Pantry Clean Out Cookies

Sitting in the car at the post office the other day, freezing my bum off and wondering if Garnet Hill would send yet ANOTHER spring catalogue, I was doing my mental pantry/fridge inventory and figuring out what we had and what I would make. Then I remembered the cranberries. Cranberries! Hooray!

I got a massive bag of dried cranberries because I planned to make granola bars. Then I ended up making granola bars in my kitchen in New York, so didn't need the cranberries in Massachusetts. I remembered that they were still in the back of the bread bin along with pumpkin seeds and roasted almonds.

I like cranberries. As with raisins, I will happily stuff my face full of them. Like raisins, however, they are only Beetle Friendly in small doses (fruit fiber is very hard to digest) so if I eat too many I get what I affectionately call "preg belly" where I wander around looking perilously close to my due date for about a day. It's fairly uncomfortable, sometimes really freaking uncomfortable, and it does tend to make almost all of my clothes, even the big sleep shirts, too small. It also hurts to suck it in and be normal and social in public company, so I generally spend preg belly days on my back on the couch. You know, like an actual pregnant woman. It's sort of like a  science fiction movie or TV show when the heroine looks down and there's an alien baby in her stomach and it's growing at 300% the normal rate and it's full term in an hour or something and all of a sudden she's just . . . HUGE . . . it's like that. Except mine goes away on its own without an alien birth involved (not yet at any rate).

Fun story. This happened in Vienna one summer and I really didn't feel like sucking it in all day as I wandered around. So, since I was in another country, alone, where I knew no one and spoke no German, I decided to be pregnant for the day. Best decision of my life. It was so comfortable, and it meant I could enjoy the museums in peace and comfort. Plus, everyone was super nice to me, the young mother to be. They opened doors, smiled conspiratorially, etc. It was awesome.

POINT BEING. We had cranberries. I wasn't going to eat a whole bag. So.

PANTRY CLEAN OUT SEVEN GRAIN CRANBERRY OATMEAL COOKIES

This is liberally adapted from The Joy of Cooking's Oatmeal Raisin cookie recipe. (I love you, Irma S. Rombauer.) I used what we had in the kitchen, and deliberately made them healthier and more granola-like, with agave instead of sugar, more spices, and a seven grain hot cereal mix for the oatmeal.

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 generous tsp cinnamon

1 generous tsp nutmeg

2 sticks butter, softened

1 liquid cup dark agave

2 eggs

2 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 cup plus a few handfuls dried cranberries

2 cups 7 grain hot cereal (wheat, rye, oats, triticale, barley, brown rice, oat bran, flax seed)

1 1/2 cups steel cut (not rolled) oats

 

This is the froth part. I did the freaking for you. It's all good.

Combine flour, baking soda and powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg, in a small bowl.



In a mixer, beat butter and agave until pale. This will take longer than using regular sugar, don't worry, it will still be pretty liquid and there might be a froth at the top, you didn't ruin it, it calms down.

This is what happens after you add the flour.
See? Gorgeous and smooth and heavenly.

Beat in the eggs and the vanilla.

Add the flour in two batches, beating after each addition, and scraping down the sides of the bowl. Stir in the cranberries, then the 7 grain cereal, then the steel cut oats, combine pretty well after each one.
 

Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls on parchment lined baking sheets. They don't spread that much so you don't have to allow a ton of space. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, a little less if you want them really gooey.
 

They flattened a little
but this is pretty much how they came out.

REMEMBER that when you use agave, it cooks more liquid than normal sugar, so your cookies will be squishy even when you bake them for 15 minutes. They will firm up a bit when they cool. But they are done, don't freak. They cool really well on wire racks before you wrap them up.

 

BEETLE NOTES
 

Using agave as you know will give you a really mellow, molasses-y, earthy depth to the cookies. You can smell the difference in the mixing bowl, and definitely in the cookies when they are baking. They come out nice and golden brown too. If you use agave, remember that it is CRAZY SWEET and that unless you want to give yourself diabetes you should reduce whatever sugar is called for. Example. The original Joy of Cooking recipe uses 1/2 cup of white sugar and 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar. First, that's craycray. Second, when using agave, instead of 2 cups I used only 1. And I could even have gone a bit less. Just saying. Don't make 'em Cadbury Creme Egg style.

 

This is an easily adaptable one for any hot cereals, oat mixtures, dried fruit, or seeds you want to clean out of your pantry. Oat bran, wheat bran, museli, corn grits, farina, or plain ol' rolled oats. I named them Pantry Clean Out cookies for a reason. I found a half a box of quinoa flakes I am TOTALLY using the next time I make these. Which, according to Mum, is . . . as soon as possible.

Crunchy, nubbly, chewy, packed-with-omega-3 goodness.

She likes 'em super crunchy.

I deliberately burnt an entire sheet pan of them for Mum.

And preferably black on the bottom, which is perfect when I'm experimenting with cooking times.
"It's okAY that they are essentially carbon. I LIKE them that way!"

I may have mentioned that Mum is a librarian? Her fellow librarians have very kindly offered themselves as guinea pigs (or at least are nice enough to accept the baked goods I force upon them) so I packaged up a bunch of them today and we drove them over.

Introducing Beetle Bakery packaging.

 

I am rather proud of this.

We drove them over through THE SNOW incidentally. Becuase. It snowed. There was even a sanding machine involved. For God's sake, people.
But. On a freezing, sleeting day, I would want someone to bring me relatively healthy freshly baked cookies in a paper bag with a Warrior Beetle on it.

So. There you go.

Cookbook Focus. And Beetle Bread.

Today I want to share with you a cookbook that technically has Mum's name in the front. (Although to be honest I'm not sure how much "ownership" we can apply here.) It's been in our kitchen for as long as I can remember, and I used to and still do leaf through it for novelty's sake. I don't think Dad ever used it really, he was a chef, an actual professional one, but most of his recipes are on index cards (in good little Catholic schoolboy cursive) in the recipe box on the counter. There's one in there that tells you how to make Chocolate Mousse for 50 people.

ANYWAY. I dug it out yesterday for comfort reading and decided I would tell you all about it. So here we go.

The book is called The New American Cookbook, published in 1942 by the American Publishers' Alliance, New York.

Lily Haxworth Wallace is listed as the Editor-in-Chief, and underneath her name is this:

Home Economics Lecturer and Writer

Instructor, Household Arts Department, The Ballard School, New York City

Assisted by fifty-four leading Authorities on Domestic Science and the Art of Modern Cooking

 

Underneath that is a charming little line ink drawing of a woman standing over a stove wearing a ruffled apron and heels. It's 930 pages long, and is punctuated by delightful colour and black & white photos of place settings, decorative serving platters, and the ideal way to organise a "modern" kitchen with all the latest conveniences.

 

It's also got pages and pages of entertaining menus ("with servant", "without servant", "workers' box lunches", "bridge luncheons"), and menus for a range of household incomes (including a budget one for an annual income of $1,000 called the "Minimum Cost Adequate Diet.")

The captions on some of the photos read:

"This buffet service adds interest to the well-chosen viands."

"Table appointments help establish the hostess' reputation for taste."

"Soup and Smiles begin this guest dinner, without a maid."

 

I can break it down thusly:
 

Things Yankee housewives in 1942 were geniuses to invent:
Molasses Doughnuts
LITERALLY YOU GUYS something called "Doughnut Muffins"
Salmon Fondue
Fried Bacon and Apples
Potato Soufflé
Raspberry Mousse with Marshmallows
Boiled Icing (remember Bunny Cake? yep, this is that)
Indian Pudding (aka the best thing in the world, I will make this and highlight it. Proms.)

Things Yankee housewives in 1942 thought were a good idea to serve but really weren't:
Stuffed Avocado Ideale (for serious - this involves boiled crab and Russian dressing)
Orange Tomato Aspic
Tripe in Batter
Brains
Wreath Salad (pineapple, watercress, cream cheese, and pillow mints whatever the hell those are)
Banana Ham Sandwich

When you're deep in the MEAT section, you gotta remember that this was 1942. People didn't have much money, and you had to make do with what you could get. This is why you only do a rapid eye blink the first time you see recipes #1581 and 1582.

It tells you how to skin a Possum. Just in case I ever need to. So, in Doomsday Preppers speak, when I bug out, THIS is what I'm bringing to my bunker.

Needless to say, I don't reaallllyyyy use it for the meat or fish recipes. Too much cream sauce, too much aspic, WAY too much use of pineapple (for real. why?) and far too much calling, specifically, for "fat" to be added. But the baking section is great. They use a lot of dates, which are Beetle Friendly and a good sugar substitute, and most of the recipes, by token of their simplicity, are very easily adaptable for taste and Beetle stomachs. And let us not forget (see above) that us Yankees invented some pretty damn good dishes, many of which are woefully under appreciated and under-made in 2013. So perhaps I will start a 1942 baking resurgence. Hmmmm.

I will begin, perhaps, with #2427, "Mock Nesselrode Pudding", which is sugar, milk, raisins, crumbled macaroons, vanilla, and almonds, whipped with egg whites until stiff, then molded and chilled. Barring the last minute (ill-advised) addition of maraschino cherries, that sounds like a whole lot of amazing.

SWITCHING GEARS ENTIRELY

I made Beetle Bread on Sunday afternoon. Specifically I made spelt bread. We stopped at a store that had a great flour selection and I got some yummy dark spelt flour. And I decided to put it to good use.

SIDE NOTE: I seriously do NOT understand this obsession with putting honey in bread, it makes no sense to me. Sometimes it is warranted, but, you guys, bread is BREAD. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE SWEET. Making your own bread conveniently solves this problem. And it also 9 times out of 10 creates a loaf that is dense and satisfying, rather than one that dissolves in your mouth when you take a bite, as most commercial loaves, even the high end ones, tend to do. In my opinion, if you can't knock someone out by bashing them over the head with your chosen loaf, then you should put it back on the shelf and move on. Beetle bread, my new weekly thing to make, is bread in it's most basic form. Which. Duh. Why make it any other way?

Beetle Bread

• 4 1/2 cups spelt flour
• 2 envelopes of yeast dissolved in 350 ml of warm water
• 2 tsp salt

Mix flour and salt together in a bowl. Mix in yeast and water. Add either more flour or more water until you have a desired consistency, but make sure it's sticky when you're finished. I used a mixer with a dough hook this time, and beat for about 5 minutes.
Cover with a cloth, let rise for an hour.
After an hour, punch it down, put in a 9x5 inch loaf pan dusted with flour, cover again and let rise for half an hour.
Cook at 425 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
Turn out of loaf pan and let cool completely on a wire rack before slicing. This is obviously the hardest part because instinctively since the dawn of time when we were Neanderthals living in caves the built in genetic response to the smell of freshly baked bread is to pick up the entire loaf and shove it in your face. There has never been any literature on this but I firmly believe it's imprinted in our DNA.

And voila!

Yummmmmm carb closeup.

I should point out in closing that there is significantly less of this bread currently in the bread bin than there was when this picture was taken. What can I say. This is one Beetle that loves her carbs.

Optimistic Cornbread

Happy Sunday all! A day of long runs, entire newspapers, pre-dinner walks (one of which is about to happen) and realising that Underworld: Rise of the Lycans really is one of the worst movies ever made.

We have a TV in the kitchen and normally when I'm cooking I have an extraordinarily high crap tolerance because I just want something in the background that I can tune out and in at will. But even this was too much. And here's the thing, guys, I've totally seen this movie already. In it's entirety. In a movie theatre. I claim being in love with Michael Sheen as an excuse, but . . . wow. I tuned in to the SyFy channel and made it through approximately three minutes of Steven Mackintosh talking to la Sheen through the bars of a dungeon before grunting in disgust and switching to one of my many DVR'd episodes of Hoarders. I know, I know, it's a horrible exploitative show and I'm a bad person for watching it blah blah blah. I can't explain it, you guys, I find it soothing. I'm a borderline OCD germaphobe neat freak and I like watching Hoarders. I'm not expecting you to understand, or forgive. I simply state it as fact.

But I digress.

In the vein of "if I do things that are spring-like maybe spring will come eventually" (I only needed two fleeces to run today! Progress!) I decided to make cornbread. But not just any cornbread. Lemon Thyme Cornbread. This came about because I realised just how much thyme we had in the fridge, and rather than use it again for dinner, decided to bake.

I used the Martha Stewart "Polenta Quick Bread with Lemon and Thyme." "Polenta Quick Bread", I feel, is just a very Martha Stewart-y way of saying "cornbread." Much like "decoupage your entire living room with reclaimed doilies" is another way of saying "lie very still in a dark room with a cold compress on your face." See? Same thing. ANYWAY.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON LEMON THYME CORNBREAD

BEETLE NOTES:
I doubled the recipe, because I wanted one for mum and one for her library. And I gotta tell you. Doubling the recipe basically made one recipe's worth. I divided it into two loaf pans but I could have gotten away with using only one.



THIS, dear reader, is the colour of spring.

I used one recipe's worth of sugar because Martha tends to go too sweet. I also did NOT add pine nuts because I think pine nuts are gross. To offset that, I bumped up the lemon zest/juice and the thyme. When everything is mixing together it smells heavenly and is such a lovely bright yellow colour.



 

Once the thyme is all mixed in and then the flours it
goes really pale golden and fluffy. And smells divine.

See how I put a line of thyme leaves down the centre of each one?
Yeah. That's how I roll.

 

I just tipped one loaf out, as you can see, it's definitely not a thick one (doubled recipe my ass) but it smells divine, and it cuts well. It's got a very crumbly texture, almost shortbready I want to say. I think maybe next time I'll add a little milk and see if that makes it more cakey.

The Mum verdict is that it tastes very nice, and is a good savoury cornbread. I will attempt to make it thicker and stickier next time round, but for now she says it's a keeper.

So with that bring on cornbread and warm sunshine! Also never watch Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. Save yourself. Eat cornbread instead.

 

It's fish Sunday dinner tonight, so yay. Spinach and smoked trout and, my personal fav, pickled herring. That's ok that you're wrinkling your nose. More for me. Beetle out.

Saturday Comfort Supper

So I was doing yoga this afternoon and all of a sudden I look out the window and there are CROCUSES in the front garden. This is so exciting. So exciting in fact that I fell out of Standing Bow.


See???

That being said, it's pretty damn cold outside today. And windy. Sunny and liquid birdsong but coooolllddd sunny liquid birdsong. I am wearing three sweaters and two pairs of sweatpants if that gives you an indication.

So although it looks like spring, it's still a warm comfort supper kind of Saturday. Hence, title of post.

We had cauliflower in the fridge that I needed to use, and a bunch of different herbs. And also a lot of Veggie Sausage. ("Chicken" Apple Sage to be exact.) And after a day of spin, yoga, laundry, teaching applications, and vacuuming, I felt like inventing something. So . . . virtual drum roll. . .

CAULIFLOWER AND VEGGIE SAUSAGE GRATIN

We're talking SERIOUS comfort food here. Food that says "Yeah, whatever, there are crocuses outside, but I'm also fighting the cat for the space heater and I'm actually looking for dishes to wash so I can immerse my hands in hot water." Food that says "Get your bum on the couch, find a blanket, eat the entirety of this in one sitting, and watch Call The Midwife which (thank GOD) is back for Season 2."

It's actually in the oven right now, so I may post later tonight and say GUYS NEVER MIND IT TASTES LIKE CRAP STOP STOP STOP THIS RECIPE IT SUCKS. But I may also post tomorrow and say "sorry I was in a food coma and this is amazing." Whatever. Here's the recipe, from my brain.

CAULIFLOWER AND VEGGIE (OR REGULAR IF THAT'S YOUR THING) SAUSAGE GRATIN

• One head cauliflower
• Sausages (whatever kind makes your happy - sausage is sausage and that's always good)
• Olive Oil
• Shredded Gruyere or similar
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Fresh Sage, chopped

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Grease a casserole or deep baking dish with olive oil. Cut cauliflower florets thin lengthwise so that they will lie flat. Cut the sausages the same way, I got three slices out of each sausage on my end.

I just like the way cauliflower looks . . . it looks so . . . clean.

 

The best part of shredding fresh sage with your hands is that your hands then smell like fresh sage.

 

Starting with the cauliflower, layer that, sage, a little bit of cheese, then strips of sausage (I made sure the ends of the dish had sausage too . . . you know how much everyone HATES getting "that part" of the gratin that doesn't have all the goodness in it) and salt and pepper. Repeat until you run out of one of them or the dish is full. Sprinkle with a bit more cheese and drizzle with olive oil so that the layers get a little coated.

Comme ça.

I put my dish on a foil covered sheet pan just in case there was spillage, incidentally. And in it goes! Bake for about 30 minutes until the cauliflower is nice and tender. If it starts browning too much on top cover it with another piece of foil.

So me typing "bake for about 30 minutes" was the catalyst for me looking at the clock, yelling "SH*T" and running into the kitchen.

Which.

Smells.

AMAZING.

It's done! It's beautiful. See? We're getting ready to eat, but I can't IMAGINE that this wont' taste good. I mean. Seriously.

Closeup of melty cheesy goodness.

So there you are, dear reader, Saturday Comfort Supper. Go grab your Doctor Who sweatshirt, a fork, the remote, forget the fact that you did your taxes yesterday, and dig in. You've earned it.

Hot Non-Denominational Cross Buns

So I have a confession. I've never made Hot Cross Buns before. Never. Every Easter I say "I'm going to make hot cross buns this year. I really am." And Mum says "That will be nice I'd like hot cross buns." And then I don't make them. This year I went as far to get extra butter and eggs at the market. And then I never made them. So today, three whole days after Easter, once and for all, I made Hot Cross Buns. Booyah. And you guys they are so easy and so fun and I'm going to make them forever after.

Since the distinctive cross on the tops of the buns is, when baked in our house, definitely not a cross in the Jesus sense of the word I thought about naming this post "Hot X Buns" but then that might have indicated a very different kind of post, and I didn't want my nice delicious post-Easter baked goods showing up in a porno search or anything. So I settled on "Non-Denominational Cross Buns."

I used the recipe from The River Cottage Bread Handbook by Daniel Stevens and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. The River Cottage is on my list for the next time we go to England, Hugh F-W runs it as a culinary school, restaurant, and champion of sustainability and yummy things to eat. And boy do they know bread.

Here is the recipe, which can be found in the cookbook or at epicurious.com:

POST EASTER HOT NON-DENOMINATIONAL CROSS BUNS

• 2 cups (8.8 ounces/250g) white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
• 2 cups (8.8 ounces/250g) all-purpose white flour
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup warm milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons (0.18 ounce/5g) instant yeast
• 2/3 cup (3.5 ounces/100g) raisins, currants, or golden raisins (or a mixture)
• Finely grated zest of 1/2 orange
• 1/4 heaping teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice
• 2 teaspoons (0.35 ounce/10g) fine salt
• 3 1/2 tablespoons (1.8 ounces/50g) superfine sugar
• 1 medium free-range egg
• 3 1/2 tablespoons (1.8 ounces/50g) butter
  
• 6 tablespoons (1.8 ounces/50g) all-purpose white flour
• 7 tablespoons water
  
• 1 tablespoon apricot (or other) jam, sieved
• 1 tablespoon water

If you have a stand mixer, combine the flours, water, milk, yeast, salt, and sugar in the bowl and fit the dough hook. Add the egg and butter and mix to a sticky dough.

Add the dried fruit, orange zest, and spices and knead on low speed until silky and smooth. (You can do this by hand, but it will be sticky to handle.) Cover the dough and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, until doubled in size.

Deflate the risen dough and divide into 8 equal pieces. Shape into rounds and dust with flour. Place on a floured board, cover with plastic wrap or linen, and let proof for about 30 minutes, until roughly doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 400°F. To make the crosses, whisk together the flour and water until smooth, then transfer to a pastry bag and snip off the end to make a fine hole (or use a plastic food bag with a corner snipped off, as I do). Transfer the risen buns to a baking sheet and pipe a cross on top of each one, then bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt the jam with the water in a pan. Brush over the buns to glaze as you take them from the oven. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve warm, cold, or toasted.

 

 

 

BEETLE NOTES:

 

We had no oranges or orange zest in the house, so I bumped up the spices a little bit. And I did add raisins even though Mum hates them because she said she wanted them. I don't think I added 2/3 of a cup, though, I just threw in a couple of handfuls. The dough was a bit dry so I ended up adding probably another 1/3 of a cup of milk to make it stickier.

 

I read in the comments that one woman had made them in a brownie pan, all jumbled up next to each other, and I'd read that once before for cinnamon buns, so I decided to try it (see left.) It worked quite well. The sides stay soft and unbrowned that way, and there's something incredibly satisfying about pulling two hot buns apart, isn't there? And of course then promptly stuffing both into your face. 

The Just Baked View.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the glaze, the recipe above calls for just flour and water brushed on in a cross shape, which I was alllll set to do, considering that under normal circs, the less sugar the better. However, my sainted mother informed me that since they were traditionally made with a frosting cross, she figured that, "for tradition's sake" hers should have a frosting cross too. So. Frosting. I eschewed the flour/water cross and the jam (though definitely trying that one again soon it sounds delicious) and went for the Classic Simple Icing. Standard formula, FYI, 1 cup of powdered sugar to two large tablespoons milk. Convert up or down accordingly, and add a little bit of vanilla extract if you have it. Whisk away and you're done! Easy peasy lemon squeezy. (which you could totally add for lemon icing, it's delicious.)



Niiiiice and thick. As icing was in the beginning.
And ever shall be. World Without End. Amen.



I decided that I didn't want to dig through my moving boxes (btw, 75% of my life is still in boxes in the ballroom waiting to be unpacked) for my pastry bag and tips, so I used the ever-popular sandwich bag with one end snipped off. In a pinch, it's just a valid. It does get messier faster, but looking at these photos you can't tell, can you, that finishing up my hands were coated in icing and the bag had been reduced to a sticky, white, sugary monstrosity? Exactly.

What you didn't see can't hurt you, or make you laugh uproariously. I will dig out the pastry bag next time.

 

So there you have it. Hot Cross Buns. Hot Non-Denominational Cross Buns. With Icing. Waiting for brecky or tea or coffee or what have you.

 

 

There are flowers INSIDE.
OUTSIDE ON THE OTHER HAND it snowed yesterday. Again.
I'm ready for Spring, you guys.

 

 

 

Easter

Well, I have to begin this entry by typing, with resounding force, RABBIT RABBIT! I know this isn't part of the Easter menu/photos/bunny happiness, but for those of you who have no idea what Rabbit Rabbit means, welcome to really weird New England traditions. On the first of every month, when you wake up and before you say ANYTHING else, you have to say "Rabbit Rabbit." If you do, you will have good luck for the month. If you don't . . . I don't know but I live in deathly fear of the consequences. Here is the Wikipedia entry on Rabbit Rabbit. In our family, we take the added step of Rabbit Rabbiting other people either by running into a next door bedroom and screaming the person awake, or by accomplishing the same via telephone. Mum got me at 4am this morning. Brutal? Yes. Nonsensical? Sure. Gonna keep doing it forever? Absolutely. So. As I said, RABBIT RABBIT EVERYONE!

 

Ok now onto the Easter food.

 

EASTER SUNDAY SUPPER





le menu

 

first course

dates, cheese, almonds, crackers, black bread

main course

oven roasted carrots and fennel with fresh dill

broccoli florets and sweet peas with pesto and fresh basil

filets of arctic char with sea salt and fresh dill

black bread

dessert

Bunny Cake (lemon ginger bundt cake)

gingersnaps

tea/coffee

 

 

So I didn't suck out this time and I actually remembered to take pictures! And my thanks to Laur for a)reminding me and b)taking over when my hands were covered in olive oil. You did a lovely job, Poodle.  



A cute little part of the table decor,
Swedish Easter girls.
Glad Påsk!



Bunny Cake pre-decoration. But seriously, how freaking
 PERFECTLY did that come out?
I am so impressed with myself.

With the addition of powdered sugar.

And this is BUNNY CAKE in all it's glory.
Yes, I made construction paper bunnies.

NOTES
1. I wanted to make carrots and parsnips this year, because parsnips seem very Easter-y to me. However, at the market, the parsnips were not up to my standards. Surprising, they normally have AMAZING parsnips, but I had to refigure things a bit. Hence, fennel. I also used a few fennel fronds as well as the dill. But it makes a nice combination, the dill and the licorice-y fennel. And just tossed in a bit of olive oil and rough sea salt, roasted in the oven at 450 for about half an hour until they're all soft and gooey and amazing. 

Oven roasted carrots and fennel with dill fronds

2. I had intially talked here about making mini sweet pea custards. But decided at the last minute that there wasn't enough time, and there were only 4 of us, and sweet pea custards are a big fat ZERO on the Beetle Friendly scale, so I scrapped it and settled on a very green very fresh and very simple warm salad of steamed broccoli and sweet peas tossed with basil pesto. It makes a great last minute veggie dish and it looks so spring like and healthy.


 











3. The fish spoke for itself. It was absolutely delicious and it was fresh Canadian char so that made me environmentally happy. For those of you who haven't explored the char option, it does look very much like Alaskan salmon but it's less oily, and much sweeter. And if you can get fresh dill, it tastes absolutely a universe apart from dried. All the difference in the world.

Trying not to lick my computer screen.

4. The black bread. You guys. I am slowly perfecting this recipe. IT WAS SO AMAZING THIS TIME. I used the 101 cookbooks recipe that I had last week (with my modifications). This time I knew I wanted more than one loaf, so I doubled everything except the can of pumpkin. THAT I kept a single portion. The dough was so wet last time that I figured it could stand up to it. And barring a few extra handfuls of flour as I kneaded it, it worked a treat. It rose like a CHAMP and was so perfect going into the oven. I took it out exactly when the cooking time said, and seriously, more beautiful loves I have never seen.

5. BUNNY CAKE. I didn't not attempt the boiled frosting version this year (mostly because if I make that massive cake and only mum can eat it she WILL eat the whole thing and turn into a fatty). Instead, I christened my new bundt cake pan and make a Lemon Ginger Bundt Cake. Thank you, Martha, as always. I did modify slightly in that instead of the 1/3 cup of minced crystalised ginger I used half a jar of ginger preserves. I think it made it a bit stickier, which is never a bad thing. And I also added a few teaspoons of powedered ginger. The transformation into "bunny cake" itself was a few minutes with scissors, construction paper, and matchsticks. It is glorious, if I do say so myself. Mum's fellow librarians reaped the benefits this afternoon.


BUNNY CAKE. 

 



So, Happy Easter one and all! It was a delightful day, a delightful weekend with my bestie from the city, much egg dyeing, laughter, and country walks were had by all. And according to the temperature of the last few days, spring might be thinking about coming. I am psyched. I only had to wear two fleeces to run on Sunday, which is major progress in my opinion. I hope everyone had a good one as well. Beetle out.