Apple chips

Hokay, so. At pike place market there are these people that sell apple chips. They claim that they are 100% apple with nothing added. They're supposedly just baked. Those things are amazing. I love them so much I want to cry. Sooo I decided to try it out for myself. I used my mandolin to cut some gala apples and bake them at about 275 for around 2 hours I think. The outcome was terrific!! I loved it!! It tasted like the pike place market people!! Sooooo good. I am in love. Such an awesome snack. The chips are completely crisp, and they produce such a satisfying crunch when you bite into them. The only problem with these guys is they take a long time to bake (about 2 hours) and you can't make a lot at a time, since they probably can't be layered on top of each other on the baking sheet.

Here's the before pic:


And another after shot:


Check out this cool chip with the star:

Ciabatta

Happy holidays! Last week my older sister and I made ciabatta, again from this book. It was amaaaaazing. Definitely my favorite bread from the book so far. The bubbles in the bread were so big and awesome looking. The bread was amazing as toast. One recipe made 3 ciabattas. Mmm. Definitely will make again.

And now, some more pictures for your viewing pleasure.

BUBBLES!!!


TOAST!!


TOAST WITH GOAT CHEESE!!! This seems like it'd be good with some sun dried tomatoes on top iykwis. Riyeeeet.


...next up, focaccia!

Classic french bread

Oh hi. I made the second recipe in this book. It came out delicious. Tasted like real bread. One thing I did wrong was make the cuts in the dough too deep, as you can see in the pictures. Also, apparently the baguettes were supposed to be half the size. I was supposed to make 4 instead of 2. Whoops! Anyway, here are a few pictures from along the way:





And then here they are:


I also brought them to work:


Some people at work seemed indifferent about the bread and some said it was good. No one had the guts to say it was bad. Next up, ciabatta!

"Lean Bread" from Peter Reinhart

Oh hello there. I made the first recipe from Peter Reinhart's new book.

It is called "Lean Bread". I don't know why though. It probably explains in the description. The bread came out awesome.

Here's a picture of the final product:


The recipe made enough to produce two of them:


I made the dough, which was pretty painless, and then let it sit in my refrigerator for 2 to 3 days (but you don't have to leave it in there that long). Then, day of, you have to shape the dough and then let it rise for 1 hour, covered:


Then, let the dough rise for another hour, uncovered:


Then, I managed to blow all the fuses in my house other than the oven, before actually putting the bread in the oven. I still baked the bread, using candle light to see:


I still got a shot of the babies in the oven:


Since my refrigerator wasn't working (as there was no power in my place), I decided to put my refrigerated goods in bags and hang them outside my window:


And 2 more windows:


Hopefully there is power when I get home but I'm not getting my hopes up. Didn't hear back from my landlord yet.

Tomato and onion tart

Hey hey. I made a tomato and onion tart today. I am staying at my mom's house right now and she has mad tomato plants in full bloom around the house, so I used those cherry tomatoes in this tart. The bottom layer is 1 large onion that I caramelized, 1 package of feta cheese, a bunch of basil leaves (also from my mom's garden) and 2 eggs. I mixed all of those together and put that on the bottom of the tart. On top of that I put a bunch of cherry tomatoes that I had roasted in the oven before hand for about an hour. The crust is a whole wheat and olive oil crust. I thought that the tart was very delicious. In the future I will work on the crust, because it was a little tough. The cherry tomatoes were really good though, since they were roasted before hand. The feta cheese was also delicious.

And here it is after my sister and I got our hands on it:


I totally took what felt like all day to make this tart. Ok, not all day, but a good 3 or 4 hours. It's nice having nothing to do, and just taking my time and being inefficient. I can only do that for another week and a half!

Matbucha

Hi there. I made matbucha, pronounced mott-boo-cha, where the 'ch' is the sound of clearing your throat. Matbucha is a Moroccan tomato dish that primarily consists of tomatoes, spicy peppers and garlic. I guess red peppers are often also put in there but I'm not sure. Technically you're supposed to make it with really ripe tomatoes but I had to make it with normal tomatoes. This is how it went down.

I cut up about 6 medium sized tomatoes into big chunks. I seeded and cut up 6 jalapenos, and chopped about 8 cloves of garlic, as shown below.


I then put all of these ingredients, as well as 1/4 cup of olive oil, and salt and cracked black pepper in my soup pot:


Next I opened up a big can of whole peeled tomatoes:


And poured them into the soup pot (aw yeah, action shot):


And then it looked like this:


I had these roasted red bell peppers hanging out in my fridge and decided that I wasn't going to use them for anything else


So I threw them in the pot:


And then it looked like this:


I then let these ingredients simmer, covered, for about an hour and a half, stirring every once in a while


Eventually the whole thing becomes pretty watery and at that point you want to let it cook half covered, to let the juices evaporate


...And finally, you end up with something like this:


All that fit in this little container:


I made a wheat challah to enjoy this with, but you do your thing

Baba Ganoush

I love food blogs that have lots of pictures, so from now on I will attempt to have more pictures of the steps of the recipe. For pesach I made baba ganoush for the first time. Here is how it went down.

Ingredients:
3 eggplants
5 tbsp mayo
juice of 1 lemon
4 cloves garlic
cumin
salt
pepper

I tryed charring the first eggplant over a burner but it just wasn't working out for me. My mom then told me that I could put all 3 eggplants on a baking sheet and broil them... so that's what I did. I turned on the broiler and let the tops of the eggplants get nice and black. I then flipped them over. I did this so that all sides got charred, about 20-30 minutes. They then looked like this:



As you can see, the eggplant is deflated and soft. The next step is to peel off the skin, making sure to leave all of the flesh.

Next, chop up all of the flesh and put it in a bowl:


I then blended this together:


... and then it looked like this:


Then I added the rest of the ingredients.


... and then it looked like this:


Tada! It was good but not the best. If I make this again, I don't think I'll blend it. I like seeing seeds in baba ganoush and the blending did away with those. Instead, I think I'll cook it longer and then mash it up with a fork or something. I think it had a really nice flavor though, and it wasn't too mayo-y which was nice.

Chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips

These are delicious. Probably my favorite cookie that I've made. I've made these before but this time I subbed peanut butter chips for chocolate chips. I love these cookies because they're so rich and are also really soft. They remain soft for days. Crispy cookies are not my thing. This is the recipe I used (but replaced the chocolate chips with peanut butter chips). It also makes me feel better because only 2 tbsp of butter are called for to make 12 cookies... but I'm sure the quarter pound of bittersweet chocolate more than makes up for it ;^)

Cinnamon Rolls (part 2)

I had been craving cinnamon rolls for a while, and I finally made them. Oh my goodness, these are amazing. I didn't want to make a big batch because baked items like these, muffins and scones are only good the day of, and maybe a few days afterward. I followed this recipe except I quartered the recipe, which yielded the perfect amount. Since the recipe calls for 2 eggs and I quartered it, I took a chance and used 1 egg. This caused the dough to be more sticky, so I added extra flour as I saw fit. Also, I used 1 packet of active dry yeast, when I think I was only supposed to use about 1/4 of it. This resulted in the cinnamon rolls being incredibly fluffy and delicious. I let the dough rise for about an hour, but the recipe says to let it rise for only about 10 minutes. I made the glaze out of powdered sugar, milk, salt and vanilla. Sooooo goooooood.

Here they are after they were baked, pre icing:














Finally, here they are after being iced:














Ready to be eaten:

Leek and Random Vegetable Quiche

Ohai there. I made a quiche. The crust I made using this recipe (just the crust), and then I just went with the flow for the rest. The innards of the quiche consist of leek, broccoli, green beans, tomato, egg and cheddar cheese. I also topped the whole thing off with some mozzarella, just cuz. It came out pretty good. I really like the crust, it was perfect, and there was no butter involved! The innards were kind of plain, but still pretty good. Next time I'll prepare more of the filling because there was room for more. Also, maybe next time I'll put some ricotta or something in the filling. I'd still call this a success.