cranberry muffins

Modified from http://www.meatlessmonday.com/fresh-cranberry-muffins/

• 1 cup white flour
• 1 cup white whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup brown sugar (dark)
• a bit less than 1/3 cup white sugar
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• cinnamon to taste
  
• 1 cup fresh cranberries, chopped
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup (unsalted) butter or stick margarine, melted
• 1 teaspoon orange rind, grated
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400. Mix flours, sugars, salt, and cinnamon. Mix milk, melted butter, orange rind, vanilla, and egg. Add chopped cranberries to dry ingredients, stir. Grease muffin tin (12-cup). Stir wet ingredients into dry until just combined. Spoon into muffin tins, bake for 18 minutes or until muffins spring back lightly when touched in the center. Remove immediately and cool on wire racks.

VERDICT: The texture was OK, but too tart. They also have a strange almost fake-sugar taste (not that I've really consumed enough fake sugar to know.) Maybe I needed to cut the cranberries into smaller pieces, or use the full 1/3 cup of sugar. Or stir some sugar into the cranberry mixture first. Dunno. Also, let the melted butter cool before stirring it into the milk mixture. I was impatient and mine re-solidified when it hit cold milk.

chocolate chip cookies w/ oat flour

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/3? cup white sugar

^cream

1 1/4 cups white flour
1 cup oat flour
3/4 tsp (?) baking soda
too much salt (next time: 1/2 tsp? or get a goddamn measuring spoon.)
^mix really well

add 2 eggs and 2ish tsp of vanilla to butter mixture. beat til creamy. stir in flour mixture. add about 3/4 of a package of chocolate chips. Chill, perhaps. Bake at 350 degrees for some amount of time more than 10 minutes, on parchment paper. Perhaps add slightly more flour next time. Or chill longer. Or just stop spazzing out about the quality of homemade baked goods because any cookie is a good cookie.

peach cobbler

Used these two (very similar) recipes
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/easy-peach-cobbler-10000000257827/
http://southernfood.about.com/od/peachcobblers/r/r70913a.htm

which both do the odd thing where you melt butter in a pan in the oven and then pour a batter directly over it and then dump fruit over it and supposedly the batter/topping magically rises to the top. We'll see. I'm doubtful but I figure nothing with this mix of ingredients could taste bad, so who cares?

Modifications/notes:

Used extra lemon juice (2TBS?) because I like that slight citric acid counterbalance in my fruit
Used (I think) 5 very large peaches, sliced in cubes, which filled up (brimming) a 2-qt pyrex casserole
1/4-1/2 cup of sugar in the peaches - a cup seems like too much
2ish tsp of baking soda (oh shit I just realized it says baking powder...hmm. gah. it's been a long time since I made that mistake.)
used the 1 tsp vanilla
didn't boil anything
didn't peel anything
1/2 cup of sugar in the crust/dough

notes on how it turned out to come.

ETA: brought this to a party and everyone seemed to like it--it had a good amount of sugar. It was more liquidy than would be ideal, probably because I used extra peaches. Next time I won't pour in the extra liquid left sitting at the bottom of the bowl after I made the fruit mixture, and perhaps add some tapioca or cornstarch. The unpeeled peaches were fine. I baked it for 45 minutes (or more) but part of that was because I could see it was so liquidy. Some of the batter did rise to the top, but not all of it. Again, probably because I used extra peaches (or maybe because of the baking soda mixup--which didn't seem noticeable as far as flavor, fortunately.)

Also, for the love of Bob, if you can find freestone peaches or nectarines, do it. It's hard to cut fruit off a pit and into nice slices. 

Almond Bundt Cake

Quick and dirty notes:
Used this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Glazed-Almond-Bundt-Cake/Detail.aspx

Put in closer to 3 tsp of almond extract and 1.5 tsp of vanilla extract.
As per usual, used salted butter and omitted the added salt.
The batter didn't seem to have as much volume as I remembered bundt cakes having, but it's been a while and it expanded enough to fill the pan to a decent extent.
Baked for 60 minutes (on a low rack of the oven.) My oven miraculously stayed very close to 350 the entire time! It could have taken a tad less time but definitely not more, and it wasn't burned.

It was good but I feel like it could use more almond flavor somehow, maybe with a little less sweetness.

almond brownies

Adapted from http://www.carascravings.com/2010/03/pps-best-brownies-ever.html

1 cup butter (salted)
8 oz unsweetened chocolate
~2 cups sugar
2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
scant 1/2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
1.5 cups almond meal

Melt butter and chocolate on stove. Stir in extracts and sugar. Let cool slightly. Add egg and baking powder. Stir well. Stir in almond meal. Spread into greased square (8x8?) pan and bake at 325.

We'll see what happens...

amaranth greens and quinoa

Today I discovered amaranth leaves at the farmers market! Apparently they're also called "Chinese spinach." They're pretty mild (unlike dandelion greens, which were inedibly bitter no matter how long I cooked them or what I added to them), tastier than spinach (I.M.H.O.), and aesthetically interesting. I found a recipe for pasta with amaranth leaves and kinda changed it a bit. The leaves make reddish juice when you cook them, and it kind of turns the quinoa fuchsia. It's purdy.

*chopped amaranth leaves (3qt bowl filled to the top)
*5 cloves of garlic, pressed
*1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
*~tablespoon canola oil
*cooked quinoa
*grated cheese (I think this was manchego, not sure.)

Cook garlic and red pepper in canola oil for a few minutes over high-ish heat. Add leaves, stir for a bit, cover the pot and turn down the flame to let the leaves soften a bit but not too much. Add a few cups of cooked quinoa, stir, put into a bowl, and stir in the shredded cheese.

(white) whole wheat brownies

I'm going to try these: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/tasting-is-believing-whole-grain-brownies-recipe

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter
2 cups light brown sugar
several (6?) Trader Joes unsweetened chocolate baking disks, broken into pieces
3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon espresso powder, optional but recommended
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups White Whole Wheat Flour

It promises the shiny top crust, which I'm a big fan of.

Notes:
-omitted salt because I used salted butter
-used 1.5 c light brown sugar + 0.5c white sugar
-threw some trade joes unsweetened baking chocolate disks in with the melting butter because I wanted to use 'em up and because I wasn't sure how potent/fresh my cocoa powder was.
-sprayed the hell out of the pan with baking spray because I'm tired of having to chisel brownies out
-oven stayed at a pretty consistent 350 this time, miracle of miracles
-they rose a good bit, seem to have baked pretty evenly, and the toothpick came out clean after just 25 minutes, so I pulled them out of the oven.
-they're kind of cakey, and came out of the pan very easily - but maybe because of all the baking spray



Next on the roster is almond-meal-based brownies. My housemate brought one home from Whole Foods and it was pretty tasty. If I had a food processor I'd do this: http://www.hanneblank.com/blog/2011/04/22/elemental-chocolate-almond-cake/