Doo-Doo Bombs

Doo Doo Bombs

(a.k.a. Granny Geisinger Cookies)

This is a recipe that Mom passed down to us. She originally got it from "Granny Geisinger", a family friend from church. But they became known as Doo Doo Bombs...

When Mom was in college at UC Santa Barbara, she cooked up a pan of the cookies with her best friend Betty Ann. The cookies needed to sit and cool when they came out of the oven, but they didn't want any of the other college students stealing some of the cookies. So they put a note on the pan:

"Do Not Eat the Doo Doo Bombs!!"

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 Tbs milk

Topping:

12 oz package semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 egg whites

1 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream butter and sugars, then add egg yolks and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. Then add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture and stir until crumbly. Add up to 3 tablespoons of milk, as needed, to hold the dough together. Press into the bottom of an oblong pan lined with parchment paper.

Now comes the unusual step! Take the chocolate chips, and press them pointy side down into the dough, until it is dotted with chocolate but flat on the top. You won't use the entire bag. 

To make the meringue topping, beat the egg whites until firm but not dry. Gently fold in the brown sugar, 1/3 at a time. Spread over the top of the cookies. Bake for 25 minutes.

Let cool before eating. A warning sign to ward off college students is optional, but can be a wise idea. These are delicious!

Chicken pot pie with a sweet potato crust

I love this recipe. My dad first came across it as a use for leftover Thanksgiving turkey (using up the leftover sweet potato casserole and leftover veggies as well), but I usually use leftover roast chicken. I don't make it that often because it always seems a bit fussy to have to make both the filling AND the crust, but the last time I cooked it, I realized it was really actually pretty simple. I've typically just boiled and mashed the sweet potatoes, but I think roasting them might make for a fluffier crust - that takes some planning though.

You can add other vegetables as well - it's a great use for leftovers. Potatoes, green beans, or asparagus would all be nice additions.

Chicken Pot Pie with Sweet Potato Crust

Serves 6

3 cups chopped cooked chicken or turkey

2 tsp olive oil

1 cup chopped carrots

12 small whole white onionscut in half, or 1 large onion, chopped

½ cup chopped celery

1 tsp dried thyme

1 cup cooked peas (or frozen peas)

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

6 tablespoons butter

1 cup plus 6 tablespoons flour

1 cup cream or half-and-half

2 cups chicken broth

¾ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potatoes - let cool first

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg, well beaten

Preheat oven to 350. Heat a skillet over medium heat and add the olive oil. Add the carrots, onion, and celery and saute until softened, a few minutes. Add the thyme and cook for one minute more.

Put the chicken, carrots, onions, celery, peas and parsley into a 2 ½ quart baking dish.

Melt butter in a medium sized saucepan. Stir in the 6 tablespoons of flour and stir over medium heat for one minute. Whisk in cream and chicken broth slowly. Season with ½ teaspoon salt and the pepper. Continue to stir until the sauce boils and thickens. Pour over the chicken and vegetables and stir gently to combine.

In a medium sized bowl mix 1 cup flour, baking power and ¼ teaspoon salt. Use a fork to mix in the sweet potatoes, oil, and egg. Roll or press out dough on a lightly floured board to about ¼ inch thickness.

Cover baking dish with dough and pinch edges all around. Make a small slit in the center. Bake for 35 minutes, until crust is golden brown.

Recipe from dad, and tweaked by Gwyneth

Cauliflower in cheese sauce

When I was a kid, pretty much the only way to get me to eat vegetables was to bury them in some sort of high-fat dairy product. Even our salads had a mound of cheddar cheese on top, which I then covered in Marie's Creamy Italian dressing, which tasted like Ranch but was nearly as thick as mayonnaise. So it's no surprise that smothering cauliflower in cheese sauce was, and still is, one of my favorite ways to get my five a day.

This is a pretty simple recipe which goes very nicely with steak, and is so tasty that even kids will eat it.

Cauliflower in Cheese Sauce

1 cauliflower

1½ cups grated cheddar cheese

1 tablespoon butter

1 heaping tablespoon flour (about 1½ tablespoons)

1/4 cup milk (or more, depending on creamy you want your sauce)

Pinch of dry mustard (like Colman's)

about ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

splash of ketchup (about 2 teaspoons)

Put about ½ inch of water into a large saucepan over high heat. Toss in ½ teaspoon of salt.  Turn heat to high.

 Cut the leaves off the cauliflower and scoop out the stalk.  Put this stuff into the saucepan.  When it boils, put on the lid and turn the heat down to a simmer. (I often skip this step). 

  

15 minutes before you want to serve dinner, put the cauliflower into the pan, put on the lid, and turn up the heat to medium so it boils a little faster.

 Melt butter in a small saucepan. Add flour and stir to make a nice creamy roux. Cook without browning for at least 1 minute.

 Test the cauliflower by puncturing it with a knife. When it is the softness you want, take off the heat and drain enough of the cauliflower water into the roux to make a thick sauce.  Whisk the sauce quickly over high heat until thickened. Add the milk gradually until the sauce is a nice smooth consistency.

 Turn the heat under the sauce to low. Add the cheese, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and ketchup to taste.

  

To serve, put the cauliflower in a bowl and pour the cheese sauce over the top.

Acorn Cookies

Fall is here, so it's time for Acorn Cookies!  This is a favorite recipe in our family because it's pretty easy, the cookies look adorable, and they are highly delicious and addicting.

Acorn Cookies

1 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup pecans + about another 3/4 cup
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking power
about 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Chop all of the pecans into fairly small pieces. A food processor helps.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl, stir together the butter, brown sugar, 3/4 cup of pecans and vanilla until well blended. Set aside the rest of the pecans. Add the flour and baking powder and stir until just blended.


If the dough seems very sticky, refrigerate for about 15 minutes.

Make a ball of dough about 1" in diameter, and then roll the ball between your hands into an oval shape. Stand this up on your cookie sheet, and then pinch the dough on the top to make a point. If that sounds confusing, hopefully the photo below will help:

You can put the acorns quite close together on the cookie sheet, because they won't get much bigger.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until the points are golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool. Some of them may have flopped over, but never fear, they will still look great when they're done.

Melt chocolate chips in a microwave and stir until smooth. Carefully pick up the cookies by the point and dip them into the chocolate, and then into some of the remaining nuts. Allow to cool before eating, or else you'll get a lot of nuts falling off.

These are great with semisweet or dark chocolate. Or if you have a crazy child in your family who doesn't like chocolate, you can also use butterscotch chips.










(A final note - Gwyneth did post the recipe once already, but I thought more photographs and details might be helpful!)

Chicken and Dumplings

 

 

Like many people, I'm a fan of the Smitten Kitchen blog, and a number of the most popular recipes at my house have been taken  or adapted from recipes I found on the site. This is one of the recipes I make the most often, as it takes advantage of ingredients I almost always have on hand, it uses inexpensive chicken thighs, and it just tastes yummy. I modified the recipe from the original a bit, replacing leeks with celery, since I usually don't have leeks lying around, omitting a bit of sherry (same reason) and substituting dried herbs for the fresh. I've never made this recipe with tarragon, but it sounds like a great idea, so I left that ingredient in. I did, once, toss in a few fennel seeds instead and it gave the stew a wonderful Eastern European vibe.

 

Chicken and Dumplings

 

Serves 4

 

Chicken

6-8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
Table salt and ground black pepper
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large onion, minced
1-2 stalks celery, chopped

1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
2 bay leaves
1 cup frozen green peas
1 tablespoons dried tarragon leaves (optional) 

Dumplings
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons reserved chicken fat (or unsalted butter)


Heat the oil in a large casserole over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken thighs, about 5-6 minutes per side, then take them out and set aside. Drain off all but about 1 tablespoon of the remaining oil, and save it for the dumplings. Return the pan to the heat, and add the butter. Lower the temperature to medium, and saute the onion and celery until translucent. Season with salt and pepper.

Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Whisk in the chicken broth and bring the mixture up to a simmer. While you wait, remove the skin from the chicken thighs (it should come off pretty easily once it's been cooked, but be warned, it is a greasy, messy job.) Put the chicken thighs and herbs into the pot, and then turn down the heat to medium-low. Cover the pot and let the stew simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, until the chicken is falling off the bone.

Remove the chicken pieces and let cool. Turn the heat off the stew. This is a recipe I usually make on the weekends, so I cook everything up to this point earlier in the day, then let it rest a bit until I'm ready to finish everything off.

Once the chicken has cooled enough to handle, remove the meat from the bones. Skim off any fat from the top of the stew and discard. Add the chicken, peas, and milk to the stew and bring to a simmer.

Make the dumplings: Warm up the milk and chicken fat togther in a saucepan or the microwave. In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the milk mixture until the dough comes together. It will be very sticky still. Using two spoons, scrape balls of the dumpling batter into the stew. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, then serve.

Recipe adapted from the Smitten Kitchen: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/12/chicken-and-dumplings/

Pecan Pie

My dear husband had his birthday last month, and he had one request: Pecan Pie. Partly, this was the pragmatist in him: the pecans were going to go bad, and he hates to waste anything. But also, the man just loves my pecan pie.

In truth, this is my sister Miriam's recipe. She is the one in the family who is famous for her pies. But I do my best. For one thing, I make my pie crust from scratch:

(Quick style note - please forgive the awkward font formatting. For some reason, when cutting and pasting from some Word documents, blogger doesn't let me change the font style. It is deeply annoying, but I haven't got the time to re-write the whole recipe just to make the fonts match.)

Basic Pie Crust

For a covered pie. Make a half-recipe if you are doing an uncovered pie, like this pecan pie recipe.

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour   

1 tsp. white sugar 

½ cup solid vegetable shortening

8 Tbs (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter

1 tsp. Salt 1/3 cup plus 1 tbs. cold water

1 to 2 tbs. cold water, if needed)

In a large bowl, thoroughly mix together the flour, sugar, and salt.

Break the shortening and the butter into large chunks then add the shortening and butter to the flour mixture.  Cut into the dry ingredients using a pastry cutter or by cutting in opposite directions with 2 knives, one held in each hand. 

Cut the pastry until some pea-size chunks remain in the mixture and the rest is reduced to the consistency of coarse crumbs. 

Drizzle the water over the mixture and work the mixture together with your fingers.  If needed add 1 to 2 tbsp. of water until the pastry forms a ball (do not overdo the water in order to have a flaky crust, but make sure you add enough so that you are able to handle the dough)

Split pastry into two equal balls and roll out on a floured surface. Fill with your favorite pie filling.



Milo was so excited about my pie, he wanted to take a picture with his own camera:

Pecan Pie

9 inch unbaked pie crust     
1/3 cup butter, melted 

1 cup light corn syrup 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup dark brown sugar 

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 eggs, slightly beaten

1 heaping cup pecan halves

Heat oven to 350(F.  In large bowl, combine corn syrup, sugar, eggs, butter, salt and vanilla; mix well.  Pour filling into unbaked pie crust.  Sprinkle with pecan halves.  Bake at 350(F for 45 to 50 minutes or until center is set.  (Toothpick inserted in center will come out clean when pie is done.)  Cool before serving. 

Recipe contributed by Miriam; from a Dear Abby column

Brandied Carrots

In our family, we like to either totally nullify the nutritional value of our vegetables by adding plenty of dairy fat (for example, Continental Vegetables), or spice them up by adding a bunch of booze. And sometimes we do both (dad's recipe for creamed mushrooms with sherry is coming, just as soon as I can take a photo of it that doesn't look totally disgusting. Mushrooms are not very photogenic). This recipe falls in the middle category, and it is a wonderful way to kick up the flavor of plain old steamed carrots.

Brandied Carrots

1/4 cup water

4 cupes sliced carrots

juice of 1/2 lemon

brandy

salt

1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Bring the water to a boil. Add the carrots, then cover and turn the heat down to medium. Cook until the carrots are tender, about 5 minutes or so. Drain the carrots, then return the pan to the heat, and add the lemon juice, parsley, and a jigger or so of brandy. Toss together, letting a bit of the liquid evaporate. Add salt to taste and serve.

From "The Master in the Kitchen"