Weekend Warrior Smoothie

Usually we're obsessed with granola (the perennial favorite is here) but we go through other breakfast phases too. And this week we've been all about smoothies. 

Many of my most adored smoothie recipes come from one of my favorite blogs, LA in Bloom. I'm so inspired by Heather's stylish LA life, complete with flowers, fabulous dinner parties, and drop-dead gorgeous fashion. But I'm secretly even more envious of her morning routine. There's just something about a super-healthy smoothie followed by yoga, a spinning class, or a long hike that seems so quintessentially Southern California. 

Now that the days in San Francisco are getting a little warmer (August, September, & October are typically our warmest months, just in case you didn't know), the Vitamix has been revving almost every morning. 

Our new favorite is from True Food: Seasonal, Sustainable, Simple Pure, a yet-to-be released cookbook by Andrew Weil, MD, Sam Fox, and Michael Stebner.

I know what you're thinking: Who needs a recipe for a smoothie? 

It turns out we do. Without it I would have never thought to add ground flax or homemade apple sauce* to a smoothie, and I would have never put agave on our grocery list. But what I like best about this smoothie is the name: The Weekend Warrior.  

Go forth and conquer the holiday, my friends. 

Weekend Warrior Smoothie

True Food: Seasonal, Sustainable, Simple Pure; Andrew Weil, MD, Sam Fox, and Michael Stebner

"An all-natural alternative to protein shakes, the Weekend Warrior... provides steady energy. It is the perfect fuel for home renovation projects, Ultimate Frisbee, or other day-off excursions."

1 banana

1 Tablespoon almond butter

1 Tablespoon flax meal

1/2 Greek style vanilla yogurt

2 teaspoons agave nectar

1/2 cup unsweetened apple juice

Put all of the ingredients plus 1/2 cup ice cubes into a blender. Blend until smooth. Pour into a glass and serve. Makes one serving.

* Who needs a smoothie recipe, indeed. I used plain Straus yogurt and 1/2 cup of homemade apple sauce in place of the juice. Because I knew the sauce was made with some sugar, I left out the agave. In the future, I'd make this again with unsweetened organic apple sauce. It adds some thickness to the smoothie that I like, and makes it seem extra healthy. An apple a day, right?

The Summer Do List

The moment the calendar flipped over to August I was struck with a level of panic that's normally reserved for small school children. I know summer isn't technically over yet, but there's no more vacations on our horizon and there's a half-dozen zucchini in every CSA box we get. Not to be dramatic, but the end is near.

The finish of summer is particularly painful because we don't really get what I consider a "real" summer in San Francisco. We can usually sleep with the windows open, but there are no chirping crickets, no hot mornings that require tank tops and iced coffee, and very, very few sunburns. 

Thus, the End Of Summer Do List. It's -- you guessed it--  my attempt to make sure we do some of those things that all of you living in sweltering temperatures do without even thinking about it. Things like eating popsicles and grilling peaches. Things that should be obvious summer goals to hit, but are occasionally hard to accomplish when the fog begins to roll in at 4PM and the August daytime high is a balmy 64 degrees. 

Here are a few of the things on The List:

Eat an It's-It in the back yard on a sunny afternoon. 

Can tomatoes. 

Make another batch of jam. (I made strawberry-vanilla in July, but I'm dreaming about stone fruit. Apricot? Plum?)

Grill anything that can be grilled instead of cooking inside. 

Dine alfresco. 

Drink more rose. 

Do yard work.

Play hooky and go to the Coppola Pool. 

Bake with blackberries. 

Make ice cream. Maybe this recipe? Or this one? 

Ultimately this is a very quotidian to-do list, one that should be easily accomplishable in summer's remaining weeks. Meanwhile, I'll keep on living the everyday, and that means finding things to do with all that August zucchini. This zucchini-orange marmalade tea cake is a start. The recipe is from Tartine Bakery, which is  only a couple of miles from our house. Even though the cases at the bakery are filled with all kinds of pastry and creme and confection, this humble loaf is usually what catches my eye. It's a super moist cake (and yes, I know people hate that word but saying damp just won't do). Those of you who like not-too-sweet cake will find it really hits the spot. 

But, I digress -- and my numerous digressions are part of what leads to the necessity of the End of Summer Do List. So -- get out there and conquer summer. Make a list. Eat ice cream. Because this pang in my heart tells me it's all going to be over before we know it. 

Zucchini and Orange Marmalade Tea Cake
From Tartine Bakery, San Francisco

1 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup orange marmalade
2 1/2 cups grated zucchini
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup walnuts, lightly toasted and coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 5 inch (23 x 12 cm) loaf tin.  Set aside.  Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon in a mixing bowl and set aside.  In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, oil, sugar and marmalade until just combined.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the flour until just combined.  Add the nuts until incorporated.  Pour into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top.  Bake for 60-70 minutes until a tester comes out clean.  Let cool on a wire rack for 20 minute, then turn out to let cool completely. Keeps well, up to five days. 

Dolly's Milk Chocolate Brownies

I've been cooking a lot of repeat meals lately. Huge batches of coconut-cranberry-cashew granola to fuel our mornings. Dinners of coconut-cilantro rice with braised greens or steamed broccoli beside sauteed shrimp or roasted salmon. Chard and white bean tacos. Brownies. Lots of brownies.

It's been fun because I'm beginning to see my blog as a bit like a modern recipe box. Just like a collection of handwritten favorites, it's an archive of the meals I made and loved. But this one is online. So when I'm away from home and I need to make a quick meal for my best friend who just had a baby, or whip up brownies to take to a Mother's Day brunch in LA, my recipes are right there.

But that doesn't mean these tried-and-true recipes can't be improved on. Take these brownies. I love them just the way they are: Rich, chocolatey, salty, fudgy. Insanely easy to make. But they require bitter or semi-sweet chocolate and vanilla. And when I was out of both on Saturday night, there was nothing to do but improvise.

I used milk chocolate, lowered the amount of sugar, and added almond extract instead of vanilla. I also lined the pan with parchment paper and then greased it before adding the batter. And people, this parchment paper move was a real game changer. These brownies, which taste so good but aren't much to look at because they are so moist and crumbly, came out of the pan so beautifully we packed them up and took them on a picnic the next day. {Side note: See that crappy i-photo? That's what happens when the sun is so bright out you can't even see what you're taking a photo of. Love!}

Much sweeter than the original, we probably didn't need to walk to the corner store to buy vanilla ice cream to eat them with, but we did. The result was a truly toothsome dessert that had me thinking of Dolly Parton in "Steel Magnolias." Dolly played Clairee, the blushed, hairsprayed, bedazzled beauty salon owner. When she's pressed to share the recipe for her famous Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa she spouts: “Oh hell, Clairee, you don’t need a recipe.  It’s just a cup of flour, a cup of sugar and a cup of fruit cocktail WITH the syrup, stir and bake in a hot oven ‘til golden brown and bubbly.  I serve it with ice cream to cut the sweetness.”

Yep. Ice cream to cut the sweetness. 

Dolly's Milk Chocolate Brownies
Adapted from this recipe, which was adapted slightly from:
With A Measure of Grace: The Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant

4 ounces (4 squares) milk chocolate
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt -- use fleur de sel if you can, or fine sea salt
1/2 cup flour
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line with parchment and then grease an 8x8 pan (you can try just greasing and flouring it very well but be warned, these brownies tend to stick)
Melt chocolate and butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until mix is smooth. Remove pan from heat and set aside to cool. Add almond extract, sugar, eggs, and salt to the chocolate mix and beat until combined. Next add flour and stir till mixed.
Scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake for about 40 minutes, until top is dry and a tooth pick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Do not over bake these brownies!
Let cool, then cut into squares.

Busy Day Banana Cake with Rum Icing

This cake began as something far more humble. With a pile of bananas turning slowly black in a bowl, it was about economy not indulgence. Banana bread, I thought, was a way to use up the soft fruit while still having something sweet (and maybe just the tiniest bit healthful) to snack on during the week.

Sure, I could of popped the bananas in the freezer and saved them for morning smoothies or another week. A week, perhaps, where I hadn't eaten restaurant meals almost every day, had far too many glasses of wine, pints of beer, and strawberry pie for breakfast. That would have been the prudent thing to do.

Instead I set out to make something that embodied my life at exactly this moment. The soft, black bananas? They are a symbol of economy, yes. But also of a ballooning list of things to do and things left undone. The wheat flour and the olive oil and the Greek yogurt are a nod to health. To balance, to clinging to the notion that no matter how stressful life gets there's no need to completely let yourself go.

The rum? The rum came in when I discovered I forgot to buy lemons, had no lemons in the house, and wasn't going out again. The chocolate chips were supposed to be dark chocolate slivers and were supposed to be left out (remember that nod to personal health?) but were tossed back in at the last minute when a half bag of semi-sweet chippies were discovered hiding in the bundt pan. Of course.

Because there was no lemon in the house there could be no lemon in the frosting to top the cake. (The frosting I was going to leave off because I'm healthy, remember?) And since thanks to the rum and chocolate chips it was indeed a cake not a bread, I decided to really go for it and put rum and a few teaspoons of half-and-half in the icing.

And there you have it. It's my my busy day cake. It's my life (it may be kind of crazy right now but perhaps I can try and have some fun) made real in a piece of banana bundt cake.

I am happy, however, to report that when I cut into this cake I was pleased to discover something. It wasn't over-the-top with boozy, sweet, richness. Instead it was a dense and moist, and not too sweet. It's far more like a bread that's been amplified with chocolate chips and sweetened just a bit by the slightly kicky frosting.

Perhaps it's a symbol of the idea that even when life runs a bit off course, it still more or less turns out ok?

Busy Day Banana Cake with Rum Icing
Adapted from 101 Cookbooks, who adapted it from a Melissa Clark recipe in Cook This Now

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup / 4 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate (or substitute a generous amount of semi-sweet chocolate chips)
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups mashed, VERY ripe bananas (~3 bananas)
1/4 cup plain, 2% Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the icing:
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon rum
3+ teaspoons half and half (add half and half as needed to create the icing consistency you prefer. I wanted mine a little runny)

Preheat the oven to 350° F, and place a rack in the center. Grease a 9- by 5- inch (23 x 13 cm) loaf pan, or equivalent -- I used a bundt.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Add the chocolate pieces and combine well.
In a separate bowl, mix together the olive oil, eggs, mashed banana, yogurt, rum, and vanilla. Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and fold with a spatula until just combined. The batter will be thick. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until golden brown, about 40-50 minutes. You want to get that beautiful color on the cake, but at the same time you don't want to bake all the moisture out of it. Watch carefully towards the end. The recommended baking time was 50 minutes, mine was done about 10 minutes sooner.
Transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn the loaf out of the pan to cool completely.
While the cake is cooling, prepare the glaze. In a bowl, whisk together the sugars, the rum, and the half and half until smooth. When the cake is completely cool, drizzle the glaze on top of the cake, spreading with a spatula to cover.

Serves 10.

Cinnamon-Sugar Scone Recipe & Small Sweet Treats Giveaway!

[I'm giving away a copy of Small, Sweet Treats by Marguerite Marceau Henderson. To enter to win, leave a comment on this post or follow @poeticappetite on twitter and then re-tweet information about this give-away. A winner will be chosen at noon on September 23rd.]

Memory is a funny thing. Last weekend I went to the wedding of an old friend. We didn't meet in childhood, but I can't remember exactly when we did meet. Was it college? The fateful summer between high school and college? I can't recall. All I remember is that we were working at Cucina.

In those days, Cucina, an upscale Italian delicatessen in the Avenues District of Salt Lake City, was run by my friend Sarah's mother, Marguerite Marceau Henderson. For a couple of summers I worked at Cucina taking orders, serving salads, wiping down tables and clearing dishes. On rare days I ran the cash register or made a sandwich or two.

At Cucina I tried leeks and pesto for the first time (imagine!) and learned that on a bad day a big meatloaf sandwich can be immensely satisfying. Eventually I moved on and Marguerite did too. But she's continued to instruct me in the hows and whys of cooking and entertaining through her books. There are several of them now: Savor the Memories, Small Plates: Appetizers as Meals, Small Parties, and the newest, Small Sweet Treats.

Marguerite is amazing (think Ina meets Martha) and her recipes are my go-to. She's constantly coaching me through weeknight meal making and dinner parties. In her newest book she's become my guide to all things sweet with dozens of recipes for cookies, pastries, cakes, pies and other desserts that are ideal for the holidays, entertaining, or just because. As I write this, there's a chocolate-orange bundt cake with chocolate ganache (page 146 in the book) staring me down. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to resist cutting into it. 

The summers that I worked for Marguerite, I often took the morning shift. I arrived while it was cool and quiet, and though there was coffee brewing, I never needed it. Occasionally someone would take a broken or day-old sweet and cut it into chunks for us to eat while we did our side work. I never got more than a bite or two of Marguerite's epic cinnamon-sugar scones, just enough to make me hope that at the end of the shift there'd be one leftover for me to take home. This hardly ever happened.

For years my mother has tried to replicate the cinnamon sugar scones, best eaten warm with a bitter cup of coffee, but they've never come out quite right. The morning after the wedding I padded into the kitchen to find my mother baking from her new copy of Small Sweet Treats. Finally, she told me, Marguerite had shared the recipe for cinnamon-sugar scones. Hurrah!

The scones, packed with cinnamon-sugar ribbons and plump golden raisins, tasted exactly as they should. Just as my mom said, a dark cup of coffee helped to cut the sweetness and kept us happily munching. Best of all, they brought back vivid adolescent memories of giggling, gossiping, and trying not to sever my hand with the meat slicer.

This, my friends, is what good food should do: create and revive memories while feeding you physically and spiritually.

I'm excited to share this recipe (and Marguerite's newest book!) with you. 

[I'm giving away a copy of Small, Sweet Treats by Marguerite Marceau Henderson. To enter to win, leave a comment on this post or follow @poeticappetite on twitter and then re-tweet information about this give-away. A winner will be chosen at noon on September 23rd.]


Cinnamon-Sugar & Golden Raisin Scones
From Small Sweet Treats by Marguerite Marceau Henderson
Scones:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
About 1 cup of half and half or buttermilk
Cinnamon, brown sugar, golden raisin ribbons (recipe follows)
Glaze (recipe follows)


In a medium bowl combine flours, suga, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix. Add the butter and with a pastry cutter, cut into the size of peas. With a wooden spoon or heavy duty spatula mix in enough half and half or buttermilk to make the batter just moist, not too wet. The dough should hold together when formed into a small ball. Add cinnamon, brown sugar, and raisin mixture (recipe follows); mix until just combined.

Use a small ice-cream scoop or spoon to shape the scones and place them on silpat or parchment lined baking sheets.

Bake on the middle rack of a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes. Remove and let cool slightly before glazing.

Cinnamon, Brown Sugar, and Golden Raisin ribbons:
In a small skilled, heat 2 tablespoons unsalted butter. Add 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1 cup golden raisins. Mix over low heat until sugar has softened, about 1 minute. Cool for 10 minutes. Set aside while you make scone batter. Fold the ribbon mixture into the batter after the half and half or buttermilk has been added. Do not over-mix.

Glaze: 2 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar thinned with half and half or milk.

My Habits, My Banana Bread

I am a creature of habit. I wake up at the same time almost every day and regularly eat the same breakfast for mornings in a row. My lack of variation becomes even worse at lunchtime. Nearly every day at noon I eat this: toasted Acme walnut bread spread thick with avocado. Sometimes there is hummus, occasionally soft egg on top or green salad on the side. But I never manage to get too far from the original. It's simple and satisfying. It works.


It's this habit to be habitual that led me last week to banana bread. Banana bread, you say? But it's August. Shouldn't you be making something with berries or peaches?

The simple answer is yes. The more complicated answer involves the late hour and the understocked pantry. We were out of bread and the only things I had on hand that would help make something satisfying and toastable for the morning were baking basics and a lone banana. So I did what I always did in a similar predicament. I made banana bread.

As I was working, melting and sifting, I heard a strange noise and looked up to see a dog in the kitchen. Bowie, the upstairs pet, had poked his grey and white head through our apartment's unused pet door and decided to climb on through. We stared at each other tentatively.

Bowie spends much of the day barking at the mailman, the fedex guy, and me. I wasn't sure quite what would happen when he realized he wasn't in the right kitchen. In my surprise, I dumped the melted butter into the dry ingredients and began stirring madly, forgetting the egg and the greek yogurt and everything else that was wet. I laughed while Bowie watched and sniffed at my feet.

The resulting banana bread (put into bake after luring Bowie outside) was just fine, even though I'd entirely messed with the method. The bread itself is not very sweet, which we liked, and is ok because it has a crumb topping.

Normally, I'd stray away from a crumb top. I like my bread simple and nutty not crunchy and sweet. But since I've been thinking a lot about my habits, and trying to shake them up a bit, I tried something new. I know, I know... since when is a different banana bread trying something new? But it's a process, right?

The point is, I think, that you can have old habits and new habits at the same time. Your go-to banana bread becomes something new thanks to the crumb topping and the greek yogurt in the batter. Your regular world gets shaken up a bit by the presence of a shaggy dog with bright blue eyes.

Be they little movements or big ones, it's all motion.

Banana Bread with Crumb Topping
1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
4 tbsp. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/3 plain greek yogurt (non-fat ok!)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Crumb Topping
1 tbsp. flour
1 tbsp. butter at room temperature
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of salt
1. Preheat oven to 300°.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. Stir in the melted butter and the greek yogurt Add egg and stir until well combined. Add banana. Stir until well combined. Spread the batter into pan.
4. Make the crumb topping by mashing together butter, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Distribute topping evenly over batter. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 min, then allow to finish cooling on rack.

Recipe adapted from Mag Hungry

Fudgey Brownies for when Baby has the Blues

 

Book writing is a challenging, isolating job to have. I spend hours alone, usually in my pjs or yoga clothes. Inevitably, just when I think I'm done with a task, another email arrives telling me to tweak this, or that, or toss it all and begin again.

I love it, though, and most days I can't believe my luck. I am thirty-three years old, about to publish my first book, and doing exactly what I dreamed of as a little girl. Still, there are bad days. And on those days, there's nothing I want more than Mom: her dinners are healthy and delicious, there's always milk in the fridge and a pantry stocked with snacks, and in a pinch, she knows that chocolate cures everything.

Just the other night she made me a pan of brownies at 10PM. It had been a day filled with BS (Book Stuff) that left me exhausted and, for the first time, wondering why I'd ever believed being an author was a fun idea.

A brownie topped with vanilla ice cream didn't fix it, but it did make me feel better, which, I think is the point of both mothers and rich, fudgey, just-a-little-salty, brownies.

This isn't my mom's recipe, but it is my favorite brownie for a bad day or (hypothetically) the week where you just can't find your camera charger or a clean set of sheets. In fact, these dark things are aptly called "Baby's Got the Blues Fudge Brownies," in one of my all-time favorite cookbooks: With A Measure of Grace: The Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant.

With a lot of chocolate and a kick of salt, these little things will cure anything. Just like mom. 

Baby's Got the Blues Fudge Brownies
Adapted slightly from With A Measure of Grace: The Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant

4 ounces (4 squares) semi-sweet chocolate
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt -- use fleur de sel if you can, or fine sea salt
1/2 cup flour
Preheat oen to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8x8 pan (grease and flour it very well, brownies tend to stick)
Melt chocolate and butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until mix is smooth.
Remove pan from heat and set aside to cool.
Add vanilla, sugar, eggs, and salt to the chocolate mix and beat until combined. Next add flour and stir till mixed.
Scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake for about 40 minutes, until top is dry and a tooth pick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Do not over bake these brownies -- !
Let cool, then cut into squares.
Makes enough for one very bad day.

Spiced Pecans

I've been working from my mom's house all week, camping out at her kitchen table and watching the snow fall. I've had my coffee, my NPR, and my neat little piles: a tiny red notebook to jot down ideas, a small address book (I'm always meaning to write more letters), a copy of the book catalog, a bound galley, and lists. Lots and lots of lists.

Yesterday I decided to abandon the lists. Baking sounded indulgent; relaxing; vacation-like. I made my neat little piles of spices, and prepared to roast some nuts.

Spiced nuts scream southern hospitality. They are perfect to wrap up for little hostess gifts or have on hand in case people stop by unexpectedly. I like them best with a glass of bubbly, but I like anything best with a glass of bubbly.

This recipe is nothing fancy, or hard, but it made me feel productive, like I was doing something worthy of a big fat mark of accomplishment. Shortly after I pulled the fragrant nuts from the oven, all hell broke loose. I spent hours on the telephone with my agent. The knots in my neck tied themselves into ever deeper coils. I thought about throwing something across the room.

Instead when my stomach screamed, I grabbed a handful of nuts and poured myself a very large glass of wine. These kicky, spicy, savory, bits totally hit the spot, even if I did feel like a 1950s angst filled writer, noshing away on salty nuts and pink wine before 5PM.

Later, my mom baked me brownies and served them warm with melty vanilla ice cream. But that's a whole other story.

Spiced Pecans
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar
5 cups pecan halves
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350°. In a small bowl, combine the salt, black pepper, cayenne, cinnamon and brown sugar. Toss pecans with melted butter and spices till nuts are well coated. Spread the pecans on a large, rimmed baking sheet and toast for 10 minutes, until fragrant. Stir, than toast 5 to 7 minutes more. 

Cannelle and Iced Coffee

A favorite Portland moment from my recent vacation: a warm Thursday afternoon, the communal table at Ken's Artisan Bakery, the New Yorker's Twenty under Forty, an iced coffee, and a cannelle.

I really wanted to eat two -- or more!-- but this was my first stop after the airport. In anticipation of many more great meals and never empty wine glasses over the next few days, I abstained. And really, one was enough. More would have just been.... More. 

Remember last summer when I made cannelle? All of a sudden I've found myself with lots of free time. Should I do it again?

I Leave You With Lemon Curd

Lemons. My roommate brought home a fresh bag full of them the other day. This was good, since we were down to our final two or three. I wasn't rationing them, more wondering what I'd do when they weren't around to grab.

In addition to lemon juice in fresh vinaigrette and lemon juice squeezed into mint tea and topped with lots of honey to ease an aching throat, I've been making (and eating) a lot of lemon curd.

Lemon curd wasn't something I made or thought much about. A few summers ago I made a batch to slide across round yellow cakes that were topped with blueberries and served at a friend's bridal shower. It was easy, and good, and I always thought I'd make it again.

But I didn't. Maybe because unlike the Brits, I don't love lemon curd on toast or scones. I think its pretty perfect eaten alone, spoonful by guilty spoonful, or in a pie, or tart, or cake, or something equally decadent. Perhaps spooned over a pile of berries, if I was feeling more pious? But I am hardly ever feeling that pious, so I hardly ever made lemon curd.

Until this spring. The availability of lemons and the ease of making it lead to an intoxicating combination. I could easily sneak into the kitchen, and a few minutes later have a jar of bright yellow curd cooling in the fridge. It never lasted more than a day or two, maybe three if I was distracted by something different.

I found David Lebovitz's recipe amazingly easy. There are all sorts of lemon curd recipes that call for double boilers and the like. David's doesn't. I love it for this simplicity, and because it works, producing tart-sweet, curstardy curd perfect for eating on sunny San Francisco afternoons, when getting outdoors just isn't an option.

Lemon curd, my perfect book writing escape.

Lemon Tea Cake Makes Me Happy

The weekend is over. It was a mess of dinners, drinks, and late nights that morphed into sunny days, trips to the market, and spring cleaning. Now I am back to the drudgery of fussing over every sentence, every thought, every comma in my book manuscript. It isn't always fun work. Most of the time my eyes feel blurry, my heart feels fluttery, and my body feels like all its energy has been sucked away.

I am so glad I have these lemony muffins in my arsenal to remind me that the world is full of delicious things best enjoyed far from a computer screen. 

They look a little plain, don't they? And maybe for some they are. You see they aren't packed with something juicy or topped with swirls of cream or lemon spiked frosting. They are a demure tea cake made with half-wheat flour which gave them a crumbly, almost polenta like texture. The glaze consists of a vanilla bean mingling with some sugar and lemon juice in a pot on the stove while I checked my email frantically. Is anyone else out there a multi-tasker?

My tasks were finished just in time to pull the small cakes out of the oven and sit with one in the dining room for a few quiet minutes that included nothing but the stripe of sunshine across the table.

Lemon Yogurt Tea Cakes (based on a Ina recipe, via Smitten Kitchen, with a few modifications of my own)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour and loved the crumb it created)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3 extra-large eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 vanilla bean, split
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and paper a 12 cup muffin tin. 
Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 (+) minutes -- Smitten Kitchen's recipe was for a loaf, but I wanted tea cakes and used a muffin tin. Thus, while baking I had to watch carefully. My baked in about 35 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice, vanilla bean, and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Remove vanilla bean. Set aside.
When the tea cakes are done, allow them to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before flipping out onto a cooling rack. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. While still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in (a pastry brush works great for this, as does using a toothpick to make tiny holes that draw the syrup in better). Cool.

Care Package: Cereal and Milk

These are the granola bars that were packed into a brown paper package and mailed from San Francisco to Salt Lake City to fortify my brother in his final week of studying for the MCAT.

Nigella Lawson calls them the bar equivalent of a bowlful of cereal and milk. She isn't far off, especially if you like your cereal sweet. These were a bit too sugar laden for me to eat for breakfast. I found them to be more like a jacked up oatmeal cookie than a healthy way to start the day. But by mid-morning or afternoon I think they would be the perfect pick-me-up, especially alongside a steaming cup of black coffee. And after midnight I imagine they would be decadently perfect.

Rumor has it that the combination of oats, raisins, seeds, and nuts does amazing things for a slightly sleep deprived, stress laden brain. Eat up, little brother, eat up.

Cereal & Milk Bars
1 14-fl-oz can condensed milk
2 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant)
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup dried cranberries or raisins
1 cup mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, sesame) -- I added flax
1 cup natural unsalted peanuts
1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees and oil a 9- x 13-inch baking pan or just use a disposable aluminum foil one.
2. Warm the condensed milk in a large pan.
3. Meanwhile, mix all the other ingredients together and add the warmed condensed milk, using a rubber spatula to fold and distribute.
4. Spread the mixture into the oiled or foil pan and press down with a spatula or, better still, your hands to make the surface even. (This pressing part is important! I failed to press enough and ended up with bars that wanted to crumble.)
5. Bake for 1 hour, remove, and after about 15 minutes, cut into four across and four down, to make 16 chunky bars. Let cool completely.
Makes 16

Dried Apricot & Peanut Granola Bars

In honor of September, journeys back to school, and our upcoming trip to Yosemite, I decided to dive into the world of granola bars. I was tired of spending dollars and dollars every week on granola bars that were either unsatisfying or delicious but packed a serious caloric punch. I wanted something made just for me: sweet but not too, maybe a little salty, cut to the perfect size for a mid-afternoon snack.

Why didn't I make granola bars sooner? I already make my own granola. Why it never occurred to me that making my own granola bars was just as easy is beyond me. It might have something to do with the large amount of space "all things book writing related" takes up in my mind.

Thanks to Shelly I knew that Ina Garten had a granola bar recipe that was worthy of trying. Of course I had to mix it up a bit, both because I didn't have all the things she called for, and because I wanted to make the granola bar exactly to my liking.

And it was. I sliced these small -- snack size not meal sized -- and they were very good. I stored most in the freezer for our upcoming Yosemite weekend, but I think we're already down to the last two. Another batch will be whipped up this weekend, maybe with Almond Butter and Dried Cherries? Sounds delicious for munching on while hiking, don't you think?


Dried Apricot & Peanut Granola Bars (easily doubled)
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup puffed rice cereal
1/2 cup coconut
1/4 cup dried fruit, I used apricots, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup honey
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon peanut butter


Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a standard sized loaf pan with parchment.
Combine oats, puffed rice, coconut, and dried fruit in bowl.
Place butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Add peanut butter. Cook and stir for a minute, then pour over oat and dried fruit mix.
Stir well to combine (will be gooey).
Pour mix into prepared pan. Wet your fingers and lightly press mixture evenly into the pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden.
Cool well (2 to 3 hours) before attempting to slice into squares.
Makes 6 "snack sized" rectangles.

P.S. Did you eat granola bars when you were a child? I never did. After school it was apples and peanut butter, yogurt, or cheese and crackers for me. Now I wonder how I made it through the school day without a mix of oats, dried fruit, and nuts.

P.P.S. Check out Smitten Kitchen's version of the same Ina Gaten recipe here. The granola bar mood in the air is palpable! Get out the oats.

I Heart Bananas & Nuts

Did I mention my little car was the victim of a hit and run last week? It was minor unless you count the missing the left side mirror, gash in the fender, scratched bumper and messed up hubcap. It was drive-able, yet un-drive-able, if you are me and still getting used to the big city and the hills, and the other crazy California drivers.

After I dropped my car off to be fixed on Tuesday, I wet to Rainbow, my favorite liberal hippie food co-op in town. I hadn't been in months and I was feeling a little down on the world so I engaged in some retail therapy, food style. I bought huge brown turkey figs (the first of the season), almond milk, trail mix stuffed with dried mulberries and gogi berries and cacao nibs, ginger peach tea, a vegan turnover filled with onions, potatoes, and rosemary, yummy wheat bread, a kombucha, apple blackberry applesauce, and some granola bars.

It was cheaper than shoes or clothes people -- and much cheaper than my $500 deductable.

Today I brought one of the granola bars to work for a snack. I am glad to report this banana nut granola bar was so good. It actually tasted a little sinful. I wasn't expecting it to be that satisfying, so the fact that it was made me happy. And happiness has been an elusive emotion this week. So now I am happy that the week is almost over, and extra happy with my Kardea banana nut granola bar.

It almost makes me want to pack a bag and set off for a hike or a road trip. But alas, I think this weekend will be spent in The City.

Happy trails to you...


PS I am kind of a granola bar addict and wish I could make my own. Any tips/ or tips on granola bars you buy at the store but don't taste packaged and yuck?