Blackberry Currant Sauce

I have never been much of a fruit person, but I’ve been seduced by the beautiful berries at the Farmers’ Market. I cannot resist the piles of berries and peaches and plums, and the best part is that it is easy to turn berries into dessert. And because it’s fruit, I can convince myself that dessert is now healthy.

This sauce requires all of three ingredients, takes about ten minutes, and makes vanilla ice cream my new favorite flavor. And I usually shun vanilla ice cream as dull, so that’s saying something. It was also quite spectacular stirred into some plain yogurt, and also, eaten out of the dish with a spoon.

I promise dinner will be ready shortly

Oh lord, where has the time gone? Thanksgiving now seems like some kind of faraway, hazy dream of an actual event, and I’m frankly embarrassed that it has taken me so darned long to write anything, even this sad excuse of a blog post. I do have pictures and recipes to share from Thanksgiving, and I’m consoling myself that most foods cooked on Thanksgiving are awfully similar to those cooked for Christmas, so they might still prove useful to someone. I’m also consoling myself with the fact that I’m almost, almost, almost on break, and then I only have one more semester until I’m DONE and GRADUATED and no longer have to do the dreaded homework. And then I might actually have time to do things like update my blog. And cook.

While I am officially done with fall semester, I can’t quite relax yet because of a very important job interview next week, for which I am flying across the country, wearing a suit, and giving a presentation. Most of my time right now is taken up in preparations for completely wow-ing the search committee and getting myself hired.

You might notice, however, that I found time to update the color scheme and do a little custom CSS designing here. This was actually part of an assignment and therefore it can’t be considered wasting time and messing around and procrastinating. I hope you find it visually appealing. I suspect you would probably find pictures of food MORE visually appealing, so I do promise that they will appear soon.

In the meantime, I thought I would take a trip through the archives to share with you some of my favorite cookie recipes, what with it being cookie baking season and all. Enjoy!

Dorie Greenspan’s Midnight Crackles—Chocolately, slightly spicy, decadent.
Russian Teacakes—my all time favorite holiday cookie. I’m trying them this year with dried cherries mixed in. I’m wild like that.
Gingersnaps—for those who like that kind of thing.
Cranberry, Orange, and Chocolate Chip Cookies—These are quickly making their way onto my favored cookies list. I made them this week for my class and they were a hit.
Chocolate Peppermint Cookies—I’ll definitely have to make these again this year.

Cranberry Upside Down Cake

I am not usually much of a cake baker, but I wanted to make something lovely and different for our chili party. I’d originally planned to make cookies, but when I saw this cake in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours, I had to make it. It seemed perfectly fall-like, and I thought the tart cranberries would be a nice counter to the spicy chilis. And I have to say it turned out even better than I thought it would. The cake is wonderful and dense, with just a hint of cinnamon, the cranberries were juicy and, yes, quite tart, and the walnuts added a nice earthy crunch to each bite. And now? I’m in love with cake baking, and I can’t wait to try more.

End of the Summer Nectarine Galette

About two weeks ago, I set out to make a nectarine pie. I bought some nectarines, mixed up a batch of pie dough, and set it in the fridge to chill. And when I got to making the filling, I realized that the whole carton of nectarines was rotten and there were ants in the sugar! Infuriating! I was going on vacation, so I threw the pie dough in the freezer and tried to forget the whole debacle.

Last night I finally bought fresh nectarines and another box of sugar, but instead of making a pie, I thought I would try a galette, instead. Galettes are so much less fussy, and also smaller, which is good for a household of only three. Pies always end up being thrown away almost whole, because we can never eat that much pie. And now that I realize how much easier galettes are, I will very likely make them all the time. Who need a pie pan, anyway? They are just excess kitchenware.

Banana Bread Ice Cream

Oh man, where the heck have I been? Well, sadly, no where. I didn’t go on vacation or anything. I have just been sitting on my tuchus, watching Big Love, reading the Twilight books, and eating way too much frozen, prepared, and/or take out food. Why, you ask? I don’t know. I just got really, very lazy and felt incredibly uncreative. And when I did manage to spend some time standing in front of the stove, my camera was no where to be seen and the mere thought of trying to blog about any of it was exhausting. How pathetic. I guess the end of summer vacation might do that to a person?

Well, I am going on vacation now, home to San Diego to see the fam, and I have plans for some cooking there which will definitely be shared. But I wanted to be sure to leave you with something small before I left. Small, but delicious: Banana Bread Ice Cream.

Chocolate Creme Brulee

The semester is finally over, and I have spent this first week of summer break being very happily lazy. There are a ton of projects I want to work on this summer, including a redesign of this here blog, but right now I am thoroughly enjoying not having anything to do. And what have I been doing with all this free time? Besides re-reading Harry Potter for the seventy-second time, and sleeping in, and taking really long walks in the lovely May weather, I have been, of course, cooking.

Last summer my housemate, Miss Amelia Bedelia, bought me a lovely creme brulee set, which, much to her chagrin, sat unused in the pantry all year long. With Amelia getting ready to leave us for the summer I realized the only fitting and proper thing to do was to break out the torch and make some creme brulee. I also recently received, from the ever-generous folks at Blake Makes and Amano Chocolates, several bars of incredibly rich, perfectly bittersweet dark chocolate. Amelia loves chocolate, Amelia loves creme brulee, so clearly, chocolate creme brulee was the answer.

Chocolate-Caramel Slice

I received raucous cheers and applause for these babies. I am not kidding, there were whoops and shouts and there was some profuse praise, I think brought on by the sugar high these things induce. They are rich and almost unbearably sweet, the chocolate sugar overdose avoided only by the bits of salt scattered across the top. And they were an overwhelming hit with everyone who tasted them, even the mostly vegan woman who happily ate them despite the fact that they are loaded with butter and sweetened condensed milk.

When I first read the recipe in Bon Appetit, I thought they sounded lovely but were probably more trouble than they were worth. The recipe has three parts: the crust, the caramel, and the chocolate topping. It involved a candy thermometer. It involved cooking and then chilling and then cooking and chilling some more. But I wanted to do something impressive for the last-day-of-class party we had in cataloging, so I thought I’d give it a go, and as it turns out they are not nearly so difficult as they sound.

Dorie’s Midnight Crackles

My cataloging class is on Friday, and the professor assigns each student a date to bring a snack for the class. This Friday was my snack day, and you can bet your sweet tuchas that I wasn’t about to go to Shaw’s and buy a box of Keeblers. When I have an opportunity to bake for people, I jump on it. And after a week of relatively disastrous cooking experiences, I turned to Dorie Greenspan for guidance. I knew she wouldn’t steer me wrong, and she didn’t. Even though I took some (minor) detours from her recipe, these cookies were still pretty amazing, and my classmates devoured them. And they were pretty darned astonished that I made them myself, too. Baking apparently impresses people. I’ll have to keep that in mind.

Peppermint Cookies and Cream Brownies = Crazy Good

I saw these on Slashfood awhile ago and I knew I had to have them. My housemates thoroughly agreed. So once I finished all the projects and classes and found myself in vacation, I went straight to Trader Joe’s, bought myself a box of Peppermint Jo-Jo’s (so much better than an Oreo will ever be) and baked up a plate of these insanely delicious brownies.

I didn’t follow the Baking Bites recipe exactly. Or at all. Instead, I found a basic brownie recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s book and stirred in the crushed up peppermint cookies at the end. And wow, oh wow. They were the very picture of decadence. The creamy peppermint filling melted into the brownie, and the cookies got crispy and extra baked tasting, and all in all, this was a brownie experience well worth repeating. In fact, I only got one brownie before they disappeared, which is both testament to their deliciousness and a requirement for me to make them again. Soon.

Only the blog has been neglected, my stomach remains satisfied

Oh the neglect. I must apologize to whatever readers remain. The past few weeks have been stressful, exciting, busy, exhausting, fantastic, and terrifying. This being a student again thing is turning out to be more intense than I expected. My previous educational experiences stand out in my mind as a series of thrilling days full of joyful learning. I didn’t remember the hard work parts. I’m remembering them now. Don’t misunderstand. It’s freakin’ great, but I am tired.

I finally got a chance to talk to the Lady Crystal today (oh thank god, I needed that) and her plaintive sighs about missing my cooking and my blog are what brought me to the ‘puter tonight. It’s about time, and I swear, I will do my best to not let so much time elapse in the future. Especially because I really have been cooking things. I’m not subsisting on take out and frozen pizza, I swear!