Cranberry White Chocolate Quick Bead

I bought a big bag of cranberries right before Thanksgiving. I thought that I was going to make something with it for the holiday, but I just never got around to it. I'm glad I didn't, because it afforded me the opportunity to make this awesome sweet and tart bread. I adapted this recipe from a Joy of Baking recipe.

I became interested in cooking with cranberries this summer when I spent a weekend at my aunt's house in Pidgeon Bay. If you are wondering where pidgeon bay is, it is far, far, far, up in bumbfuck Maine. However, the 6 hour ride is worth it because it is just so beautiful up there. When we went it happened to be the height of wild Maine blueberry season, and when walking in my aunt's front yard, which consists of a rocky spread of land leading directly to the water, her whole front yard was covered in blueberry and cranberry vines. I went out in the morning and picked blueberries and cranberries and put them in my cereal. How cool is that.

Many people think that cranberries are grown in water, or in bogs, which is a common misconception. The American Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) is a low-growing, vining, woody perennial plant with small, alternate, oval leaves. The plant produces horizontal stems or runners up to 6 feet (2 m) long. Short vertical branches 2 to 8 inches (5 to 20 cm) in height, called uprights, grow from buds on the runners and produce both vegetative and fruit buds. Each fruit bud may contain as many as seven flowers. (The Cranberry Institute (www.cranberryinstitute.org)

This particular bread is great - the matching of the tart from the cranberry with the smooth sweet of the white chocolate is a great mixture. Also, it just looks so festive, with it's white and red.

Recipe:
4 cups (460 grams) sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup (200 grams) white granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Zest of one orange or lemon (optional)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) (56 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (360 ml) milk
1 cup (120 grams) fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped
1 cup white chocolate chips

Butter, or spray with a nonstick vegetable, a 9 x 5 x 3 inch (23 x 13 x 8 cm) loaf pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). (Note: if you are using a dark colored pan reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F (160 degrees C).)

In a large bowl whisk together the sifted flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and orange zest. In a separate bowl whisk together the beaten egg, melted butter, vanilla extract and milk. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix in the fruit and nuts. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Wrap in aluminum foil and store for a few days before serving. It can be frozen.

Makes one - 9x5 inch loaf

Chicken Cacciatore

Another Giada recipe. I've actually started watching her more and more since my trip to Rome. I just loved the food so much when I was there, and I want to have those flavors all the time now. This recipe is a bit of a job to make, but it is all worth it. I know that the recipe calls for bone-in chicken, but the next time I make it, I will definitely use boneless chicken, just because it's so much easier to work with and eat chicken when it's boneless.

Recipe:

• 4 chicken thighs
• 2 chicken breasts with skin and backbone, halved crosswise
• 2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour, for dredging
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 3/4 cup dry white wine
• 1 ( 28-ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
• 3/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 3 tablespoons drained capers
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano leaves
• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves

Sprinkle the chicken pieces with 1 teaspoon of each salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour to coat lightly.

In a large heavy saute pan, heat the oil over a medium-high flame. Add the chicken pieces to the pan and saute just until brown, about 5 minutes per side. If all the chicken does not fit in the pan, saute it in 2 batches. Transfer the chicken to a plate and set aside. Add the bell pepper, onion and garlic to the same pan and saute over medium heat until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the wine and simmer until reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes with their juice, broth, capers and oregano. Return the chicken pieces to the pan and turn them to coat in the sauce. Bring the sauce to a simmer. Continue simmering over medium-low heat until the chicken is just cooked through, about 30 minutes for the breast pieces, and 20 minutes for the thighs.

Using tongs, transfer the chicken to a platter. If necessary, boil the sauce until it thickens slightly, about 3 minutes. Spoon off any excess fat from atop the sauce. Spoon the sauce over the chicken, then sprinkle with the basil and serve.

Caramelized Onion & Mozzarella Crostini

Last night I made chicken cacciatore, it tasted great, I even took a picture of it, and planned on posting about it today, but I forgot my camera at home today, so no camera, no flash card, no images, no chicken cacciatore post. I started looking through the images I had on my computer to see if there were any pictures that I had not blogged about, low and behold (where do you think that term came from?) I had one image that I never blogged about. Mmm Mmmm Mmm I love caramelized onions. So what better way to shove it in my cake hole than to put it on a crostini and cover it with cheese? So I made the caramelized onions by cutting up an onion into long strips and then sautéing the onion in a little butter and olive oil over low heat until the onion releases its sugar and begins to caramelize, usually about 25 minutes. I put the hot onion on a toasted baguette and covered with mozzarella cheese and put in the toaster oven just long enough to melt the cheese. Yum.

Mamma Speck's Pumpkin Bread

As God is my witness I will never make pumpkin puree from scratch again. I don't even know why I decided to tackle this task. Maybe it was the sad pumpkin just sitting in my foyer waiting to be tossed out on the street curb on trash day like a figment of Halloween past, or maybe I just had too much extra time on my hands, or maybe, just maybe I'm masochistic and needed some form of torture to put upon myself. Whatever it was, it will never happen again. It sucked. I first took the pumpkin and cut off the top, then cut down the sides of the pumpkin and created manageable pieces for me to scrape clean, peel and cut up. I did this for the whole pumpkin, then placed the pumpkin in a big pot and covered with enough cold water to cover the pumpkin; I then boiled the pumpkin for what seemed like three days, and then drained the pumpkin, cooled it, and then put it in the food processor. From this state I needed to strain it because it was so wet, the straining took forever, and halfway through I decided I had enough pumpkin puree and put the rest of the pumpkin in the garbage disposal. However, I did make this pumpkin bread with the homemade pumpkin puree, which sadly I thought tasted more like zucchini bread than pumpkin bread. Maybe I had the wrong kind of pumpkin, or it was too big, or it just wasn't meant to be, but from now on, it's canned pumpkin for me.

This recipe is from my friend (and former roommate) HL's mother who to this day I don't know her first name, because for the past 6 years I have been calling her Mamma Speck. She would make the best pumpkin bread, and send HL home with a loaf, which I'm sure was meant for HL, but I usually ended eating it and exclaiming with a mouth full of bread..."this is so damn good." HL and I lived together for a few fun filled years, but time passes and things change and our landlord doubled our rent and we couldn't afford to live in our apartment anymore. So we both took that chance and moved in with our boyfriends at the same time, boyfriends, which I am more than happy to say are now our husbands and we are both happily married.

The first year after we moved away from each other I received my very own pumpkin bread in the mail from Mamma Speck with her famous recipe in the package. This is Mamma Specks Pumpkin Bread.

Recipe:
1 1/2 C sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 2/3 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp each clove, nutmeg, cinnamon
1/2 C oil
1/2 C water
1 C canned pumpkin
2 eggs

Mix together oil, water, pumpkin and eggs. Combine dry ingredients together then add to wet mixture. Pour into greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.

Sweet Potato Chips with Parmesan Sprinkles

I had one lonely little sweet potato in the refrigerator on Saturday, and since I was in an experimental mood I decided to see if I could make sweet potato chips out of the potato. I don't have a mandolin, so they didn't come out as good as they would have had they been thinner, but they were still pretty good. I asked for a mandolin for Christmas, so hopefully I'll get it and this recipe will be better next time I make it.

I peeled the potato and cut it into the thinnest pieces I could with just a plane knife, then salt and peppered them and fried them in a shallow pan with olive oil. As soon as I took them out of the oil and placed them on a paper towel I shaved a little parmesan cheese over them so that it melted onto the chips. This was very good.

Pumpkin Seed Brittle

A lot of the food blogs that I read on a regular basis featured pumpkin seed brittle last month. I thought this was such a great creation. I took this recipe from Tartelette from her post where she featured it with Burnt Sugar Ice Cream. Her pumpkin seed brittle recipe was from Martha Stewart.

I don't have a candy thermometer, so the creation of this brittle was the result of two trials. The first of which resulted in one extremely scorched pan and enough swearing that CB ran clean across the house into the kitchen thinking that I had caused bodily harm. In the second trial I was determined to not burn the mixture, which led to me not cooking it enough, laying it on the cookie sheet, and waiting for it to cool, only to realize that I had made caramel with pumpkin seeds in it because the mixture would not harden. I called my mom who told me that I needed to get the mixture to "ball state" after some snickering and juvenile remarks about creating a sweet ball state I rolled the caramel like seed mixture into a ball and put it back on the stove top over high heat. I had no expectations at this point considering I was taking the mixture from liquid to solid to liquid state again, but after I got the mixture bubbling hot and dropped a few pieces into a bowl of water, and indeed they did reach the "ball state" I poured the mixture back onto the cookie sheet and within 30 minutes I was breaking the pieces apart and my pumpkin seed brittle was a success. Yes! Note to self, get a damn candy thermometer.

Pumpkin Seed Brittle, from Martha Stewart and Tartelette
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for baking sheet
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 cup fresh pumpkin seeds, rinsed well, dried, and toasted

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter an 11-by-17- inch rimmed baking sheet; set aside.
Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in sugar and honey. Bring to a boil. Cook, without stirring, until mixture is medium amber and a candy thermometer registers 280°, about 6 minutes. Stir in pumpkin seeds. Cook until mixture reaches 300°, about 2 minutes. Pour onto prepared baking sheet. Let cool completely. Break into pieces.