Creamy Grape Salad with Almonds

One of my favorite childhood memories is creamy fruit salads made with various combinations of grapes, cherries, mandarin oranges, pineapple, or apples, sometimes with crunchy nuts mixed in. The creamy part also varied, often made with sour cream and cream cheese or whipped topping, but all were sweet and sometimes tasted more like dessert than a dinner side dish. As far as my sweet tooth and I were concerned, creamy fruit salads were as good as it gets.

Don’t judge me. Read more

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Malted Milk Gelato

With Labor Day weekend upon us, we’ve reached the unofficial end of summer. School starts next week and the pool closes, two signs that summer is over, but we’re stretching it out a bit with this gelato based on one of my favorite candies from childhood, Whoppers. The inspiration for this gelato came from two sources: The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz, and Making Artisan Gelato by Torrance Kopfer (both books in my personal collection). Lebovitz has a recipe for malted milk ice cream in his book, but I wanted to make it into a gelato, so I followed Kopfer’s methods to make the gelato base and used Lebovitz’s instructions for mixing the malted milk powder. If you enjoy gelato and want to learn how to make it at home, I highly recommend Kopfer’s book because it has so much helpful information on how to get that creamy gelato texture or at least approximate it with common home ice cream makers. Read more

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Orange Blueberry Muffins

When I acquired a copy of Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours a couple months ago, my reasoning was I needed it for whatever challenges The Daring Bakers might throw out, but really it’s because I wanted to try every recipe in the book. I’d seen wonderful samples all over the cooking blogs for so long I couldn’t hold out any longer.

Even though The Daring Bakers made Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake in March, I felt I should start at the beginning and work my way through the book, so we started with her Orange Blueberry Muffins for breakfast one morning, and they were gone in a flash. As I studied the recipe the night before, I realized I had some homemade candied orange peel stored in a jar of sugar in the pantry, and I couldn’t resist adding it. I chopped about 1/4 cup of the peel (sorry, I forgot to weigh it) and then sprinkled some of the orange sugar on top of the muffins. As it turns out, it’s a good thing I added the chopped orange peel because Top Gun was stealing blueberries behind my back, so adding the orange peel helped make up for the loss of the blueberries.

We enjoyed the extra orange flavor, and now I have to make more candied orange peel so we can have these muffins again.  The orange and blueberry combination was delicious. And as for the color, they really were that orange!

ORANGE BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan.

Equipment

regular sized muffin pan, buttered or lightly coated with cooking spray
baking sheet
large glass measuring cup or bowl
large mixing bowl
#20 (large) cookie scoop (3 tablespoons)

Ingredients

grated zest and juice of 1 orange
about 3/4 cup (178 ml) buttermilk (I use 1 tablespoon lemon juice + enough skim milk to make 3/4 cup)
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons honey
1 stick (8 tablespoons/113 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup (58 g) granulated sugar
2 cups (240 g) unbleached all-purpose flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (141 g) blueberries, fresh preferred, frozen ok (not thawed)
1/4 cup chopped candied orange peel
orange sugar (from storing the orange peel)

Preparation

1. Place the baking rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 400° F. Place the muffin pan on the baking sheet.

2. Pour the orange juice into the large glass measuring cup and add enough of the buttermilk to make 1 full cup (237 ml). Whisk in the eggs, honey, and melted butter.

3. In the large mixing bowl, rub the orange zest into the sugar until you can smell the orange. It should smell strong.

4. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour the liquid mixture over the dry ingredients and use a rubber spatula to quickly and gently stir. The batter will look lumpy and bubbly, and that’s ok.

5. Gently stir in the blueberries and the chopped orange peel.

6. Scoop the batter into the muffin cups and sprinkle the orange sugar on top.

7. Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. The tops should be golden and springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and allow to rest in the pan for 5 minutes. Carefully remove and allow to cool a few minutes before serving warm or at room temperature.

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Cherry Cobbler

This is such a wonderful time for fresh berries and cherries. We spotted some sweet cherries on sale at our local grocery store last week and grabbed a couple bags. My original plan was to make some cherry vanilla ice cream, but then I thought of cherry cobbler with all the lush cherries and juice and the soft, fluffy biscuits on top. Serve it warm with some vanilla ice cream and that would hit the spot!

When we got around to making the cobbler a few days later, the boys helped me remove the stems and find any bad cherries, of which there were plenty. Actually the cherries weren’t bad, but I realized that my three-year-old had been sneaking into the bags in the frig and taking bites out of the cherries and putting them back, just like he had done with the hot rolls back in April! We had to toss about a dozen half-eaten cherries. Read more

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Ev is my best girl friend, and she and I have been enjoying each other’s company over good food for almost 14 years. We met in 1993 in Bogotá, Colombia when I was teaching at the embassy school, and our favorite haunt was a little Japanese store and sushi bar around Calle 98 and something or other (long time ago, memory a bit sketchy on location). Asian food was scarce and expensive in Bogotá, and it was such a *treat* for us to enjoy some Japanese food. We hung out together quite a bit during our first year there, then the next year she left to do Peace Corps work in Africa, and I later headed to Saudi Arabia.

A few years later we met up again when we were both living in Chicago. She had married her Peace Corps partner from Africa, and she and I would go for a girls’ day or evening out to a local Korean restaurant and grocery store near Lincoln Square. When I got a new apartment in Logan Square, she would stop by for cocktails on Friday evenings after work and we would chat over some really good margaritas at a little hole-in-the-wall place near my apartment. We enjoyed many of those margaritas! Read more

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