Perfumed Pineapple Oat Crumble

This is a favorite from the French cookbook my friend Jessica brought me. The original attempt (with way too much butter after the conversion from metric and translation) is here:

http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/07/perfumed-pineapple-crumble-crumble.html?m=0

I did some alterations today, trying to make it heartier/healthier.

Ingredients:
- 2 small pineapples
- real vanilla
- brown sugar
- butter
- flour
- oats

Cut the pineapple and 'perfume' with about 2 teaspoons vanilla.

Grease dish with butter. I used my Le Creuset skillet today.

Sprinkle with brown sugar. The original suggests 3 tablespoons. I didn't measure.

Arrange pineapple in the bottom of the dish.

Make sandy crumbs with remaining ingredients. The recipe suggests 2 more teaspoons vanilla, 2 cups flour and 2 cups brown sugar. And butter -- at room temperature.

I tried:
- vanilla
- one cup unbleached flour
- one cup oats
- one cup brown sugar
- 1/2 stick butter

Cover pineapple with crumbs and bake for 45 minutes at 350.

Rhubarb crumble

The finished product

The rhubarb

We made a rhubarb brown sugar crumble based on this recipe from cooks.com:

the filling

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1813,150175-250200,00.html

We greased my Le Creuset skillet and I chopped about 3.5 cups of rhubarb.

Daughter made crumbs with the following:
- 1 stick melted butter
- 1 cup unbleached flour
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 3/4+ a little oats
- cinnamon to taste

Adding the sauce

We put half the crumbs in the skillet.

I mixed about 1/2 cup fresh strawberries and frozen blueberries into the rhubarb. Then I sprinkled some brown sugar on the fruit. (I don't have any granulated sugar in the house)

We put the fruit/rhubarb over the crumbs and I drizzled honey over it.

In a saucepan we made a thickened sauce of:
- one cup water

final crumbs

- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons corn starch
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla

(gradually heat to almost boiling stirring constantly until it gels)

We poured that over the rhubarb filling, covered with remaining crumbs and more cinnamon and baked in the oven at 350 for one hour.

Vegan Blueberry Steusel Muffins

This is based on the recipe from the Betty Crocker 25th anniversary cookbook.

I love muffins. They freeze easily, transport easily and feed an empty belly in a hurry. I normally add nuts for protein but this time I didn't because of my broken teeth.

Heat oven to 400.

Make streusel topping.

Streusel topping:
- 1/4 cup flour (I used a hair more)
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar (as if I measured)
- 2 tablespoons firm margarine
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (I used more)
Mix in bowl until crumbly. Now, I always overmix my crumbs and they get soft so then I mix in oats to fix the texture.

For the muffins:

- I cup 'milk' (I used plain soy today. I would also use vanilla soy or almond or rice)
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (I didn't measure, and I always use real vanilla. You could also use lemon or almond extract to give the batter more flavor. Putting half lemon and half almond _if I remember correctly_ will replicate a coffee cake flavor)
- instead of 1 egg use 4 tablespoons applesauce. Normally I use natural, unsweetened. Those single serve packs = 1 egg (especially good if you bought a flavor for packed lunches and it was deemed gross) This time I used cinnamon.

Mix.

Dump in dry ingredients:
- 2 cups flour (normally I do half unbleached white and half whole wheat but I ran out of wheat)
- 1/3 cup sugar (I used 1/4)
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt

Stir.

Fold in blueberries. I used 1.25 cups frozen, not even thawed.

Scoop into tins. Top with crumbs. Bake 20 minutes.

I made 16 small muffins and could have doubled the crumb recipe.

Crock pot candy chicken

From http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/08/crockpot-brown-sugar-chicken-recipe.html

I didn't deviate from her recipe, except to throw in some carrots. I used thighs.

Ginger pear muffins

Tonight is girl scout night, which means my daughter will come home chock full of snacks. I have to feed her something for dinner, but the way the evening goes... We barely have time for homework and she never has an appetite. So, I wondered if muffins might work. Having only canned fruit in the house, I wondered if pear muffins might work.

I found a recipe from the Canadian Living test kitchen online for Ginger Pear muffins and I thought yum...

Thus far, the foray has been difficult.

Ingredients for batter:
- 2.5 cups all purpose flour (I used 1.5 unbleached white and 1 whole wheat)
- 1 tsp baking soda
-  1 tsp ground ginger (for a moment I thought I had run out of Ginger)
- 1/2 tsp salt (I used fresh ground sea salt)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon (I almost doubled it)
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar ( I got out my light brown and my dark brown, planning to mix things up a bit)
-1/3 cup vegetable oil (I used mostly canola and then a few drops of walnut oil)
- 1 egg (now I went back and forth between using an egg versus applesauce. I went with the egg. For a vegan version, use 4 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce)
- 1 cup buttermilk (I used 1 cup soy milk whisked with maybe 1.5 teaspoons apple cider vinegar)
- 2 cups chopped pears

Topping:
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 tsp butter melted (unless you're an idiot like me and use 2 tablespoons)
- 1/4 teaspoon ground Ginger (like I measured, I just sprinkled it on)

My additions:
Whole oats
Crystallized Ginger, chopped

What was supposed to happen:
Preheat oven to 350. Grease muffin pans (12-- I always prep 18 because what do you do if there is excess? I used all 18)

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, Ginger and cinnamon. I also added about 1 tablespoon tiny chopped crystallized Ginger.

In a separate bowl, whisk brown sugar with oil. Now, my brown sugar was hard as a rock. And I salvaged what I can using ever trick I ever knew. I got some. Not sure how much. Whisk in egg and then buttermilk.

Sprinkle with pears and combine everything. Stir until just mixed. Spoon into tins.

Okay, good. Now let me tell you, my batter was elastic. It so rang back into the tin when I tried to maneuver it. Weird.

Okay, topping.

In a bowl, combine topping ingredients. Now stir and sprinkle on muffins. Except I misread teaspoons for tablespoons and now have brown sugar soup. Besides, who every heard of making crumb topping with melted butter. Doesn't everyone use soft?

I add a teaspoon of flour. Still soup. I add a couple tablespoons of oats. That's as good as they'll get I think.

Baking for 25 minutes. Smell awesome.

Angel's doughnut holes

I decided to try the doughnuts I've been thinking about for a week. School starts Monday here so we only have a day or two left to do something crazy.

This is the recipe from Cooks.com that inspired me:

HOMEMADE DOUGHNUTS from COOKS.COM

1 c. milk, scalded
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1 pkg. yeast
3 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 egg
Confectioners' sugar

Pour milk over butter and sugars; stir until melted and cool to lukewarm. Add yeast, stirring until dissolved. Sift flour, salt and nutmeg. Gradually add half the dry mixture to milk; add egg and beat well. Add remaining flour and leave dough in warm place for 1 hour. Knead gently, roll to quarter inch thickness and cut into diamonds. Allow to rise 30 minutes to 1 hour. Fry in deep fat, 375 degrees and dust with confectioners' sugar or use confectioners' sugar glaze if desired.

As you can imagine, I deviated from the recipe.
I didn't scald the milk. Merely warmed it to near boiling in the microwave. Matter of fact, I used half soy milk and half two percent milk.
I didn't sift all the dry ingredients together, I simply put two cups of the flour in, mixed it, added the nutmeg, mixed it, added the egg, mixed, added the other cup of flour and before I mixed it I added the salt.

I used about 3/4 to 1 cup of canola oil in my smallest sauce pan to fry these suckers, and I could have probably used a little less than that, more like the 3/4 cup mark. Because I made doughnut holes usually slightly smaller than a golf ball that was plenty.

For toppings, my daughter's favorite was local honey and powdered sugar. I liked brown sugar and cinnamon. I even made an "adult" doughnut by thickening the honey white wine sauce from the fruit salad the other day and then rolling it in granulated sugar. I made cocoa doughnuts with baking cocoa, chocolate sprinkles, granulated sugar and powdered sugar. And mix every other combination among them...

Pork Loin with apples?

This is a variation of my pork with apples recipe:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2008/12/pork-with-apples.html

I have a two pound pork loin that I'm going to make using the glaze from pork with apples as a sauce and slow cooking it in the oven. And basting often.

Which involves sticking my head in the oven on a 100 degree day.

But I am determined to cook.

So, my first step is to prepare everything from the sauce in the Le Creuset skillet. While that's simmering, I'll start baking the loin a bit... and then combine it all...

More as the experiment gets underway...

Okay... So... This turned out to be one of my simplest, best meat-based meals ever. Served with a harvest salad from Dole.

Ingredients:
- 2 lb pork loin, still frozen
- 2 cups good quality apple juice
- about 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped (I could have easily used three times as much)
- 1 red delicious apple chopped.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
On the stove top, in the skillet, pour 1 cup apple juice, the brown sugar and the rosemary. Simmer and stir gently until the sugar melts. Add the apple. Then add the loin. Leave the heat of the skillet on medium. Cook the loin for five minutes on each side.

Lay a sheet of aluminum foil over the top of the skillet. I did not cover completely. Put the skillet in the oven and baste ever half hour, turning every hour.

After two hours, add another cup of apple juice. Continue basting.

I served after three hours. Around the 2.5 hour mark, the color changed from porky gray to a rich orange brown. The apples more or less melted.

New and improved oatmeal bars...

Hi, my name is Angel and I can't follow a recipe to save my life.

This is the original oatmeal bar post:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/09/oatmeal-bars.html

This is what I combined and pressed into an 11 x 7 pyrex dish:

• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 2 cups old-fashioned oats
  
• 1/4 cup chopped dates
• a handful homemade granola (leftover)
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup dried strawberries, chopped
• 1/3 cup brown sugar

And then after I pressed it into the pan I trickled a stream of blackstrap molasses across the top.

Okay, so last time I thought I didn't use enough butter. So I stuck to the recipe in that regard this time and used all the butter. Now they turned out too buttery and still won't stick together, except for the corners that looked brown and overcooked. They stuck. Does that mean I have to leave it in the oven longer? Hmmm....

Now, they taste delicious but like butter candy or some sort of oatmeal fudge... Let me tell you, the strawberries are the best. Next time, I'm going to make oatmeal cookies loaded with extra oatmeal and lots of fruit. Because if I want them to stick together, let's use good old-fashioned flour and egg.

Baked Pears

So, it wasn't an exciting food day here in this house.

We all had yogurt for breakfast. My husband had leftover pasta primavera for lunch, I had peanut butter crackers and my daughter had a grilled cheese sandwich, pickles and grapes (with her grandfather.)

We had nachos with cheddar cheese, sour cream, mango salsa and refried beans for dinner.

And I'm baking a poir tarte tatin for my critique group which meets tonight, which I will serve with a nice French wine (Vouvray).

BUT one of our members can't have wheat, so I took some of the pears and placed them in a dish, sprinkled about one teaspoon brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg on them and baked them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. I hope they're yummy.

Pineapple Pork with Apples

So, tonight I decided to make pork with apples because I needed to make something in my Le Creuset skillet and this is a good winter dish.

Here are all my pork recipes:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/search/label/pork

Here is my original post on pork with apples:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2008/12/pork-with-apples.html
(It doesn't look good because that was early in my food styling career)

Tonight I started with two one-inch boneless pork chops and had my husband slice them into stir-fry stips. I browned them in butter and added about 3/4 teaspoon rosemary from my freezer. I added about 1/2 cup sweetened pineapple sauce I had in the freezer after my last poire tartin. Then I added about 1/2 teaspoon organic four color pepper and one cup white grape juice and a handful of brown sugar and 1/2 cup mustard-- in my case about 1/3 cup plain yellow mustard and the rest brown horseradish mustard. Boil then return to a simmer. Finally, add one large green apple sliced. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes until sauce thickens.

Tonight I'm serving over chow mein noodles.

When I tasted the sauce in the pan, I wasn't very keen on the lingering flavor of the juice. But with the meat, the apples and the chow mein noodles it was yummy. The chow mein noodles are definitely the perfect texture to serve with this meal.

Pumpkin waffles?

My pumpkin waffle recipe comes from the Post Punk Kitchen, but my kitchen is in disarray. I have no eggs, milk or soymilk so even making a vegan recipe may be interesting... let's see where experimenting gets us...

The original (and delicious) PPK vegan pumpkin waffle recipe:

• 2.5 cups flour
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 tablespoons soy yogurt
• 2 cups soymilk
• 15 ounces pumpkin
• 1/3 cup oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix with fork and prepare in waffle iron.

I doubled the recipe, and used a can of sweetened condensed milk and two cans of water instead of soy milk. It was what I had. I mixed wheat and white flour. I also used pumpkin pie mix and reduced the sugar.

Chômeur Pudding

I had a crushing blow today. A professor whom I respect very much vetoed a paper idea I had calling it "too complicated" and "too difficult." I guess this is an instance where having an undergraduate degree already hurts me in this process, as the papers I'm sure he deems more acceptable and "doable" feel like grade school to me... But, as a consequence, I decided to say phooey to the French and go Quebecois tonight and drown my sorrows in "Chômeur Pudding" or literally "unemployed man's pudding."

I originally nabbed this recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen, an all vegan recipe site that I adore.
http://www.theppk.com/

Chômeur Pudding

For the cake:

• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 c sugar
• 1 cup "milk" (soymilk if you're vegan)
• 4 tablespoons melted "butter" (margarine if you're vegan, gotta love Earth Balance)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 teaspoons baking powder

For the syrup:

• 2 cups brown sugar (I use more like 1.5, and I use half light and half dark)
• 2 cups water
• 1 teaspoon flour

In a large glass baking dish (tonight I used my Le Creuset skillet), place brown sugar and flour from the syrup ingredients in the bottom. Add the water.

Mix dry cake ingredients. Add melted butter and milk. Mix gently. Plop in about six lumps in water. Bake at 375 degrees, 30-40 minutes.

Fish sticks and squash

Nothing gourmet on the menu tonight... For breakfast my daughter had cereal and an early lunch of leftover chicken and mac and cheese with peas. I had cottage cheese and a banana for breakfast and the same lunch.

For dinner, we're having fish sticks because I unexpected had to work late tonight, but we're serving with frozen cooked squash that I will flavor with butter and brown sugar.

Tomorrow, we'll have some sort of leftover baked potato for lunch and I'm thinking some sort of pasta for dinner with the leftover sauce from the chicken. I was thinking pasta with that sauce and tuna, but my husband made a face at the idea.

Perfumed Pineapple Crumble (Crumble d'Ananas à la Vanille)

We had leftovers for lunch. Fruit from yesterday's 90th birthday party for Nana. The last of the chicken salad with pecan-raisin bread. And some more American brie.

My husband set that up while I prepared a Perfumed Pineapple Crumble for his cousin's baby shower this afternoon.

I adore this cookbook that Jessica got me from France. I had some pineapple from the farmers market so I thought I'd give the pineapple crumble a go. Jessica, when she cooks from one of these French cookbooks, translates the entire recipe and does the conversions, writing it all on the cookbook before she starts.

I don't.

I read over it, look up unfamiliar ingredients (like cassonade, I didn't know that was brown sugar) and then bring the laptop with me for conversions and last minute questions for wordreference.com. Most of the time, I start preparing it and realize I hadn't even read the whole recipe.

So, Crumble d'Ananas à la Vanille called for:
100 g de buerre mou + 1 noix pour le moule
150 g de sucre cassonade + 3 cuillierées à soupe pour le moule
1 ananas
4 cuillerées à café d'extrait de vanille liquide ou en poudre
150 g de farine

So, my conversion calculator suggested that 85 grams equals a cup...
1 cup butter, plus some to grease the pan
About 2 cups brown sugar, plus three "soup spoons" for the pan
1 pineapple
4 "coffee spoons" of vanilla extract (in liquid or powder. I would love to have vanilla powder.)
2 cups flour (okay, I ended up doubling this because my crumbs were really wet and sticky)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter the pan and sprinkle (saupoudre- isn't that a great verb?) with three tablespoons of brown sugar.

Cut the pineapple into pieces. "Perfume" them with two teaspoons of vanilla and mix well. Arrange in the pan.

In a mixing bowl, mix the remaining sugar, the flour and the butter (sliced and soft) with the tips of your fingers to make "sandy" crumbs.

Add two teaspoons of vanilla and mix.

Cover the pineapple and bake for about 45 minutes.

Serve lukewarm or cold with vanilla ice cream.

Sticky buns

I wanted to make sticky buns today, so I started them before class and worked the dough after...I need to work this afternoon, so I plan to leave them in the oven and set the oven timer to have them cooking when we get home... These photos are from the last time I made them, which is probably a year ago. Yes, I'm serving these for dinner. Maybe with scrambled eggs. The base recipe is from the Betty Crocker cookbook.

Caramel Sticky Rolls
3 1/2 to 4 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 packages yeast
1 cup very warm milk
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 egg

1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
3/4 cup pecan halves

2 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Phase 1: Mix two cups of the flour, 1/3 cup sugar, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Add warm milk, 1/3 cup butter and egg. Mix for one minute, scraping bowl frequently. Stir in enough flour to make the dough easy to handle.

Phase 2: Knead on floured surface for five minutes. Place in greased bowl and let rise about 1.5 hours or until doubled in bulk.

Phase 3: Heat one cup brown sugar, and 1/2 cup butter to boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add corn syrup. Pour into bottom of 13x9x2 pan. Sprinkle with pecan halves.

Phase 4: Punch down dough. Flatten into rectangle about 10" by 15" . Spread with two tablespoons margarine. Mix remaining ingredients and sprinkle evenly over dough. Roll from the 15" side and pinch to seal. Shape as desired. Cut into 15 one-inch slices and arrange in pan slightly apart. Let rise 30 minutes in a warm place until doubled.

Final phase: Preheat oven to 350. Bake 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately invert onto heatproof serving platter. Let stand one minute until sauce drains.

How I changed it: I swapped out the chopped pecans for loads of raisins and golden raisins. I also used almond milk instead of milk, and applesauce instead of egg. And I got way more than the original yield, so I left the end of the roll a "loaf" and figured I'd cook it on it's own. And I omitted the corn syrup (just used water).