, sandwich spread, and other similar things.  

For next weekend, we have Swedish visiting cakes and sweet spiced roasted pecans offered.  

This past weekend, I tested chocolate cakes.  I've been wanting to put a chocolate snack cake on the menu, and I have multiple excellent recipes.  So I made a batch of three different cakes.  To be able to make all three of these and sample them side-by-side on the same day is great.  

I have one that I like to use as a component of more complex desserts such as the palet d'or which is on the menu.  I usually make it as a thin sheet cake for use in desserts which have layers of cake and mousse, etc.  However, it also makes a great traditional thicker cake all by itself.  Then I also made one that includes mayonnaise as one of the ingredients.  It produces a wonderfully moist cake with a great texture.  The third one was a dense moist cake with a lot of chocolate.

When they were all baked and sat there side-by-side on the platter, my wife and I took small bites of each.  The first cake was excellent, but not as sweet as the other two and had a very clean pure chocolate taste.  The fact that it's a little less sweet than the others is part of why I use it is as a component in other desserts. The second was also excellent, sweeter than the first, with a rich flavor.  The third cake was the best of all for snack-cake eating.  It was rich and very chocolaty, sweet, and very moist.  

Then we put them all in the fridge and let them sit for a day and tasted again.  The third was still the winner.  We also put samples of each cake in the freezer, let them sit for a few days, thawed them and ate them.  The third cake was still the winner.  All three were fantastic, but the third turns out to be the best one for eating as a snack cake, meaning in small portions and with no frosting.  

I love doing comparisons like this.  It is interesting to see the subtle differences in three different cakes.  And in the end, a final selection was made which will soon be on the menu.  This cake will be offered in an unfrosted snack version and also in a frosted and filled version.

What better way to spend a day than by making and eating good food, whether it's cake or chicken or anything else that is craved.  Have a great day, everyone!

The next weekend offerings

 

On this first day of the new year, I hope all of you are having a pleasant and relaxing day.

This coming weekend we have yellow snack cake and triple chocolate chunk cookies available for ordering.  And on the following weekend, Swedish oatmeal cookies and whipped balsamic vinaigrette dip.

This week my plans for cooking also include a savory corn and tomato pie (the one on the ordering website), vanilla macarons (to make up for the batch that was lost last month), and brioche which I am considering using a specific toasted sandwich.  For my savory pie, I always make the crust dough in a food processor, a method which works very well.

I had to order a new food processor, though, since I damaged the plastic bowl of my existing one.  I have had this processor for a long time, many years, and I've wanted an excuse to get a new one for a while.  The old one worked fine but it had too many small nooks and crannies that were challenging to clean.  That wasn't enough to convince myself to discard it before now, but now that the bowl has been damaged (I suppose I should say "dropped" rather than "damaged" -- resulting in a large crack that is not reparable), I have no choice since the bowl by itself is no longer available to get as a replacement part from the manufacturer.   So a new one is on order.  That means I have to make my pie dough in my mini-food processor since the new one won't arrive in time.  We'll see how it goes.

Having the right equipment is very beneficial.  Can things be made with not-so-appropriate equipment?  Of course.  There are some things that I specifically make by hand without any equipment because a particular muffin, for example, comes out better.  But some things are much easier and much more consistently of high quality when the right machine is used.  And for my favorite and most reliable pie crust, I use my food processor to blend in frozen butter chunks and then following with frozen shortening chunks, all blended into the flour, using a specific number of pulses for each blending. 

It's a method I have used for a long time and it's extremely reliable.  So I am temporarily lamenting the loss of my trusty food processor which I know so well from years of use.  However, I have thoroughly researched the new one, and my vetting process is usually quite good, so I expect to rapidly forget about the old one once this processor is in use.

That's all for now.  Have a great day, everyone!