All About Food

Potato Nests

I made salmon patties last week. I've been eating the fish patties ever since I was a child. They were a Lenten special in our house and always a favorite of my dad's. He loved salmon patties best when they were served with mashed potatoes and creamed peas. I still serve them that way. If you like salmon patties, you might like to try my recipe. Click here to go right to the recipe.

I like to create shallow nests with the mashed potatoes, forming a perfect shallow well for a generous spoonful of creamy peas. A swipe of melted butter over their tops keeps them moist on the inside and, after a short trip into the oven for a quick broil, the butter develops speckles of golden brown.

I prepare six potato nests at a time. That always provides me with some leftovers to put in the refrigerator for another day. On Saturday morning, I heated a couple of the cold potato nests at 50% power in the microwave oven while my husband poached some eggs.

Poached eggs nestled into Potato Nests, sprinkled with sliced green onions was a satisfying weekend breakfast.

 Potato Nests

Wash and peel potatoes. Cut into large chunks. Place in pot with enough water to cover. Bring to boil. Cook until potatoes are tender. Drain and mash potatoes. Beat in salt, pepper, hot milk, 2 tablespoons butter and egg, continuing until mixture is smooth and creamy. Add more hot milk if mixture is too thick and stiff.

Spoon mixture into 6 equal-sized mounds on a buttered baking sheet. Use back of spoon to form shallow nests. at this point, potato nests can be covered and stored in refrigerator.

Preheat broiler. If potatoes have been refrigerated, take them out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before broiling, giving them time to come close to room temperature. Melt remaining 1 tablespoon of butter. Use a pastry brush to coat the top of each potato nest with butter. Slide the pan of potatoes under the broiler. Oven rack should be about 8 inches away from broiler element. Remove Potato Nests from oven when tops are brown.

Leftover potato nests can be stored, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to three days. Heat in the microwave at 50% or 60% power.

Posted by: sdoeden on 3/14/2010 at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: brunch, make ahead breakfast, mashed potatoes, potatoes

It's coffee cake.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped into a cozy coffee shop tucked into a rural community in West Central Minnesota. On the exterior, it was just an old brick building, but one step through the door and my nostrils were greeted with the aroma of rich brewed coffee. Cookies, sweet rolls and scones tempted me from the case of sweets. I decided this was a place I could nestle into for a while.

As I ordered my first cup of coffee of the day -- large dark roast, no cream -- I spied a cake in a 9-x13-inch pan situated on the counter. A couple of pieces had already been served from the cake, so I could see its insides. I thought for sure it looked like a rhubarb cake. If I could be that lucky, I would definitely splurge on a big chunk to eat with my coffee.

It was a very brief back and forth conversation with the server in the shop that dashed away any dreams of satisfying my taste buds that had begun to salivate for rhubarb cake.

Me: Excuse me. What kind of cake is that?

She: It's coffee cake.

Me: Oh, there's no rhubarb in it?

She: No, it's coffee cake.

Me: So, there's coffee in the cake? (I thought this a legitimate question, since this was a coffee shop, after all.)

She: It's coffee cake.

Me: Okay. I'll take a piece, please.

The cake was good, despite the fact it had no rhubarb. It was moist on the inside. The top carried a blanket of crunchy sugary topping. It went well with my coffee. I guess that's why it's called coffee cake.

After finishing my morning pick-me-up, I walked to an antique shop that was close-by. I found a rack of old church cookbooks. As I was paging through a cookbook from a church in the community, a recipe for COFFEE CAKE jumped right out at me. I decided to buy the book and make coffee cake when I returned home. By the time I was done shopping, my arms were loaded with at least half a dozen old cookbooks with their stained pages, torn covers and occasional notes jotted in by previous owners as they baked and cooked their favorite recipes.

When I set the stack of cookbooks on the counter to pay for them, I was shocked when the store owner told me they were $9.99 each. What? I'll bet they didn't cost that much brand new. Apparently, church cookbooks are harder to come by these days, thus their value has increased. Just when I thought I would clean out all the old church cookbooks from my shelves -- guess not. I walked out of the store with just two cookbooks and 4 of the prettiest little Italian espresso cups and saucers.

Finally, I've made a coffee cake. I used the recipe from the old church cookbook I brought home, but added my own topping and some sweet almond glaze. It's so old-fashioned looking -- it seems like something out of grandma's kitchen. And it tastes like it, too. Delicious!

When I took the pretty little cake out of the oven, it suddenly occured to me that I had forgotten to add the sugar to the cake batter.

Sugar is added to baked goods for a good reason. Irregular sugar crystals create thousands of tiny air pockets that produce a delicate and satisfying crumb structure and expanded volume. Sugar also slows down the baking time, giving the baking powder time to work. So, with sugar, this coffee cake would have a delicate crumb texture rather than here-and-there holes. And, it may even have more volume if the baking powder had a little more time to do its job.

My coffee cake -- no sugar -- gets plenty of sweetness from the almond and brown sugar topping. I mixed some almond paste into the butter and brown sugar. It adds marvelous flavor.

 Well, now you know. It's coffee cake. No sugar. No cream. Coffee cake.

Coffee Cake with Sweet Almond Topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour a 9-inch round baking pan or glass baking dish.

Make Sweet Almond Topping:

In a bowl, mix:

Set topping aside.

Make cake:

Sift together into a mixing bowl:

Whisk in:

In a 2-cup glass measure, beat:

Add:

Add:

Pour liquid into bowl with dry ingredients. Mix just until none of the dry ingredients are visible. Spread batter in prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with topping. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

Allow cake to cool in pan on wire rack. Make glaze and drizzle over the cake.

Glaze

Mix all ingredients until smooth. Leftover glaze can be stored in the refrigerator.

Cake adapted from recipe in First Lutheran Church Cookbook, Morris, MN. 1986.

 

 

 

Posted by: sdoeden on 3/11/2010 at 1:15 PM | Comments (7) | Permalink

Tags: baking, brunch, coffee cake, food, sweet almond topping

Coffee and Cream Fudge Bites - a little bit of Irish

 Ever since I was in grade school, St. Patrick's' Day has been a day when I wish I was at least a little bit Irish. The teachers at my school instructed their Irish students to wear something green on St. Patrick's Day. The rest of us -- orange. So, while many of my friends came to school wrapped in green sweaters, donning fuzzy green shamrocks on their shirt, or wearing green socks, I would come with an orange headband in my hair. I would have preferred green.

As a young baker, though, I made sure our family had shamrock-shaped sugar cookies frosted in green on St. Patrick's Day. I never told my teachers.

To this day, I don't wear a bit of green on St. Patrick's Day -- my teachers taught me well. But, I don't wear orange, either. I just sneak a little bit of Irish into the foods I eat on that special day.

This year, I developed a pie with a fudge brownie crust, filled with Irish Cream pudding and topped with Irish Cream-spiked whipped cream.  I discovered the brownie crust batter can be dropped onto baking sheets to create chocolatey rich cookies.

One bite and you'll think you've discovered the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But, wait. There's more. Creamy frosting made with coffee, chcolate and Irish cream is swirled over the top of each cookie.

I topped each frosted cookie with one tiny Chocolate Crunchy Bit. I first experienced these cute candies a few months ago at Meritage, a restaurant located downtown St. Paul. After an exquisite meal, I studied their dessert menu. One of the desserts listed was described as being served with chocolate rice krispies. In my mind, I pictured chocolate-flavored crunchy rice cereal and I could not  imagine why on earth a restaurant serving such wonderful food would include dessert with cereal sprinkled over the top. I ordered it out of curiousity.

It turned out the chocolate rice krispies were not cereal. They were crunchy little chocolate balls. On that same trip to the Twin Cities, I found a bag of the cute chocolate rounds at Cooks of Crocus Hill. They're the perfect adornment for Coffee and Irish Cream Fudge Bites.

The fudgy cookies are just a little bit Irish in a non-traditional kind of way. But they will be all I need to sneak a streak of Irish into my house on St. Patrick's Day.

Oh, if you feel like a pie with a fudge brownie crust and a filling that's a bit Irish along with a topping of cream, just click here.

Coffee and (Irish) Cream Fudge Bites

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place butter, unsweetened chocolate and semisweet chocolate into a 4-cup glass measure. Microwave at 50% to 60% power. Stir after each minute until mixture is melted and smooth. This will take just a couple of minutes. Stir in sugar, cocoa powder, eggs, coffee or whiskey and vanilla extract and mix well. Add flour and salt and mix just until thoroughly blended. Refrigerate dough for at least 3 hours or overnight. At baking time, drop dough, about a heaping teaspoon per cookie, onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

When cookies are completely cool, frost with Irish Coffee Frosting.

In a medium bowl, combine cocoa with hot coffee and Irish Cream. Add butter, vanilla and powdered sugar. Beat with electric hand mixer until creamy and smooth. Use a rubber spatula to scoop frosting into a sandwich-size plastic bag. Twist the top of the bag, moving the frosting toward one corner of the bag. Use scissors to cut a small piece from one tip of the bag. Squeeze the bag to pipe frosting onto the top of each cookie. Garnish with chocolate crunchy bits, if desired.

 

Posted by: sdoeden on 3/07/2010 at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: brownies, chocolate cookies, crunchy chocolate bits, food, irish cream, irish cream frosting, irish dessert

I'll bet you'll love this chocolate Bette

Mmmmmmmmmmm. Chocolate. And more chocolate. Rich, not too sweet and not one bit of flour. That's Bette LeMae. It's a traditional dessert that's been served at northern Minnesota's Ruttger's Bay Lake Lodge for years. And, I had a taste of it at the Twin Cities Food and Wine Experience a couple of weeks ago.

Just one of the two-bite-sized cube of Bette LeMae flew me right back in time to my first experience with flourless chocolate cake. I was at a cooking class with about five other people in Andrea Halgrimson's kitchen. She was teaching us how to make a cake she described as so decadent, so breathtaking she just had to name it, "Chocolate O." You know what that "O" stands for, right? The chocolate dessert lived up to its name.

Ruttger's Bette LeMae is just like that. They were so kind to share their recipe as they offered samples of the sublime cubes of chocolate dipped in chocolate.

As you read through the recipe, you'll notice that the mixture of boiling water, chocolate, eggs, sugar and butter must be strained before baking. This removes any little bits of cooked egg, creating a perfectly smooth flourless cake. Use a fine mesh strainer or a colander lined with a double thickness of cheesecloth.

The batter is poured into a round pan and baked in a hot water bath, or Bain Marie (bane mah-ree). This method cooks the cake gently, creating a smooth, custard-like texture. As it cools after baking, this cake becomes something like fudge -- only much better. Smothered in a rich blend of chocolate and heavy cream, this dessert becomes simply dreamy.

You can go directly to a printable version of Ruttger's Bette LeMae recipe by clicking right here. They've got a recipe archive that's worth checking out, too. Click here.

I just registered for my first bike ride of the season. This year, the Tour of Lakes starts at the high school in Crosby, Minnesota. Deerwood is right next door. And, that's where Ruttger's Bay Lake Lodge is located. Tour of Lakes has a reputation for for the quality, variety and quantity of the food at the rest stops. Maybe I'll find Bette LeMae at one of the stops? A hungry (chocoholic) biker can only hope.

In the meantime, (I can't wait for June 5th) I'll make my own Bette LeMae. Mmmmmmmm. Chocolate. And more chocolate.

Thanks for sharing the recipe, Ruttgers!

 

 

 

 

Bette LeMae -- A Signature Recipe from Ruttger's Bay Lake Lodge

In saucepan, mix water and sugar and boil for 2 minutes. Add butter, bittersweet chocolate and chocolate chips. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 more minutes.

While mixture is boiling, beat 6 eggs in mixing bowl. Slowly add boiled mixture to eggs, beating at low speed. Let mixture beat for 2 - 3 minutes. Strain mixture into stainless steel bowl and pour into prepared wax paper-lined and floured 9-inch round pan. Place pan in hot water bath and bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees. When done, remove from water bath and place on towel. Scrape around side of pan and allow to set for 10 minutes.

Turn Bette LeMae over onto plate. Let cool for 1 hour before frosting.

Bette LeMae Frosting Glaze

Scald whipping cream and remove from heat. Add chocolate chips and stir until melted. Let stand until cooled. Frost Bette LeMae. Store in the refrigerator.

Posted by: sdoeden on 3/04/2010 at 8:00 AM | Comments (3) | Permalink

Tags: andrea halmgrimson, bette lemae, chocolate, flourless chocolate cake, food, ruttgers bay lake lodge, tour of lakes, twin cities food and wine experience

Orzo: a good pasta pick

Orzo, the pasta, sounds a lot like ouzo, an anise-flavored liqueur that is often called the National drink of Greece. So, when I think orzo, I think Greek. Usually.

Orzo, a flat pasta that looks similar to very large grains of rice, is an Italian word that means "barley." And, oftentimes, it is used just like barley in soups, stews and side dishes.

It is commonly used in Greek and Mediterranean dishes, often tossed with feta, spinach, pine nuts and tomatoes.

I like orzo for its quick-cooking characteristic, and it's broad adaptability to many ingredients and dishes.

In the Orzo Pilaf I concocted to go along with Zippy Garlic Shrimp, the orzo pasta offered something a little more interesting and unique than a pasta bowl filled with long thin threads of angel hair.

I love packing Orzo Pilaf into custard cups and unmolding them onto plates. Or, as you see it in these photos, I placed a round cookie cutter onto the plate, packed the Orzo Pilaf snugly into the cookie cutter, then gently lifted the cookie cutter up from the pilaf. It holds its shape beautifully.

Try this recipe and you'll soon be developing your own special blend of ingredients to create Orzo Pilaf.

Orzo Pilaf

Bring water to a boil in a large pot. Stir in orzo. Add 1 teaspoon salt, if desired. Cook orzo for 8 to 10 minutes, until pasta is tender and a bit chewy, or al dente. Drain. Set aside.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, add garlic and sundried tomato. Cook 1 minute. Add spinach and cooked orzo. Stir constantly until spinach is wilted and orzo is heated through. Stir in cheese, wine, pepper and salt. Cook until cheese is melted. Stir in pine nuts and serve.

Makes 4 servings.

 

 

 

Posted by: sdoeden on 2/28/2010 at 12:01 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink

Tags: food, orzo, pasta, pilaf, quick side dish

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