Making pancakes from a store bought mix is usually pretty simple. However, start making them from scratch and so many new variables will present themselves. Getting the desired texture and flavour becomes a little more tricky and only practice and experience will make a pancake maker a pancake master.

The following recipe is to be used as a set of guidelines for making sourdough pancakes. Experiment and see what adding more of this and less of that do to the results. It makes about 4 small/medium size pancakes, enough for 1.5 people in my mind.

Ingredients:
1/2 old banana (Should be mostly brown/black)
1 cup of mother (that's sourdough starter for those of you rookie bakers)
1 chicken egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon baking soda

Procedure:
Mix it all together and cook it in a frying pan. I set the half banana in a large bowl and mash it till it looks like baby food. Then I add the starter, egg, vanilla, sugar, salt and oil. Combine. Feel free to use your hands, but it also fine if you prefer a spoon, spatula, whisk, electric kitchen appliance, or whatever. Once it is combined, stop stirring. Most pancake bakers I know say "don't over mix." Why? I dunno. Also note, sugar is not necessary. You'll get a feel for how sweet you like your pancakes and you can add more or less or an equal amount of sugar accordingly.

Add the baking soda last. If you have a very sour mother, the baking soda will check its sourness. Some people like it that way, others don't, so this is another variable that you can choose based on your own palate. The dough may rise promptly after adding the baking soda, so ensure that there is extra room in the bowl.

Alright, now set a stove top burner to around medium to high heat and grease the pan or skillet. Use a ladle to measuring cup to pour the batter onto the pan/skillet and let it cook. Since stove top heat settings change from stove to stove, instead of keeping an eye on the clock, watch the batter/pancake for signs. When it is ready to be flipped, bubbles that have popped will be slow to fill in the holes they have left. Once flipped, don't pin the pancake down with the spatula and squish it unless you really enjoy doing that kind of thing and you know it makes your pancakes taste better. Just let it cook for another few minutes and remove it from the heat when you think its done. This is another one of those variables that only experience will give you confidence in. Some people judge proper cook time by the colour of the exterior. This technique works better with thin pancakes I would reckon.

You can enjoy these with the traditional butter and maple syrup or try them with fruit preserves. In spite of this being labeled as a breakfast blog post, know that pancakes can be enjoyed at any meal.

Spice Crispies

When I first heard about this recipe from my mom who saw it in the magazine Food and Wine, I thought it might turn out to be something similar to rice crispies. That is chewy, sticky, and in the form of some quadrilateral. They are however more like a snack mix, but feel free to adjust the recipe to make them more like rice crispies and leave a comment if you do.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Rice Crispies (I had to improvise and use Rice Chex)
• 1/4 cup salted roasted cashews
• 1/4 cup salted roasted peanuts
• 1/4 cup coconut flakes
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 3 tablespoons peanut oil
• 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 4 large bay leaves
• 3 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Toss the Cereal, cashews, peanuts, coconut, and raisins in a large bowl. Turning to the stove, heat up the oil in a small saucepan and toast the mustard seeds. At the time, I did not have mustard seeds, just ground mustard, and when I put it in the oil, it totally burned in about two seconds. I had to redo this step with the oil. Just be careful and be aware of how hot the oil gets. Once the mustard seeds start popping, add the fennel, cumin, pepper, and bay leaves and let that toast for a minute or until it becomes fragrant. Then add the syrup, juice, and salt and let it come to a simmer. Once you see the bubbles, drizzle it over the cereal mix and toss until it is evenly dispersed. After this, spread the mix on a cookie sheet and toast it in the oven at 325 degrees Fahrenheit until the nuts are brown, about 20 minutes. Then remove them from the oven, extract the bay leaves, and serve in a bowl.

FYI, if you are throwing a party or something, I would recommend doubling the recipe at least. The recipe is doubled in the picture. Enjoy your Indian flavour snack mix, NOM NOM NOM!

Sourdough and Tarts

A couple weeks ago, some of my family and I visited some friends in North Carolina. It was a good trip. While I was there, I took baking classes on how to bake sourdough bread and tarts. The classes were given by La Farm Bakery. They have a website, www.lafarmbakery.com if you are interested. Since then I have been working on making sourdough bread, and it has turned out, so-so. I will have to improve on that sometime, but just a couple days ago, I tried for the first time to make tarts, and they turned out very well. Just one thing, be prepared to use A LOT of butter!

For the tart crust:

• 4 cups flour
• 2 1/2 cups butter
• 2 1/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 egg

Basically, just mix everything but the egg, until it is all flaky and as mixed up as possible, and then add the egg. Be careful not to over mix once you have added the egg. You can use this dough to make one big tart, or several small tarts, like we did. Furthermore, if you decide to make small tarts, you have the option of either using small tart forms, or just making free form tarts. At La Farm, the called them, "rustic tarts." That is what we did. So, once you have it mixed up, let it sit in the fridge, so that it will be easy to work with when the time comes.

Meanwhile, begin working on a filling.

• 4 cups almond flour, we just milled a bunch of almonds up in the blender.
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cups regular flour

To make this filling, fluff the butter and sugar. The use of an electric beater is recommended. Add eggs, one at a time to this mixture. Add the almond flour and regular flour slowly. Now this is ready to go into the crust.

Assembly instructions:
Roll out about half a cup to a full cup of dough, onto a counter dusted with powder sugar. Put some filling in the middle. We put about a couple tablespoons in, but had a bunch leftover, so be generous. Also, you can just spoon it onto the middle of the crust, or like us, pipe it. Then add your favorite fruit, I would recommend strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, or cherries. Finally now, fold up the edges of the dough and place on a baking sheet. It is okay if there is a gap in the middle of the folds of dough, it is actually good because it lets the steam escape. Then bake it at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-30 minutes. That's it, if you have any questions fell free to comment!

Vegetarian Calzones

A Calzone is an Italian creation. The word in Italian has the meaning "stocking", among a few others. Calzone is very similar to Stromboli. It is made of pizza dough and is stuffed with various filling, usually meat, but as the title reveals, not this time :( That's okay though.

• 1 1/2 tablespoons cornmeal
• one large onion, cut however you like it
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 8 packed cups of baby spinach, (8oz.)
• 1 cup bottled roasted red peppers, we just roasted fresh ones ourselves
  
• 12 pitted, oil cured, black olives, coarsely chopped
  
• 1 pound pizza dough, if you want a recipe for this, leave a comment
  
• 1/2 pound of your favorite cheese, chopped up, if you can't decide, go with mozzarella
  

Alright! In a large skillet over medium heat, start browning the onions with 2 tablespoons of the oil. After no more then 10 minutes, add the garlic and let that sizzle for a minute. Then add the spinach. Stir frequently until the spinach wilts. And finally add the red peppers and olives. Feel free to salt and pepper this and make sure to remove the pan form the heat source at this point.

Next, roll the dough out onto a floured surface. If you don't flour the surface, the dough will probably stick. Divide it into 4 portions and form those into squares. To make one Calzone, have one square of dough with a corner pointing at you. On the bottom half, place some of the sauteed veggies and 1/4 of the cheese. Fold the top half of the dough over the bottom half and pinch the
sides so all the filling is locked in. Repeat this for the other four squares of dough.

The last step is baking. The only thing that really needs to be cooked is the dough, so this won't take long. Use the rest of the oil to grease a baking sheet and shake the cornmeal on the oil. If you want your calzone to be puffy, take the time for the dough to rise. Place the Calzone on the baking sheet and poke it with a knife so it has vents for steam. Then bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. I got this recipe form Gourmet Magazine. Thanks!

Rhubarb Pie

This is a simple recipe for some plain old rhubarb pie. You could probably spice it up if you wanted something with more bang! or do something to make it more juicy. But if you like simple, this is for you. You could probably memorize the recipe in a couple minutes:D

To make a home made pie crust, (go ahead and buy one at the store if you don't feel like it):

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup shortening, I use lard
• 1/3 cup cold water

Blend the flour, salt, and shortening together. I use a pastry blender, I'll post a pic of what it looks like. But is says you can use two knives to combine the mixture if you don't have one of these. If you use your hands to mix it up, you may lose a lot of dough due to it all sticking to your hands. It should resemble coarse cornmeal. Then sprinkle about 3/4 of the water over the top of the mixture while using a fork to turn up all the dry stuff at the bottom of the bowl. Press the dampened dough together into a bowl and then add only enough water to get the remaining dough in the bottom of the bowl to form into a ball. You have to be careful not to add too much water. Then grease the inside of your pie plate and you can use your hands to spread the dough into the inside of the the pie plate. I found these directions in the New York Times Cook Book.

To make the pie filling, which I found online, use:

• 4 cups sliced rhubarb, cut it whatever size you like, I would make it less than one cubic inch though, to make sure it gets cooked through.
• 6 tablespoons flour, to soak up extra juice from the rhubarb.
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter, you could probably do better with more though.

This is the filling, you could probably just throw it all in together, but it says to lay around one forth the combined sugar and flour on the bottom, then put the rhubarb in, then the rest of the sugar and flour as well as the butter. Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees Fahrenheit, then turn the temperature down to 350 and continue baking for another 4o minutes. You can serve it hot or cold. I have made this recipe twice, and wish I would have taken a picture of the second one, because I made the pie crust part a little better and was able to flute the edges. Oh well!

Cornish Hens Stuffed with Haroseth

Greetings world,

Today I would like to tell you about a recipe for Cornish Hens stuffed with haroseth. Before we get into the details, lets talk about what exactly a "Cornish Hen" and "Haroseth" is.

A Cornish Hen, fully known as Cornish Game Hens, are chickens slaughtered while they are still young. They are therefore of smaller size, and are made to serve one, although half of one would fill my stomach up. The word Haroseth comes from the Hebrew word for clay. It is a Jewish concoction mainly made of nuts and dried fruit ground to a paste. It is traditionally eaten during the Passover celebration in order to remind them of the mortar they used to connect bricks during the time in bondage under Pharaoh, the ruler of the Ancient Egyptians. Haroseth is commonly eaten by itself or on matza, which is basically a type of cracker.

Here is the recipe for the Haroseth:

• 2/3 cup almonds, toasted
• 2/3 cup unsalted shelled pistachios
• 1 cup dried apricots
• 2/3 cup pitted dried dates
• 1/2 cup cream sherry
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 1/4 tsp of cinnamon, ground cardamom, and cayenne each

Chop the nuts in a food processor if you have one, if you don't, use a blender, that's what we did. Add the dried fruit to the processor/blender. Add everything else and mix till it is completely incorporated. Haroseth can be made 2 days ahead of time, just store it in a airtight container at room temperature.

Here is the recipe for the Cornish Hens:

• 1 Tbsp ground allspice
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 4 Cornish hens1 1/3 cup cup haroseth

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix all the spices and some salt and pepper with the oil in a small bowl. Pat each hen dry and stuff with 1/3 cup Haroseth each, (If I ever did this again, I would stuff it with more, maybe a half cup, or 3/4 cup, whatever would fit). Place stuffed hens in a flameproof roasting pan and massage with oily spice rub, make sure to rub it really good, try to get under the skin of the breast meat especially. Tuck the wings underneath the body and secure the legs together with some roasting string or a wooden toothpick. Roast for 20 minutes and then brush the hens with the sauce collected in the bottom of the pan. Continue roasting, using a baster to drench hens with the collected sauce in the bottom of the pan every ten minutes, take it out of the oven to do this. Roasting should take maybe half and hour longer, you will know that the hen is done if you pierce its thigh and the juices from it are clear. Once it is done, remove from the oven one last time. You can deglaze any flavorful residue on the roasting pan with some leftover sherry by placing the roasting pan on two stove top burners and sloshing the sherry around while using a spatula to rub of the residue. Use that as a gravy if you feel like it, if not, just serve them like they our or cut in half. In our picture, we topped it off with a green salsa, but the salsa didn't do too much for us. I got all these recipes from the Food and Wine Magazine. Happy Cooking!

Rice Pudding with Poached Rhubarb

Today is the first day back at school from spring break. Spring break was fun and pretty busy.

After Easter and finishing some exciting homework early, we headed down to visit some family friends in NC. One of the cool things we made was a rice pudding and poached rhubarb desert. We got the idea from the Food and Wine magazine.

The rice pudding is made by boiling a cup of arborio rice for 3 minutes and then straining it. Next you return the rice to the sauce pan and then add a cup of heavy cream, 2 1/2 cups of whole milk, and a half of a vanilla bean stripped of its seeds. Cook that on low heat for 25 minutes. To finish off the pudding, mix in 1/2 cup of sugar and then chill it in the fridge. The original recipe calls for 3/4 cup of sugar, but more people than not said that the dish as a whole was too sweet.

To make the rhubarb topping, start by simmering 3 cups of water with 1 cup of red wine, the other half vanilla bean, seeds scraped, a cinnamon stick, a lemon's juice, and 2 cups of sugar. I know I said some people thought it was too sweet, so why is there so much sugar here? Well, remember that this is a poaching liquid and that you are only eating the rhubarb, which probably does not absorb all the sugar in the liquid. Also, rhubarb is a very sour veggie, so this sugar may be needed to balance the sourness. After this has simmered for 10 minutes, add a pound or more of rhubarb, cut into 1 inch slices and simmer that for 15 minutes or until the rhubarb is tender. Let the mixture cool.

Finally serve the pudding and top it with rhubarb after straining it out of its liquid. Both the pudding and the rhubarb can be made ahead of time. It doesn't have to be served right away. It may also be nice to garnish with some fresh mint.