Monthly Archives: February 2012

Chocolate Doughnut Holes

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Julie • 3 Comments

I don’t do much frying. Largely because, you know, it’s bad for you, but if I’m being 100% honest, there’s a pretty big laziness factor thrown in there. I never know how to best dispose of the oil, and I hate dealing with the greasy stack of paper towels left from draining. And I can’t stand that oily film that deep-frying seems to leave on your skin, your clothes, and half your kitchen.

I’m really selling this, aren’t I?

My point is, I fried for these doughnuts. Even though I hate frying. After making blood orange curd last week, all I could do was picture it oozing prettily out of the center of a dark chocolate doughnut. I’d never made doughnuts before, but this seemed like as good a reason as any to learn.

I had some catastrophic failures making these. I’m going to detail them out, because the correctly made ones are so sublime that I need you to not make the same mistakes I did. This will allow you to enjoy a full batch of these babies instead of the roughly two-thirds of a batch I ended up with after dejectedly admitting defeat with the other third and tossing them in the garbage.

How Not to Fail at Doughnuts

Do not attempt without a deep-fry/candy thermometer. I foolishly shrugged this off, thinking “hot is hot.” This is how I lost approximately one-third of my doughnuts. The oil gets too hot, and while you’re happily waiting for your timer to go off, your poor doughnuts are burning and screaming for rescue. Since they’re chocolate, you won’t be able to tell they’re burned until after you take them out, so correct temperature + time is key.
Okay, that’s pretty much it. Seriously. Make sure your oil is the right temperature.
Did I mention thermometers yet? So, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but if your oil gets too hot you will burn your doughnuts and go to bed sad.
I know I said that was pretty much it, but I lied. Don’t try to fry in your enameled cast iron dutch oven. I began heating my shortening in there because it was already on the stove and I didn’t really think about it, but it began to make alarming crackling noises about five minutes later. A quick Google revealed that I was lucky to not have ruined it. Should I have known this? Don’t judge me.

Even with my failure and lost doughnuts, the remaining ones were 100% worth it. They’re tender and cakey, and frying them in shortening prevents an excess of oily residue after they cool (this is a great tip from Deb - fats that are solid at room temperature are better for frying because of that, and because less of it is absorbed into the food). In the end, they were so good on their own that I didn’t even fill them with the orange curd* – I just rolled them in the simple vanilla glaze from the original recipe and brought them into work to make them disappear.

*Recipe for what I actually did with the blood orange curd coming this week.

… [click for recipe and more]

Filed Under: Breakfast, Desserts

Creamy Baked Tofu Taquitos

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Julie • 2 Comments

I never get tired of Mexican food. I strongly believe that food wrapped/rolled/stuffed into things is pretty much as good as it gets, and Mexican food has that down pat. I also love that it’s pretty easy to find satisfying vegetarian options in Mexican restaurants (although beware the refried beans). Most of all, I love that Mexican food is easy to make it home, and that you can usually make it much healthier than you could ever hope to get in a restaurant.

This recipe for creamy baked chicken taquitos began making its merry way around the internet several years ago. After reading wistfully of its charms in blog after blog, it almost began to haunt me – everywhere I went, I seemed to be staring at it, but I couldn’t have it! The humanity! Even the disgusting deep-fried messes they call taquitos at 7-11 seemed to be mocking me as they slowly rotated over and over on their dirty griddle. After suffering through this for years, I finally decided to Take Back the Taquito.

“But Julie,” you may be saying, “how can you take back the taquito when you never had the taquito?” If you are saying that, then you’re arguing semantics. And you know what rhymes with semantic? Pedantic. So there. Now eat one of the taquitos I just took back, and like it.

You’ll need to plan a couple of days ahead in order to freeze and thaw the tofu. Remove the tofu from the package and press gently with paper towels to remove excess water. Place in a freezer-safe Ziploc bag and seal tightly. Freeze for at least a day. Remove the night before or morning of the day you plan to make these and place in the refrigerator to thaw. After thawing but before shredding, gently press with several paper towels again to remove additional moisture. This will give the tofu a firmer, chewier texture.

I’m going to say one more thing about these taquitos before I beg you to make them – whether you’re a vegetarian or not really doesn’t matter with this recipe, so please don’t be put off by the tofu. In fact, I think this is a great introduction to tofu for those who perceive it as a wobbly, spongy, inadequate meat substitute. Freezing it first firms it up a lot, and the shredded texture mimics chicken so closely that I honestly don’t think most people would be able to tell the difference, especially with all the flavor in this recipe. Just this once, give tofu the benefit of the doubt. Your taste buds will thank you.

… [click for recipe and more]

Filed Under: Main Dish

Blood Orange Curd

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Julie • 4 Comments

Last week, I impulse bought a 3-pound bag of blood oranges during a 6 AM trip to the grocery store. Clearly, I was not entirely awake, or I would’ve remembered the identical 3-pound bags of blood oranges I bought over the previous two winters that sat unused in my produce drawer until, shriveled and dried up, I finally had to throw them away.

When I came to my senses (thank you, caffeine), I remembered those squandered oranges and made a solemn and dramatic vow to myself that not only would I not allow this batch to go to waste, but I would use every single bit of them – pith, peel, juice – in glorious ways (okay, I threw out the seeds). I quickly got to work peeling and juicing (lesson learned: convert your kitchen into something similar to Dexter’s kill room, or risk staining everything within five feet). Then, as I proudly gazed down at my pile of zest and peels and cups of beautiful scarlet juice, I realized that I’d given exactly zero thought to what I was actually going to do with all of it. Drink it straight? Yes, I did have a cup. But after my declaration of grand destiny for this bag o’ blood oranges, simply chugging the juice seemed like a bit of a letdown.

I’d never made my own curd before – the fact that my Trader Joe’s sells lemon curd at a very reasonable price, combined with the very real potential of homemade curd ending up as sweetened scrambled eggs (ew), has always held me back. But how could I resist blood orange curd? I certainly couldn’t buy it at Trader Joe’s, and the odds of ending up with a wealth of perfectly sweet, tart, pale pink loveliness handily trumped the risk of sugary scrambled eggs.

I’m so glad I made this – it’s incredibly simple, tastes amazing, and I’ve already thought of about 354657 ways to use it, including:

donut filling
blood orange tarts
Swiss meringue buttercream
eaten alone with a spoon

In fact, I loved it so much that I made a second batch. And then I had to go out and buy another bag of blood oranges. Don’t fear for their future, though – I think it’s safe to say that you’ll never see blood oranges go to waste in my home again.

… [click for recipe and more]

Filed Under: Quick & Easy, Sauces & Condiments

Wine Jelly

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Julie • 3 Comments

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve looked at a glass of red wine and thought to myself, “you know how this would be even better? If I could spread it on crackers!”

Okay, I’m lying. I’ve never thought that. Red wine is pretty excellent in a plain old wine glass, and there’s no reason to argue otherwise. But in the interest of not leaving well enough alone (I love poking well enough with a stick!), this is a way to take the excellent and make it transcendent. We’ve all had red wine, and we’ve given it as the standard hostess gift at every dinner party we’ve been to for the last kazillion years, and that’s fine. But wine jelly? Not only is it a handmade gift from your own kitchen, but hello! It’s also wine. And it’s easy to make. And the recipe conveniently leaves a healthy glassful to relax with while you wait for your jars to seal. You don’t want it to go to waste, do you?

The first few times I gave this out, I’ll admit that I got mixed reactions: “Wine jelly…um…interesting! What do you do with it?” Now, I get a preemptive “Are you making the wine jelly this year?” I’ve heard varying reports on what people are actually doing with it – the most common is served with cheese and crackers as an appetizer (this method has been me-tested and wholeheartedly approved), but I’ve also heard that it’s been mixed with Dijon mustard for a marinade, and I’ve even gotten a report or two that it’s been used in a grown-up version of a classic PB&J. Again, just another way to make the already-excellent transcendent.

What I love about this jelly is that you can actually taste the wine. It’s never boiled, so the alcohol doesn’t cook out. The downside of this is that you should probably not put it on your morning English muffin (unless it’s the weekend). The upside is that, like I said, you can actually taste the wine. The sugar mellows it quite a bit, and it’s not overpowering in the least. I’m not an expert on palates and finishes and all of that, but I’d describe each bite as a burst of fruity sweetness followed by a hint of the wine flavor at the very end. While it’s definitely not your standard Smuckers, it’s really, really good.

If you’re not interested in canning this for long-term storage but still want to give it as a gift, that’s absolutely fine – it will keep refrigerated for several months in sterilized jars. If you’re new to home canning but interested, I urge you to go here to read up on the basics. This was the first recipe I ever canned, and the simplicity of it got me totally hooked. Regardless of how you prepare, preserve, give or store this, I hope you enjoy it – it’s one of my all-time favorites.

… [click for recipe and more]

Filed Under: Kitchen Gifts, Sauces & Condiments

Hot Chocolate on a Stick

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Julie • 2 Comments

I am a sucker for anything that ends with “on a stick.” What’s bad that comes on a stick? Lollipops, cotton candy, veggie corn dogs, cake pops, popsicles – all a few of my favorite things, that happen to come on sticks. I even have a cookbook entirely dedicated to food on sticks. So when I found this recipe for hot chocolate on a stick, I knew I was going to make it – it was just a matter of when.

I first came across this recipe right before Christmas, when I was in a frenzy of homemade gift-making. In the three days before Christmas, I plowed through two batches of jelly, a vodka infusion, herb salts, lavender sugar, hot sauce, and two different kinds of shortbread. A diplomat would say I had my hands full; a realist would’ve taken one look at my wild hair, flour-covered clothes, and disaster-scene kitchen and had me committed. As much as I wanted to cram this hot chocolate onto my already unmanageable to-do list, there just wasn’t time. In the madness of the holidays, I ended up forgetting about it until yesterday, when I moved something in a cabinet to reveal the stack of chocolate bars I’d bought just for this and absentmindedly squirreled away. And as luck would have it, it was two days before Valentine’s Day and I’d found (and purchased, obviously) a heart-shaped ice cube tray for $2 at a hardware store (??) just a few days earlier. Clearly my destiny, at least for yesterday afternoon, was to make heart-shaped hot chocolate on a stick.

… [click for recipe and more]

Filed Under: Drinks, Kitchen Gifts