Sweet and Sour Chicken

This week's challenge was 'food you hated as a kid'. I had to go to my husband for this one, because personally, I continue to hate cauliflower and scallops, and in fact find that there are more tastes that have gone the other way for me - i.e. I used to like them and now do not - dark chocolate, Hostess snowballs, etc. So, after Dan failed to convince me that he really used to hate chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes, we went for Chinese food. That is, I made it - not that we called it a night and went out for Chinese food. That wouldn't have been bad either, but less conducive to cooking blogs.

So, without further ado, here is the recipe that I used:

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Batter
3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup lager beer

Sauce
1/2 cup chicken stock
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tbsp. cold water

4 chicken breasts, cut into small pieces for dipping
vegetable oil, for deep frying
1/2 cup flour
2 tbsp cashews
1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
6 green onions, chopped
1/2 cup canned pineapple chunks, drained

To make batter, sift flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the center, add 1/2 cup of beer and whisk, gradually adding the remaining beer. Let stand 30 minutes.

To make sauce, stir sauce ingredients except cornstarch in saucepan over low heat until honey is melted. Stir in dissolved cornstarch and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring often, until just thickened.

At this point, the sauce refused to thicken for me, and I put in a little flour. Unfortunately, I put it in too quickly and it formed lumps, which I had to strain out later. Don't do that.

Preheat oven to 200F. Fill a wok halfway with oil and heat it. Place the flour in a bowl. In batches, toss the chicken in the flour, then coat in batter and add to hot oil. Deep fry for about 3 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a baking sheet lined with paper towels and keep warm in the oven.

I didn't have as much cooking oil as I expected, and ended up pan frying instead of deep frying, which took longer. Also, the coating got a little flaky, and some of it fell off. As a result, my husband and I purchased a deep fryer that night, so next time we can do it in style, and hopefully make chicken that tastes just like a Chinese restaurant. Or closer, anyway!

Assuming you deep fried in a pan, pour all but 2 tbsp of oil from the wok and return to high heat. (Or, if you have considerably less oil in the pan, as I did, leave it there) Add the cashews and stir fry 30 seconds. Transfer to baking sheet. Add red pepper and stir fry 2 minutes, or until crisp-tender. Add green onions and pineapple and stir fry 1 minute.

I served the sauce on the side, but put the cashews and veggies in with the chicken, because we wanted Chinese restaurant sweet and sour chicken, which you dip in the sauce. It turned out like this:

 What do you think, readers? If you were forced to cook something now that you hated as a kid, what would it be? How have your tastes changed as you've gotten older? Do you love more things you once hated, or hate more things you once loved?

Cranberry Cookie Crumble - brought to you by the letter C

Today's recipe is not actually one of the 'recipe of the week' posts. Or at least not one of the current ones. I am all caught up on my recipes for this year, but less so on my blogging, so I decided to work my way backwards from last year's list, since they are all new to me too, and having a surprise ingredient/theme is a little like being on Iron Chef and thus makes cooking (more) fun. So, today's ingredient is cranberries.

I just so happened to have some cranberries in the freezer, from Thanksgiving, of course, so I rescued it from the shelf and looked through a few cookbooks in search of the favorite Thanksgiving recipe. I said no to anything too Thanksgiving-y, and to cranberry bread, muffins, scones, etc. - which are similarly ubiquitous and uninspiring. That led me to this recipe, from Nancy Baggett's book Simply Sensational Cookies: She calls it Shortcut Cranberry Crumb Bars. I don't, because for me, at least, it didn't really resolve itself into bars. That leads me to today's cooking lesson.

If you think that what you are cooking may be at all gooey, waxed paper is never, ever a good substitute for foil. I've made this mistake before, but that didn't stop me from making it again today. Unless you enjoy your cookies/crumble with a thin paper shell that is as hard to separate from the final project as the rind on a wheel of brie, leave your ingredients on the counter, hop in your car, and go buy foil. Or grease the pan and go without. Don't use waxed paper. You'll regret it. Having said that, if you consider the finished product a crumble, write off one end that you have to decimate to properly get at the middle, and dig it out slowly with a metal spatula, you can manage to separate it from the paper. It's just not what I would recommend to the more informed reader.

Cranberry Cookie Crumble

2 1/4 cups fresh or frozen (thawed) cranberries, chopped
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup orange marmelade
1 16-18 oz package of refrigerated sugar cookie dough (Bigger is better here. If you can, go for the 18 oz)
1 1/3 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup butter, melted

1 tsp ground cinnamon
confectioner's sugar for garnish

Heat oven to 350F. Line a 9x13" baking pan with foil. Or don't line it and use nonstick spray.

Mix berries, sugar and marmalade in a medium, nonreactive saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until it boils. Lower the heat and boil gently for three minutes. Set the filling aside to cool.

Break up the dough into a large mixing bowl. Mix with oats, butter and cinnamon, using mixer on lowest speed. Spread half the mixture into the baking dish. Lay a piece of waxed paper on the mix and press down firmly all over to make your layer nice and even, making sure it covers the entire bottom of the pan. (This was a very good use of waxed paper. I'm going to do this to all my cookie bars in the future.)

Bake about 10 minutes (or 13 to 15, presumably if you don't live in a high altitude where things cook faster) until the dough is just browned at the edges but not baked through. Let cool 15 minutes.

Spread the filling over the dough evenly. Put the rest of the crumb mixture evenly over the top, and pat it down lightly. Bake about 22 minutes longer, or until the filling is bubbly and the crumb top is lightly browned.

Set aside on a wire rack and let cool. Refrigerate for one hour before cutting if you plan to try to make them into cookie bars. Otherwise, why wait? Dig in!

Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar before serving.

52 Weeks of Cooking start now!

Inspired by Reddit's subreddit 52 Weeks of Cooking, I plan to post a new recipe here each week, as my blog lies fallow and sadly neglected. Actually, I plan to post more than one recipe each week, as I have wanted to do the 52 week cooking challenge for quite a while now, and may try to catch up on last year's posts in between waiting for this week's.

This week, the theme is egg. Eggs are not a favorite of mine, although I suspect they may be like ham - something that I hate in theory but love in several forms (chip chop ham, for instance - though if you are not in Pittsburgh, good luck finding a deli counter guy who knows what that is and doesn't give you a really weird look when you ask for it!). I love eggs benedict, and 'dip eggs', which may be sunny-side up, but which I think of as being cooked on the second side just a bit also, all the better to dip your buttery toast into.

After extensive 'research' (looking through cookbooks for a recipe that is not something I do everyday, seems reasonably photogenic, and most of all, tasty), I settled on The Flavor Thesaurus' egg and coconut entry recipe, with a few variations. Here is what I did, in a nutshell:

Coconut Egg Custard

4 eggs - whisk them. 1/2 cup sugar - whisk it in. 1 cup coconut milk - whisk it in. Sprinkle a little flaked coconut in. Put a little more on top.
Bake it in a 300 degree F. oven, in ramekins inside of a cake pan or similar, with ramekins sitting inside of cake pan with water about halfway up the side of the ramekins. (in the cake pan, outside of the ramekins)
Recipe says it takes 40 minutes, but it took me about 50.
When it finishes baking (you can insert clean knife into top of ramekin), sprinkle a little more coconut on top for garnish. My husband liked his with whipped cream, I didn't put any on mine. It's best slightly warm.

Do you have a favorite egg recipe? Or are you, like me, a little on the fence about eggs?

Your Treat of the Week

Here's another recipe for you this week. My grandmother made this one just last weekend for a family party, before heading back to Ohio. It was a big hit with our crew, and your family might like it too!

Sweet Potato Casserole

For Casserole:
5 large sweet potatoes
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tb. pumpkin pie spice
1 can evaporated milk
enough milk to fill up the same can again
2 eggs, beaten

For Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 stick butter
1 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Whipped cream or Cool Whip (optional)

Bake the sweet potatoes in the oven or cook in the microwave until soft. Mash them. Mix with other filling ingredients. Pour into a 9x13" pan. Mix topping ingredients together and sprinkle over filling. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Serve with whipped cream.

Let it snow!

It is almost too late, but I think it's never really too late for cookies, so I am posting one of our family's favorite Christmas cookie recipes today - one that happens to be my favorite recipe anywhere, hands down. It's a bit rich, but quick and easy, and everyone I've ever fed it to has loved it. So here goes:

Snowballs
1 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup evaporated milk
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
coconut

Combine chocolate and milk in a saucepan over medium heat until chocolate has melted and mixture has combined. Remove from stove and stir in powdered sugar and walnuts. Let cool in the refrigerator for half an hour or so. Spooning out teaspoon-sized clumps, form them into ping pong ball-sized balls, and roll in coconut. Put back in the fridge for a few hours until you can pick them up without getting chocolaty. Enjoy!

It's basically the world's easiest homemade nut fudge, with bonus coconut. These are long gone from our house. Maybe it's time to make more?

Happy Chanukkah! (with recipe)

So, I think today is the third day of Chanukah, if I'm counting correctly. On the first day of Chanukah, my brother Jack came home from school and said, "Did you know it's Chanukah today? Let's make latkes."

And I said, "Holidays that involve cooking? I'm always up for those!"

So we made vegan latkes, the recipe I will now give to you, so that you too can enjoy buttery (or fake buttery, as the case may be) potato goodness in your home.
We also, with Bella, explored the history of Chanukah. Up til now, my Chanukah information has come from this source. In our quest to learn a little more about the holiday, we came up with two good sources (particularly for kids under 10) - Sesame Street's very cute, quick explanation and a new app: Chai on Chanukah.

Chai on Chanukah not only explains the history of the holiday in an interactive storybook, but also includes a virtual dreidel game, a virtual menorah to light, and a funny (but also fairly stereotypical) present-opening game. Might be something to check out, if you're looking for a fun new Chanukah app for your kids.

And now:

Vegan Latkes

3 potatoes
1 tsp. egg replacer
1/4 cup minced onion
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 tb. margarine or vegan butter substitute
vegetable oil

1. Peel and grate potatoes to measure 4 cups. Put in colander to drain and press gently on top with paper towels to get rid of excess water.

2. Mix egg replacer, flour, onion, salt, pepper and baking powder in large bowl, then mix with potatoes. Put margarine in skillet and melt, then add vegetable oil to cover the skillet with a thin layer of oil. Set heat to medium high.

3. Make balls of potato mixture and then shape into pancake shapes before gently placing in hot skillet. Flatten out with spatula, but gently. Cook each side until golden brown and thoroughly cooked. Turn the heat down if it seems like they're getting browned too fast.

4. Serve warm, with applesauce and (vegan) sour cream.

4-star vegan cuisine at our house tonight

An exceptional recipe (which just so happens to be both incredibly fast and easy) was cooked at our house tonight (not by me), and since the chef has graciously agreed to share his recipe, I thought I'd pass it on to you! You can also substitute whatever fresh or frozen vegetables you have available in your fridge or garden, in roughly equal amounts.

What's-in-the-Fridge? Vegan Stir-Fry

Serves 3. Takes approximately 15-20 minutes.

1 cup rice
1/2 lb extra firm tofu
2 tb peanut oil or canola oil
1/4 cup of sliced onion
1 tb. minced garlic
5-6 sliced radishes
1 whole carrot, julienned (cut into little matchstick-sized pieces)
1/2 cup frozen mukimame or edamame
1/2 cup of Nestle Asian style sauce or other spicy peanut sauce
Romaine lettuce leaves

1. Cook rice, according to package directions.
2. While rice is cooking, press tofu between several layers of paper towels. Put something heavy on top of it, like a large book, to press the excess water out. Leave this for about 2 minutes.
3. Cut tofu into medallions about 1/2" thick and 1 1/2" long.
4. Fry in a wok or frying pan with oil on medium-high heat til golden brown on both sides, about 4 minutes per side.
5. Add onion, garlic, radishes, carrots and mukimame, tossing constantly, til vegetables become crisp-tender.
6. Stir in sauce and turn heat to medium low (3 on an electric stove). Stir in drained rice.
7. Serve with romaine lettuce leaves.

Let me know if you try it!

Nibble, nibble, little mousekin

These gingerbread house sections were made by my ESL childcare kids today - one of our most fun projects ever! Check out the one with the fishpond! I think Erik could grow up to be a chef. He had his mise en place down too, everything very neatly arranged and ready to start. I have such a great group of kids. And that sugar extravaganza didn't make them hyper at all...if you believe that, there's a bridge I'd like to sell you. :)

The Christmas fun continues

Today's cooking endeavour was this plate of cupcakes, rounded out with some gingerbread cookies, for my uncle Leonard's book signing. Today, an important lesson was learned about baking, and that is - if you cannot find your muffin pan, propping all of the cupcake wrappers up in a sheet cake pan and then filling them with batter is not an acceptable substitute. Unless you want your cupcakes to turn into a sheet cake that looks like the surface of the moon. You have been forewarned. Fortunately, cutting the overgrown cupcakes into small squares and putting them back into fresh cupcake papers made decent-ish petit fours, so the day was saved.

Book signing, you ask? Why yes! My uncle, Leonard Urban, just happens to be an author as well, so excuse me while I take the next paragraph or so for some shameless family promotion.

The Millennium Conquest, Leonard's fourth book, is a semi-autobiographical story about a couple who, dealing with a recurring dream peopled by great historical figures, grapple with questions about the inequality and injustice in the world, and their place in it - what they can do, on a personal level, to help alleviate human suffering and make the world a better place.

This book would make an excellent Christmas gift for someone on your list who thinks about these issues. Proceeds from the book will benefit the Sister Mary Alice Murphy Center for Hope, a homeless resource center in Fort Collins, Colorado. Millennium Conquest is available for $14.95 from Ancient Echoes Publishing in Fort Collins. Leonard is also the author of Look What They've Done to My Church, Requiem for a City Church, and Sighs from the Desert.

Lastly, the pipe cleaner candy cane below was made by my daughter - a fun and easy Christmas craft you or your kids may want to try:

Christmas Cookie Goodness

One of the things you realize when you make a cookie recipe that yields 6 dozen is that nobody needs 6 dozen cookies. It's too many to roll out. It's too many to decorate. And it's way too many to eat. Nevertheless, we have gingerbread cookies around here tonight. Boy, do we. And this is what they look like (decorating provided by Bella):

Using our noggins

Ok, that's a bad title, but what else do you call a post about eggnog? We had a lot of great Thanksgiving food yesterday - and thanks to a few vegans in the crowd, both a turkey and a tofurkey. (The turkey is better, but for some reason you can eat more tofurkey than turkey. Maybe because soy products are less filling than meat?). But the real standout recipe of the day was this incredibly fast and easy recipe for vegan eggnog. I am giving it to you, because it's the kind of thing that you'll be able to use more than a few times this holiday season.

Quick Eggless Nog

1 cup vanilla almond milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg.
Per cup.

In a cup or pitcher, depending on how much you'd like to make, stir everything together. Drink up and enjoy!

Not made from real Girl Scouts

This recipe was a big hit at Bella's Girl Scout meeting, and now I am sharing it with you. It's one of my favorites, especially around Christmas, which we all know is coming up!

Chocolate Crinkles

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 oz, unsweetened baking chocolate, melted (the microwave works well for this - directions should be on the back of the package)
4 eggs
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup powdered sugar

1. Mix sugar, oil, vanilla and chocolate in large bowl. Mix in eggs, one at a time. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours.
2. Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Drop small, slightly smaller than ping pong ball-size balls of dough by teaspoonfuls into powdered sugar, roll around to coat. Place about 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper or greased foil.
4. Bake 12 minutes or until almost no indentation remains when touched.

70 calories, 10 carbohydrates per cookie

That's the recipe I used, with one exception. Here is a test for you. Read that recipe again and tell me, which is the most important sentence in the whole thing?

Did you catch it? I didn't. Here it is: Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours. Just what you don't want to see one hour before your daughter's troop meeting. Lucky for me, 1/2 hour in the freezer appears to approximately equal 3 hours in the fridge. So, if you're looking to save time...

This recipe was a big hit with the girls, and with the rest of my family when we got home!

The Results Are In

So here we have it - our chocolate eclairs, in person. The above photo will illustrate why this is not, in fact, a good potluck recipe. Because that's all there is. Minus the one I ate. Hey, it was for research! There were also a few things that came to light while making the recipe:

1. We only had one cup of milk left, so I substituted vanilla almond milk for the other cup. Worked just as well - maybe even better - but I did have to let it boil for another two minutes, because almond milk appears not to set up as fast.

2. If you use aluminum foil, hoping to save the $4 on parchment paper, some of your eclairs may stick to the pan. I solved this by putting two together to create one, which makes it giant, puffy and decadent. I could see this either being a good or bad thing, depending on your mood. Not so good for potlucks, though.

3. The recipe says to add 1 to 2 tablespoons of hot water to make the chocolate frosting. I don't know whether this is humidity/altitude related, because of living in Colorado, but I added four, and I'm still not sure it couldn't have done with another. Easy spreading was not its forte.

They are exceptionally yummy though. I'm not sure I'd make them again for a while - too labor intensive for the quantity of end result. But I think they were at least a small success. Much tastier than a long john from the doughnut shop!

Chocolate Eclairs

Tomorrow I'm going to be going to a potluck, a sort of kick-off-the-holiday-season thing, so I thought I'd use today to do a little advance scouting for yummy potluck recipes. And the one that I've settled on is this:

Chocolate Eclairs:

For Pastry:
1 cup water
1/2 cup stick margarine or butter
1 cup flour
4 large eggs

For Filling:
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
2 large egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons margarine or butter, softened (5 seconds in the microwave if you don't remember to set it out beforehand)
2 teaspoons vanilla

For Chocolate Frosting:
1 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
1 teaspoon stick margarine or butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons hot water

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Heat water and margarine to rolling boil in 2 1/2 quart saucepan. Stir in flour; reduce heat to low. Stir vigorously over low heat about 1 minute or until mixture forms a ball; remove from heat.
3. Beat in eggs all at once, continue beating until smooth. Shape scant 1/4 cupfuls of dough into fingers about 4 1/2" long by 1 1/2" wide using spatula. Place about 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.
4. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until puffy and golden. While they're baking, make the Cream Filling and Chocolate Frosting. Cool. Cut off top third of each puff and pull out any strands of soft dough. Eat them. Or throw them away, whichever you prefer. But I know which one I'll be doing.
5. Fill puffs with Cream Filling, replace tops.
6. Frost with Chocolate Frosting. Cover and refrigerate until serving. Refrigerate any leftovers. Hopefully, there won't be any leftovers!

Cream Filling:
Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in medium to large saucepan. Gradually stir in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Gradually stir at least half of the hot mixture into egg yolks. Stir back into hot mixture in saucepan. Boil and stir 1 minute; remove from heat. Stir in margarine and vanilla. Cool.

Frosting:
Melt chocolate and margarine in small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in powdered sugar and water. Beat until smooth and spreadable.

* I'm going to be trying this one tomorrow morning, so I'll let you know how it turns out. If anyone else tries it too, I'd love to know how it works for you! Or any of your other favorite sweet potluck recipes.

I also solved a small culinary mystery this morning - the difference between the eclair and the profiterole. It looks like it's all in the shape. Eclairs are long; profiteroles are round, like regular cream puffs with chocolate on top. Which is your favorite?