Stay Hydrated -- Important for Baking as Well as Running

It's been a while since I've made macarons but I decided that Muffin is old enough to appreciate the work that goes into them now (she loves them; her favorite books from when she first started picking out books are macarons cookbooks; she knows that when Daddy travels to Bangkok or Singapore he comes home with macarons). We needed a project for today and I thought this would be novel enough to hold Muffin's attention. Plus, the dry weather is perfect for baking them -- even though it's monstrously hot outside (108 F / 42 C) so it's a little insane to be lighting the oven. We stayed well-hydrated with ice water and took cooling breaks in the air-conditioned parts of the house. And we had a very fun morning with a delicious reward.

The last time I made them I used Cecile Cannone's Macarons: Authentic French Cookie Recipes from the Macaron Cafe. This time I used Berengere Abraham's Macarons. I found Abraham's recipes to be, not easier exactly, but less labor intensive because they are in smaller quantities. There's a lot of waiting time, though, so they are not "quick and easy." Good if you like to clean as you go, bad if you have an anxious kitchen helper. As you'll see from the photos, having a smaller quantity means there's less room for mistakes if you want beautiful, photogenic macarons. I think I'll stick with Abraham's, though, until I become more practiced. Cannone's large batches can be saved for a big Christmas party. Abraham's are for having a couple people over for coffee.

We were inspired by the photo of the raspberry macarons, but we used store-bought jam instead of making our own. Muffin requested strawberry jam in half of them and raspberry jam in the others.

Mine

Muffin's

Muffin was so delighted with her work that it was worth the heat and the "wasted" batter of her imperfect cookies. I think she wants to do this every Sunday now. When we're back in the U.S. I want to take Muffin to Cecile Cannone's bakery in New York to see if "Madame Cecile," as Muffin calls her, will autograph Muffin's book.

Doughnut Dreams

My doughnut pan arrived while we were in Thailand a couple weeks ago and since then I’ve been busy trying out recipes. I’m telling myself I’m testing them for an upcoming charity bake sale, but really I just want to eat doughnuts.

Chocolate frosted.

I blogged about chocolate doughnuts at the Hardship Homemaking blog recently.

Next up was pumpkin doughnuts. I used the recipe from King Arthur Flour but I replaced the regular flour with Pamela's Gluten-Free Baking and Pancake Mix. The recipe has potential but I made a few errors that resulted in overly sweet, sticky doughnuts with almost no pumpkin and spice flavor. Muffin and I both have a major sweet tooth and these were even too sweet for us. When a two-year-old puts down a half-eaten doughnut and says it’s too much, it’s way too much.

My first error was using coconut oil instead of light olive oil or vegetable oil. I thought it would be a healthy alternative to vegetable oil and it’s cheaper than olive oil. I wasn’t counting on the flavor completely overpowering the rest of the doughnut.

Sprinkling the cinnamon and sugar.

Also, I ran out of white sugar so used half white and half demerara sugar, which is a local brown sugar substitute that has a burnt-sugar-caramel taste to it. I thought it would complement the pumpkin and spice flavors. It was too sweet and too sticky. It was as if the doughnuts had been dipped in syrup when all they’d done was sit on the counter for a couple hours.

For my next attempt at the pumpkin doughnuts I am stocking up on white sugar, I will use a light, flavorless oil, and I am also going to amp up the spices a bit. I can’t find canned pumpkin here so I have to make my own puree and the pumpkins here don’t seem to be as flavorful as American pumpkins. 

I’m definitely doing the pumpkin doughnuts for the bake sale since pumpkins are in season right now in India. I think they’ll be popular among Indians and Americans alike, given the time of year. I’d like to make a second variety of doughnuts as well. I’m trying to decide between the chocolate doughnuts, replacing the pumpkin puree with applesauce for complementary pumpkin pie and apple pie doughnuts, or trying another new recipe entirely – toasted coconut. What do you think?

Eggplant with Basil and Feta

This was originally published at What I Eat on 22 September 2007. We were living in Walnut Creek, California, at the time. Muffin loves the tomato sauce and feta cheese but she’s not a huge eggplant fan. This is still one of my favorite ways to prepare eggplant and Muffin likes to help with the breading. Look for Local Notes at the end of the post to see how I modify the recipe for Hyderabad.

This recipe is inspired by the Crispy Eggplant with Spicy Tomato-Feta Cheese Sauce in the book Vegetarian Cooking for Today. We've modified it quite a bit for our tastes. It's the recipe that convinced Mike several years ago, after we both read Fast Food Nation, that it's not so bad to cut down on meats.

eggplant
1 egg
small bit of milk
pototo starch
bread crumbs
tomato sauce
crushed red pepper
fresh basil
feta cheese

Slice the eggplant into rectangles, peeled or unpeeled, about 1 inch by 2 inch by 3 inch. Let the pieces sit on a plate, salted, for about 10 minutes to draw out some of the moisture. Pat dry with paper towels. Bread the pieces by dipping in potato starch, an egg-milk mixture, and finally bread crumbs. (I use Gluten-Free Pantry Herbed Crumb Coating. I hate the breading process--it seems to take forever. A little trick I have is to ask Mike to do it for me.) Place breaded pieces on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes, until the outsides are crispy and the scent of herbed bread crumbs is intoxicating.

While the eggplant is baking, heat up some of your favorite store-bought or homemade tomato sauce in a small sauce pan, adding a pinch of crushed red pepper. Wash and pat dry some basil leaves. Sometimes I slice them into attractive little shreds. Get the pack of feta cheese from the fridge. Place eggplant pieces on plate, spoon sauce over them, then top with basil and crumbled feta.

It's a very satisfying meal, combining some of our favorite flavors. It's warm and filling for cool weather, but if you can get good fresh basil you have great summery flavor. And everything is better when it's topped with feta cheese.

Local Notes 
Feta cheese is expensive here in Hyderabad but you can find it. I usually get it from Qmart or Nature’s Basket. The couple times I’ve bought it at HyperCity it had gone bad despite being within the expiration date. Basil can be found at Qmart, Nature’s Basket, and Tarkari. To make the dish gluten-free I use Or-Gran rice crumbs from Nature’s Basket seasoned with salt, pepper, and dried herbs. I’ve found potato starch at Nature’s Basket, but cheap rice flour purchased anywhere works just as well. Crushed red pepper is often called “chili flakes” here.

Chinese Peanut Sauce

This was originally published at What I Eat on 13 September 2007. We were living in Walnut Creek, California at the time. 

Muffin is the only toddler I’ve heard of who likes broccoli. Although she likes it simply steamed with a bit of lemon juice (Lemon-eze here in Hyderabad) and ground black pepper, I like to make this peanut sauce for her everyone once in a while as a treat. 

Look for Local Notes at the end of the post to see how I modify the recipe for Hyderabad. 

All this produce from Planet Organics is sending me on searches for new recipes. When I first saw the price of their broccoli, I thought it was outrageous. But I decided to get some anyway. Holy cow! The amount of broccoli they give you is enormous. It's about 3 times the amount I usually buy for a week. Even though I don't love broccoli, it's good for me and I'm trying to eat more of it. And Mike loves it. So, since one of the points of getting this produce delivery is to introduce more fruits and veggies into our diets, surely I can find a palatable way to serve all this broccoli. I add it to stir-fry, I add it to quinoa, I add it to rice. But I need more.

Recently I remembered that a couple years ago I'd made a peanut sauce that I really liked. But I hadn't liked the veggies I'd prepared with it so I put it out of my mind and never thought about making it again. Until yesterday. I found the recipe in my Moosewood and made Chinese peanut sauce and steamed broccoli for lunch. And it was delicious.

1/2 cup good peanut butter
1/2 cup hot water
2 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. sugar
3 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. cider vinegar
1 to 2 Tbs minced fresh cilantro
cayenne, to taste
salt, to taste (if peanut butter is unsalted)

1) Place peanut butter in a small bowl. Add the hot water, and stir patiently with a spoon or a small whisk until uniformly mixed.

2) Stir in remaining ingredients and mix well. Cover tightly and refrigerate. Let come to room temperature before serving.

I used a chunky peanut butter for some crunchy texture. For soy sauce I use San-J Organic Tamari Wheat Free Soy Sauce.

This peanut sauce keeps in the fridge for a couple days and can be used on a variety of grilled or steamed vegetables. Or as a dipping sauce for spring rolls or fried tofu or something like that. Or even as a salad dressing. Add a little water to thin it to your needs.

Now we are down to about one serving of broccoli left. However our next produce delivery is today. We will have a broccoli surplus on our hands.

**Gotta go! My produce arrived as I was giving this post a final edit.**

Local Notes 
I have not been able to find gluten-free soy sauce in Hyderabad, so every time I come back from the United States I bring a bottle or two of San-J Tamari Wheat-Free Soy Sauce with me. You can order gluten-free soy sauce packets from Minimus.biz. If you are ordering through the pouch, the packets are small enough that you can order quite a few and be within the liquid restrictions. They offer international shipping as well. I've bought cider vinegar from HyperCity, in the Waitrose section.

Rosemary Roasted Pork Tenderloin

This was originally published at What I Eat on 6 September 2007. We were living in Walnut Creek, California, at the time. With my recent trip to the Minerva Pork Shop in Secunderabad, we have a lot of pork tenderloin in the freezer so I went through my old posts for some ideas of what to do with it. Look for Local Notes at the end of the post to see how I modify the recipe for Hyderabad. 

A couple years ago I came home with a handful of fresh, beautiful rosemary from farmers' market and had no idea what to do with it. (I tend to make impulse produce purchases.) A Google search for rosemary recipes led me to this one on About.com.

INGREDIENTS:
2 pork tenderloins, about 2 pounds [1 kg]
3 tablespoons fresh rosemary, or about 1 tablespoon dried
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, halved
salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION: Preheat oven to 400°. Line a baking pan with foil, spray with cooking spray and place in oven. Trim fat from pork tenderloins and butterfly the meat, cutting them nearly in half lengthwise. Open the pork tenderloins and lay out, pounding to flatten with the palm of the hand or the bottom of a heavy skillet.

Chop rosemary if using fresh. Rub pork tenderloins all over with cut sides of garlic halves then olive oil, then sprinkle rosemary on both sides.

Remove baking pan from the oven and place pork on hot tray. Return to oven and roast for about 20 minutes (about 155° to 160° internal temp). Remove and let stand 5 minutes, then slice.

Rosemary roasted pork tenderloin serves 4 to 6.

We've modified it a bit for ourselves. Last night for the first time we did just one tenderloin, and it worked out much better for our dinner and leftovers needs. I always forget to spray the aluminum foil with oil and it doesn't seem to matter. We love garlic, so we use several cloves sliced into spears, and stick them into the meat for roasting.

On the side I had a small plate of red pepper slices and cucumber spears; it's still summer after all, so we should be eating lots of cool, crisp veggies. I also roasted some potatoes -- a handful of fingerlings, a purple one, and a sweet potato -- with salt and pepper, and I tossed in one of the rosemary sprigs.

Local Notes 
In Hyderabad I’m more likely to throw in some carrots and small onions for roasting (they look sort of like shallots to me, but are called madras onions I think) along with whatever potatoes I find at the store. During the winter I love the pink local carrots that come into season but throughout the year I can find very tasty regular orange carrots. The tenderloins I get here are much smaller than what you’ll find in the United States. Rosemary can often be found at Qmart, Nature’s Basket, or Tarkari.