Just in case you didn't believe me when I blogged about my "cookbook problem," here is a picture of my latest acquisitions:
Boston has become a problem for me. I am surrounded by bookstores no matter where I go! More on that in a few... but the first book I will talk about is "The American Boulangerie" by Pascal Rigo. I didn't buy this one for myself -- I participated in The Amateur Gourmet's "Secret Cookbook Santa" last month. It was so fun! It's pretty self explanatory, but I'll give you a quick rundown: I signed up and submitted a wish list of three books. Someone recieved my info, and I received someone else's info. Cookbooks were sent all over the world for this! I think Amazon probably did a lot of extra business for a couple of weeks! I was lucky enough to recieve my first choice. It's an incredibly beautiful book that includes recipes for all of my favorite Paris pastries, like cannelles, palmiers, and macarons. Now that I have my purple mixer, I can't wait to try the macarons!
Now, the books I actually bought... I really shouldn't be left alone to wander the streets of Boston. In Harvard Square alone, there's the Harvard Bookstore, the Harvard Coop, Curious George Goes to Wadsworth... what's a girl to do? Shop, of course. I didn't realize until last week that the Harvard Bookstore has a used books section. I was so all over that when I noticed the sign! I love "vintage" cookbooks, of course. I was lucky enough to find "The Tassajara Recipe Book" there. I love their bread book, and this is just as good -- lots of veggie recipes that I will definitely try, great writing style, and recipe instructions such as "if properly cooked and properly eaten, the brown rice will properly become you." It's a little hippie, a little Zen, and a lot of fun!
From a display table at The Harvard Coop leapt "Going with the Grain" by Susan Seligson. Can you believe it? A book about bread just jumped right into my hands! Shocking!!! I'm only on the third chapter, but I am already completely fascinated with it. "Part travelogue, part cultural history, with a handful of recipes thrown in ..." reads a passage on the back cover. If you're as obsessed with bread as I am, a copy will probably throw itself at you the next time you're in a bookstore.
On Friday, I discovered the nation's oldest bookstore, the Brattle Book Shop: three floors of used books and magazines, along with a great selection of vintage postcards. And a not-too-shabby cookbook section. "The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book" left that store with me. It's pretty neat: Fannie Merritt Farmer's hand-corrected recipes, original black-and-white drawings and ads as they appeared in the 1896 printing, and recipes like "Milk for the Sick." Very entertaining.
I got home from Boston last night and did my routine e-mail/food blog scan. As I skimmed through a couple of my favorites, I was alerted to the fact that last Friday was a "Sugar High Friday." How did that get by me? I guess it got lost in the shuffle of all my bouncing around from state to state. What a bummer. I also was reminded of this month's IMBB?: Beans, beans, beans... do you think I will be able to remember this one?!? Wish me luck. I think I need to start taking ginko... but now, I need to get ready for my latest adventure. I'll tell you all about it later, plus I'm pretty sure I'll be making a "real" blog entry when I get home tonight.
But what they lack in good looks, they make up for in flavor.
I'm going to Boston for a few days and thought I'd take some baked goods to Kev. When I was trying to decide what to make for my inaugural purple mixer recipe the other day, he suggested oatmeal cookies. I thought that sounded good until I saw the recipe for whole-wheat snickerdoodles... but I also found this recipe while I was searching, and filed it away for another day, which turned out to be yesterday. It's another one from allrecipes.com, my new favorite source for cookie recipes -- since everything is user-submitted, the variety is just amazing. You never know just what you'll find once you start poking around! Here is the original recipe, and here's what I did to it...
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup wheat and barley nugget cereal (eg. Grape Nuts -- I used Kashi 7 in the Morning) Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
2. In a medium bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the egg, and vanilla. Sift together the flour, whole wheat flour, and baking soda; stir into the creamed mixture. Then stir in the oatmeal, chocolate chips, and cereal. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool on wire racks. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.
These are so good and so much fun. There's a lot going on in these little cookies! I love oats, and they add a satisfying chewiness to these. The chocolate chips are the gooiness. And the cereal... oh, the cereal! I love Grape-Nuts and 7 in the Morning (they taste exactly alike, but Kashi's version has, as the title implies, seven grains instead of just one or two). I love them on ice cream. I love them in yogurt. I love them for breakfast with berries or banana. Why didn't I ever think to put them in cookies?!? I think I'll add them to all of my cookies from now on! Someone who doesn't know they're in there probably wouldn't guess that they're there, but when you know, you say "of course!" Try them. You'll like them. I think the next time I make these, I'll use cranberries instead of chocolate chips. Am I weird for preferring berries to chocolate? Probably. But that's my prerogative.
I just can't keep my hands off my new purple mixer! I was pawing through my fridge today and found the container of sour cream I bought a few weeks ago to make Alice'scardamom banana bread with pistachios. Lo and behold, it hadn't yet expired, and I also had everything else I needed right on hand! The title says it all -- starring in this recipe are cardamom, bananas, and pistachios. How Middle Eastern! I won't bother re-typing the recipe -- you can check it out on your own. Would you believe I didn't change a thing? I used exactly what it called for, including white flour and white sugar! Eek! I added just a couple of my own touches -- I used freshly ground cardamom for that extra pungency, and I lightly toasted the pistachios before using them. Plus, I left the nuts rather coarsely chopped, and maybe used just a bit more than the recipe called for... so maybe that constitutes a change to the recipe... but a very small one!
I have to tell you, it felt a bit odd mixing quick bread in a mixer. I couldn't help but feel like I was overmixing the batter. I'm so used to feeling what I'm doing when I make muffins and quick breads! But this turned out great. God, I love cardamom!
Another reason to love the purple mixer: long before the banana bread even thought about coming out of the oven, I had a batch of cookies mixed, and two pans' worth of dough all scooped out and ready to go in the oven! But I'll save that story for tomorrow.
Borealis olive bread, Raye's Downeast Schooner Mustard, and provolone cheese, toasted at 425 until cheese is brown, bubbly, and ooey-gooey. Painfully simple, but so satisfying.
*I'm pretty sure Kevin and I heard Sara Moulton say this, or something very close to it, on her show one day. It's become an often-chanted mantra for us.
