Posted By Lindsay on January 16, 2012
Our CSA goes well into the winter, with the last pickup of the season happening right before Christmas. But unlike the variety of the summer produce, winter is a bit more limited. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, and greens. Lots and lots of greens. It’s not abnormal to see signs saying take 10 handfuls of kale or 5 lbs of mustard greens in a single week’s share. Not to mention all the arugula, mounts of mizuna, and bok choy the size of my torso (no joke. My exact words to Taylor upon seeing such a monstrosity: “We couldn’t even fit that in our fridge if we tried!”)
It was too much. Even a few handfuls is more than two people can eat in a week. We didn’t even take our full share most of the time and we still had greens coming out of our ears.
And let’s be honest, you can only have kale chips so many times in a week. We needed some new recipes. Creative ways to use the greens that were stuffed into every nook and cranny and drawer in our refrigerator and piled high, frozen in plastic bags in the freezer.
So while flipping through old issues of Bon Appetit, I stumbled across this recipe that I had dog-eared many months back but had never made (New Year’s Resolution: go back through my skyscraper of food magazines and digitally bookmark all the gems I missed the first time around). A gem like this recipe, for garden beignets. And it called for a whopping 12 cups of assorted greens. Score!
A suggestion, as this isn’t exactly a “quick and easy” recipe, is to take advantage of the fact that many of the components can be made ahead of time. Make the batter the night before. Make the filling too, and roll it into balls, then stash it in the fridge overnight. I know the recipe says 8 hours, but we chilled those puppies for 24 and nothing disastrous happened because of it. Frying them is tricky enough, but I’m not one to willingly spend over 3 hours in the kitchen for a single meal. Plan ahead. Believe me. You’ll thank your yester-self.
While we were unable to track down the elusive “vinegar powder” called for in this recipe (although it does sound intriguing and I may have to order some for future use), a simple splash of malt vinegar was a suitable replacement.
Does the sheer volume of greenage offset the fact that these are deep fried? I’ll support that logic.
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Posted By Lindsay on January 11, 2012
I’m a big proponent of free will, but some things were just meant to be.
My mom spent much of the summer going through boxes full of stuff. Memories, sure, probably a lot of junk too. And every few weeks I’d get a little package of things she thought I might want.
Inside one of them was a cookbook. A ragged little thing with a hand-drawn cartoon chef on the front. I believe his name was Barnabe. A cookbook that I wrote when I was maybe 9 years old. Well, maybe wrote is a bit of an exaggeration, I should probably say copied from my mom’s recipe collection (clearly, I was not destined to be an intellectual property attorney). A cookbook author, though? Just might be fate.
I am so excited to finally announce that my book, The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook, will be published by Quirk Books this coming June. June 5th, to be exact. That’s less than 5 months away.
What’s extra fitting is that today, January 11th, just so happens to be the 2 year anniversary of the Cookie Dough Truffles. The post that, to this day, continues to be one of the most popular posts on the blog. The post that started it all. I couldn’t think of a more perfect day to share this with all of you.
Let’s rewind.
I never thought I’d write a cookbook. In fact, I consciously remember thinking I DIDN’T want to write one. That was the case until this bug of an idea crept into my head one day. At that point I’d taken the cookie dough theme farther than just the truffles, with Cookie Dough Stuffed Cupcakes, Cookie Dough Ice Cream and the oh-so-decadent Cookie Dough Cream Pie. I thought, there really needs to be an entire cookbook of cookie dough recipes. Someone should… oh. Maybe I should write one.
And so I did.
Well, it wasn’t quite that simple.
I made a lot of messes.
Our house looked like a makeshift photo studio for weeks on end.
Even the cats helped out.
Once all the recipes were written, recipes like Cookie Dough Stuffed French Toast and Cookie Dough Creme Brulee (oh yes I did!), there was still months of editing. Back and forth and nitpicking and double checking and retesting. I think I underestimated (or was in denial about) just how much work really went into a cookbook. But I did it. I got it done. Thanks in part to the wonderful team at Quirk. And I couldn’t be more happy with the final product.
The book is filled with 45 delicious cookie dough recipes, plus plenty of variations on top of that. All raw-egg-free and perfectly safe to eat (not that eggs ever stopped any of us from eating the dough before, but that’s beside the point). Take that salmonella.
And while you can’t hold it in your cookie-dough-loving hands for another few months, you can preorder it today. Yep, I’m on Amazon. Never thought that would happen, either.
I don’t really know what happens now… I wait, I guess. And hope for the best. This whole process is so new to me and I’m just grateful I was able to experience it. And will continue to experience it as we reach each milestone. I really, honest to goodness, can’t wait to simply hold it in my hands for the first time.
Clearly, it was meant to be.
Posted By Lindsay on January 6, 2012
OK, I give in. Y’all want healthy, so I’ll give you healthy. For a little while at least. But next week? Let’s just say next week I have a different kind of cake in store for you. But maybe if you eat enough of these quinoa cakes in the meantime you can justify the splurge.
To be honest we eat a lot of meals like this. Part grain, part flavorful mix-in, typically vegetarian, and probably meant to be served as an appetizer but we eat it as our main dish anyway.
It’s kind of our thing.
These particular little parcels pack a potent punch. Salty olive, tart lemon, bright parsley. And quinoa. Which, if you haven’t tried it yet, is all kinds of awesome. It’s a super grain, protein packed and slightly crunchy, with a delightfully nutty flavor. And did I mention healthy? Call it my gift to you.
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Posted By Lindsay on December 30, 2011
Another year, come and gone. I always take this time to reflect on the past year, all the wonderful things I’ve seen, done, and eaten. Ok, mostly eaten. Don’t say I’m not the only one who remembers experiences by what I ate along with it?
This year I organized an epic cookie swap. Roasted a duck. Spoke at a conference. Planned a conference. Attended a few more. Baked a cake (or two or three). Went blueberry picking. Attempted a savory cheesecake. Adopted a 3rd cat. Visited Charleston. Put watermelon in a jar. Explored the Bourbon Trail. Discovered kumquats, Damson plums, and grits. And, oh yeah, wrote a cookbook. Indeed, it’s been quite a year.
The most popular post of the year (traffic wise) is the brightly hued Rainbow Cake, followed closely by the Grasshopper Brownie Bars and the Cookie Dough Truffles. I love watching these three posts battle it out in the popular posts section in the footer of the site (which shows the most popular posts in any given month). It’s an epic battle of the sweets, cake takes on brownie who fights to the death with cookie dough. And lucky for us, everyone wins.
But I’d like to highlight what I consider the best posts of 2011. Best meaning my favorite, your favorite, and/or just plain awesome. This was a sweet year for sure (I always struggle to include an equal amount of savory dishes in this year-end roundup). What can I say? Life is uncertain. Eat dessert. First. Last. And in between. It was sure hard to narrow this down, choosing 18 posts out of 95. But I did it. And I hope you enjoy this look back at the sweetest (and most scrumptious) posts of the year.
Here’s to a happy and prosperous new year to you and yours!
(1) Homemade Vanilla Extract / (2) Cookie Dough Cream Pie / (3) Chocolate Stout Cake with Dulce de Leche and Vanilla Bean Buttercream / (4) Tequila Watermelon Popsicles / (5) Grasshopper Brownie Bars / (6) Photobombed / (7) Cinnamon Chocolate Churro Cupcakes / (8) Étouffée Style Shrimp and Grits / (9) Triple-Chocolate Pumpkin Pie
(1) DIY Distressed Wood Photo Backdrop / (2) Spicy Tomato Peach Jam / (3) Fettucine al Pesto Genovese / (4) Pumpkin Crème Brûlée / (5) Chocolate Banana Cream Pie / (6) Brownie Pie / (7) Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Malted Milk Chocolate Buttercream / (8) Basil Lemonade / (9) Rocky Mountain Avalanche Bars
