Walnut Pesto

There were giant bunches of basil staring me down at the farm stand. They said:
"My only desire in my short basil-y life is to be pesto."
And so I acquiesced.
Basil can be very persuasive. 

Walnut Pesto

Makes about 6oz

A couple roasted garlic cloves, more or less to taste

1 ounce fresh basil leaves

1 ounce walnuts

3 tablespoons grated romano or parmesan cheese

1/4 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil

juice from half of a lemon

a few pinches of salt

First roast the garlic. (click here to learn how)

Next, combine garlic, basil and walnuts in a food processor and process for 30 seconds or until chopped fairly evenly. While the food processor is still running drizzle in olive oil, then the cheese and lemon juice. Add salt to taste but remember the cheese is salty already.

Toss pesto with warm pasta, or spread on crusty baguette (my favorite way to eat it). Also makes a great spread for sandwiches, a base for bruschetta, or pizza; and it's delicious mixed with ricotta, in calzones and stuffed shells.

Better than Nutella

Nutella is one of those foods that I just won't buy. Not since my freshman year in college anyway. Back then I bought it twice or three times when I first moved into the dorms. I ate it on everything from toast to fruit and it was especially good right off a spoon directly from the jar. Of course each jar disappeared all too quickly (a week or less a piece), and I decided Nutella was a food better left in Supermarket. 

The next three years went by without so much as a thought of, or even craving for Nutella until one misty morning in early 2009. I was in India, in the city of Varanasi (formerly known as Benaras). I sat down to breakfast and on the table was a jar of Nutella and a basket of bread. I remembered it's smooth, creamy texture and immediately toasted a slice of bread, spread a thick layer of the dreamy, chocolatey, goodness and took a bite. It was just as I'd remembered it. Better, actually, because by then I had been in India for over two weeks and I was definitely missing familiar foods. I ate a few more slices, closed the jar and went about the next year as I had the past three. 

Then one day this past February, I made my own Nutella. I figured if I made it myself, I can control what goes into it. I can make the main ingredient nuts instead of sugar, I can leave out the preservatives and I can certainly leave out the hydrogenated oils. My first attempt came out alright. I used a tiny food processor and the texture wasn't spectacular. I used honey for the sweetener and it lent a taste that I said I didn't mind, but later decided wasn't my favorite. Last but not least every recipe I looked at had added oil so I added a bit as well - just to try to smooth it out. The result was good and I was completely thrilled with it at the time, but I didn't find myself making it again. In fact, I pretty much forgot about Nutella altogether, until I spied an especially delicious looking chocolate croissant in the bakery the other day. It reminded me of when I used to eat croissants slathered with the stuff in high school. 


I decided to try again. 
Only this time, it would be different. 
This time, it would be better.
This time, it would be so good, I wouldn't even call it Nutella.
This time, it would be better than Nutella.

I used an 11-cup food processor, powdered sugar and no added oil. After all, the nuts have plenty of oil in them already and that really should be sufficient. It turns out I was right. Just 4 ingredients made the best chocolate-hazelnut spread I've ever tasted with less fat, calories and sugar than Nutella.

Better than Nutella

It's important to use a food processor with a capacity of 11-cups or larger otherwise the nuts will not smooth out properly. Makes about 1 1/2 cups

2 cups hazelnuts

1/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder

6 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place hazelnuts in a single layer on a shallow baking pan. Toast until the skins are almost black and the meat is dark brown, about 15 minutes. Stir the nuts halfway through baking to ensure an even color.

Since the skin is bitter, you’ll want to discard them. Wrap the cooled hazelnuts in a clean kitchen towel or paper towel, and rub until most of the skins have come off. Don’t worry if you can’t get off all the skins.

Process nuts in a food processor, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally, until they have liquefied, about 5 minutes. First, you will get coarsely chopped nuts, then a fine meal. After a little while, the nuts will form a ball around the blade, and it will seem like you only have a solid mass. Keep processing. The heat and friction will extract the natural oils, and you will get hazelnut butter.

When the nuts are liquified, add the cocoa and vanilla.
Next add the powdered sugar a tablespoon at a time until the mixture reaches your desired texture and sweetness. Make sure you scrape down the sides in between

Note: First two paragraphs of the instructions are from Jessica at Su Good Sweets.

That's right, there's cereal in my cookies.

When you're moving cities it's important to eat all the things you are going to miss when you're gone. 

Wings from the Dugout... 

Ice Cream and Chicken from the Big Dipper...

It's important to go with friends... 

It's important to use up all the stray baking ingredients hiding in your kitchen...

It's important to do so by making absolutely delicious compost cookies... 

I'm a little late jumping on the compost cookie bandwagon but better late than never, right? I threw in chocolate, white chocolate, dried fruit, and cereal. That's right, there's cereal in my cookies. I also threw in cornmeal in place of some of the flour just because I could. Basically, if a cowboy cookie and a Momofuku Milk Bar Compost Cookie had a child, it would turn out like this. I called them compostin' cowboy cookies because of their mixed breed but really, all that matters is how they taste.

I actually wasn't expecting such a delicious result, because I usually like my cookies simpler, but I was pleasantly surprised. The crispy brown rice cereal gives an unexpected chewy crunch and you really can't go wrong with both dark and white chocolate. The raisins and dried cherries are good but you could easily replace them with nuts if dried fruit isn't your thing. 

Compostin' Cowboy Cookies 

Typically compost cookies have potato chips in them but I don't think potato chips really have much place in this world outside bars, BBQs and football games - plus I didn't have any at home. Pretzels on the other hand would definitely go over well because salty and sweet might just be the best combination out there. Feel free to throw in whatever you have on hand, salty, sweet, crunchy, chewy, whatever. I listed a few variations at the bottom. 

Makes about 27 large cookies 

225 g unsalted butter, at room temperature

250g turbinado sugar 

180g sucanat 

1 tbsp honey 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

2 eggs 

300g whole wheat pastry flour 

115g stone ground cornmeal 

2 tsp kosher salt 

1 tsk baking soda 

2 tsp baking powder 

200g dark chocolate chips 

200g white chocolate chips 

150g crispy brown rice cereal 

200g mixed raisins and dried cherries 

Stand mixer or electric hand mixer is must for these cookies. 

Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar and syrup for three minutes until fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs and beat for ten minutes. It will be very thick, and fluffy. 

Mix flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder in a separate bowl, and add this to the cookie batter. 

Stir as little as possible to combine them. 

Add your mix-ins and stir just to combine. 

Shape large balls -I used my 3 tablespoon cookie scoop - and place on greased baking sheets, leaving a lot of room in between. I fit five cookies per sheet. 

Bake immediately or refrigerate until ready to use. 

Bake at 350°F for 9-11 minutes. 

Important note: Let them cool completely on the sheet or they will fall apart. 

Other Variations: 

-Replace the cornmeal with additional whole wheat pastry flour 

-Replace the cornmeal with rye flour 

-Replace the sucanat with dark or light brown sugar (cookies will be sweeter with dark) 

-Replace the sucanat with dark or light muscovado sugar (cookies will be sweeter with dark) 

-Replace the turbinado sugar with white sugar or another refined or unrefined sugar 

-Replace the chocolate, white chocolate, cereal and dried fruit with 500-600g of whatever mix-ins you have on hand. Traditional Momofuku Compost cookies have some combination of potato chips, pretzels, and chocolate. Pecans, walnuts and/or mac nuts would be good. 

-Add 100-200g of shredded unsweetened coconut 

-More mix-in suggestions: Peanut butter chips, heath bar bits, m&m's, peanut m&m's, butterscotch chips, mini Rolos, mini peanut butter cups

Black and Blue Berry Crisp

Well, it's over.

Graduation weekend came and went in a flurry of activity and far too much food. We had multiple BBQs some with family some without and I'm pretty sure I haven't cooked a proper meal in almost two weeks. I also can't remember the last time I ate anything leafy, healthy or salad-like. Instead I seem to have replaced my usual vegetable intake with large quantities of dessert. 

At least this one has fruit in it.

This crisp actually started out as strawberry-rhubarb pie, but it seems as though rhubarb is everywhere except Binghamton right now. That's okay because this was a lot less work and turned out to be quite popular at the BBQ I brought it to. In fact, I also made mini cannolis and a raspberry custard tart but the recipe most people asked for was this crisp. It's funny how different people can have such different opinions; personally I thought this was just okay, if not a bit boring, but I received so many compliments that eventually I promised to post the recipe. 

The top is similar to granola in flavor but I think part of my issue with it was the lack of crunch. I wanted crisp and flaky but instead it was softer and crumbly. Don't get me wrong it's good the way it is, but if you are after a crunchier result like I am, try replacing half of the flour with more oats. I can't promise that will solve it but that would be my next step. It probably wouldn't hurt to bake it a bit longer as well.

Black and Blue Berry Crisp

Taste your berries, if they are particularly tart toss them with a tablespoon of sugar. Mine were pretty sweet and I like them on the tart side anyway so I didn't bother.

You could easily leave the nuts out if you don't like them but I highly recommend keeping them. I used sucanat because it's what I had at home but I think dark muscovado sugar would work the best. If you don't have either of those you could easily replace it with dark brown sugar. I served it with fresh whipped cream because there was no freezer to store ice  cream. Either is delicious but we all know I prefer ice cream any day. If you serve it warm, you could also serve a pitcher of cold cream along side to drizzle over the top. 

If you plan to add the coconut, as I suggested in the body of this post, toss it together with all the dry ingredients - I would suggest about a 1/2 cup. Serves 12.

9 cups blackberries

5 cups blueberries

scant 2 tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour

2/3 cup chopped toasted pecans

2/3 cups slice almonds

1 1/4 cup old fashioned rolled oats

1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 cup sucanat or muscovado sugar

3 tablespoons raw sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Toast the nuts for 6 minutes, let cool and then chop course.

Mix the chopped nuts, oats, flour, both sugars, cinnamon, and salt.

Using a pastry blender, your fingers or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, work the butter in just until the mixture comes together in a crumbly texture. Keep chilled until ready to use. You could even make it ahead and store it in the fridge (up to a week) or freezer (up to 2 months).

When ready to bake the crisp, butter  (or spray with olive oil) a 9x13x2in baking dish and set aside. Toss the berries with 2 tablespoons flour and 1 tablespoon sugar if using. Pour into baking dish and spread out evenly. Cover with crumb topping and bake 50-60 minutes or until crisp is golden and fruit is bubbling. Best if served warm but still delicious at room temperature. You could also make the whole thing the morning you wish to serve it and reheat it in the oven right before serving. 

Of course, being the rowing obsessed bunch that we are; the BBQ took place at our boathouse, where we taught our families to row. To see more pictures from the weekend click here.

Gluten-Free Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

I think I need to take a computer course. Isn’t that ridiculous? Isn’t my generation supposed to be naturally computer savvy?

Unfortunately I seem to have missed out on the “computer genius” gene and I’ve been struggling with uploading pictures off my camera (among other things). The program just shuts down every time I plug in the camera. I feel like I spend at least 75% of my day troubleshooting cursing at my computer and it makes me want to unplug it, toss it out the window, and move to the country. 

Am I crazy or are there other people out there who feel like technology is sometimes frequently more trouble than it's worth? I feel really old and crabby saying that but it's true, I hate computers.

I'm very frustrated because I had this great post planned for you guys; with some pictures from my race on Saturday (my boat placed second), a few scenes from opening day at the farmer’s market (I bought 5lbs of honey), and these delicious cookies I made for my rowers. I've been putting off posting about these things since Saturday because I can't seem to get the pictures off my camera. At this point I didn't want to wait any longer to share these cookies with you, so I've decided to post without pictures and update when I'm finally able to load them.
Edit: I was able to get pictures of the cookies off my camera but now I'm having trouble again so no market pictures.

Gluten-Free Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Elana's Pantry. Yields about 24 Cookies.

I'm not allergic to gluten, nor are any of the guys who I made these cookies for but I’ve been wanting to try baking almond meal for a while. Unfortunately, the only company available in Binghamton is Bob’s Red Mill and I’ve read only bad reviews about it (dry, crumbly etc) – plus it’s about  $10 a pound. The Trader Joe’s* brand, however, is significantly cheaper and has a much better texture. It is a meal and not a flour so its not very finely ground but it adds great texture to cookies or a sturdier cake – just don’t try to make angel food cake with it.

These have a softer chewier texture, more like an oatmeal cookie. I received nothing but positive feedback on them but I want to cut down on the fat content - 10g per cookie is a bit high for me but that's due to the almonds. Since I'm not concerned with keeping them gluten-free, I'm going to try replacing a small portion of the almond meal with whole wheat flour. If you want to maintain the gluten-free properties but still want to cut down on fat, I suspect oat flour would do the trick nicely. However, If you want to replace more than 1 cup of the almond meal, you'll also need to increase the oil to replace the fat lost from the almonds.

These cookies are only slightly sweet so if you prefer yours sweeter I would suggest using maple syrup instead of honey or even half syrup, half honey. The syrup will add a slightly different almost caramelized flavor.

2 ½ cups almond meal**

1/2 teaspoon baking soda


1/2 teaspoon salt


1/2 cup honey (see headnotes)

1/2 cup light olive oil

1 tablespoon vanilla extract


1/2 cup extra dark chocolate chips***

Preheat oven to 350F

Combine all ingredients, except the chocolate chips, in a medium bowl. Mix well. Mix in chocolate chips and refrigerate for 20 minutes. On parchment-lined baking sheet, drop round (generous) tablespoonfuls of dough, spacing 2 inches apart. If dough seems dry and rigid, flatten a bit. If you like ultra chewy cookies, flatten dough into discs before baking.

Bake for 7-9 minutes, until lightly golden (If you like crisper cookies, bake 9-10 minutes.). It's important to let them cool on baking sheet for a full 10-20 minutes to set, otherwise they will just fall apart.

Notes

*The last time I was on Long Island I got a little carried away at Trader Joe's since we don't have one in Binghamton - I think I bought something like 9 pounds of almond meal. Oops.

**Be sure to store an opened bag of almond meal in the fridge or even the freezer so that it does not go rancid from the fat.

***I've been hearing a lot of good reviews on Guittard chocolate so I bought a bag of their extra dark chocolate chips. The result? They were good, but i prefer the larger size and flatter shape of my usual Ghirardelli 60% Dark chips.

All Natural Nutella

There really isn't too much to say about this except that you should be making it right now. Seriously, go get your food processor. I'll wait.


Ready? Good. This is so easy and since the first ingredient is hazelnuts it's actually pretty healthy. I can't say the same about store-bought Nutella in which the first ingredient is sugar. True, my homemade version is definitely not as smooth as the store-bought but I only have a very tiny food processor (mini-chop). If you use a full size 11 cup or larger and let it run for quite a while you'll get a smoother consistency than I did. In reality, that has more to do with my impatience than the size of my food processor - I have to hold the 'grind' button down the entire time instead of turning it on and walking away. After 5 minutes I lost my drive to hold that little button. At any rate, I'll stop rambling because you should be eating this instead of reading about it.


If you're motivated you could make a fresh baguette to go along with it. It's like a little piece of Paris in every bite. Now if only I could remember anything from all those years (11!) of studying french. Oh, quel dommage.  

All Natural Nutella

I used olive oil to avoid buying anything but, on the off chance you own some hazelnut oil, it would be fantastic. Makes about 1 1/2 cups.

1 cup hazelnuts

Pinch of salt

5-6 tablespoons honey

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably organic and fair trade)

1 Tablespoon vanilla

2-3 tsp olive oil 

In a food processor, grind the hazelnuts to a smooth butter, scraping the sides as needed

Add the cocoa, honey, vanilla, oil and salt. Process until well blended

Spread on a slice of bread (or everything).

A Lighter Lemon Curd

Did you know it was possible to get writer's block even when the only thing you write is a food blog?

Well it is.

I've been trying to write this post since tuesday and I just can't do it. Usually when I get stuck I put down my laptop, walk away and try again later, but this time I can't get past the first line...

'If I had to pick a favorite "flavor" it would always be lemon. Always.'

Each day this week I've returned to this post, written a few lines, promptly decided I didn't like what I had written, deleted it, and closed my laptop again until the next day. Well, no more.
It's not fair to keep such a delicious recipe from all of you just because I've been getting my words a bit tangled. Without further fuss here is lighter, healthier recipe for lemon curd. Do yourself a favor and make this tangy, silky, spread that has clearly left me speechless.

A Lighter Lemon Curd

Makes about 1 cup.

3/4 cup lemon juice, strained


3 tsp of lemon zest


5 tablespoons honey

2 eggs, lightly beaten 

In a small saucepan, mix together the lemon juice, zest and honey. 

Place over low heat and stir till nearly boiling. 

Gently, pour the lemon syrup into the beaten eggs, a little at a time, whisking constantly for about a minute.

Return the mixture to the pan over low heat. Stir constantly with a whisk until it thickens. 

Remove from heat and pass through a strainer to remove zest bits of egg that may have cooked and turned lumpy. I don't mind the zest or lumps so I skip this step unless I'm using the curd as part of another recipe or if I plan on serving it to other people. I kind of like the texture so If it's just for me I leave it the way it is.