Stop What You're Doing

That's it. No preamble. No long-winded story about my childhood. No self-reflection.

Just stop what you're doing RIGHT NOW and make these Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats from Smitten Kitchen.

They are the lazy person's version of The Best Thing I Ever Made. Only 4 ingredients. And they are extremely delicious.

Not pictured: butter.

That is all.

P.S. This recipe easily doubles which is good because God help you if you only make a single 8x8 pan of this goodness. I could eat an 8x8 pan of them all my myself. Which I may or may not have done for dinner last night.

Since Last Year: A Summary

This morning I am going to WOW you with my breakfast.

Boom.

Your jaw dropped, right? Almond butter and homemade blackberry jam AND peaches on a RICE CAKE?! STOP IT! KATE, YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR.

Ok, let's get real for a second. I've been away for awhile.  Babies have been conceived and born in the time I’ve been away from this blog.

Just to be clear: Exactly NONE of these babies were mine.

Everybody got that?

It’s not that I haven’t been making things. I have been. I just haven’t been writing about them. For some reason life just felt too busy.

And then, just like that, it didn’t.

Now here I am with three posts on three consecutive days like I've never even been gone. I don’t know what happened. Maybe it’s summer daylight lasting until 9pm.
Maybe it’s something else.

Whatever it is, herewith, some things I did when I wasn’t here.*

*Not in chronological order.

I gold leafed a bunny.

Isn't he cute? Also, I learned that gold leaf is messy. It is definitely a cousin of glitter, "the herpes of craft supplies."

I had an Oscars party.

We had a red carpet, too. Natch. The tape adhering the red carpet stuck to my floor. Still can't really get it off. Yes, I've tried Goo-Gone and scraping. Good thing this is a rental.

I made some necklaces.

And some bacon candy.

I bought some art and hung it up.

I made brownie sundaes.

Make your own hot fudge sauce and brownies; buy the ice cream.

And stuffed escarole.

This looks like a mess, but it's incredibly delicious. Lidia Bastianach is a genius.

And gluten-free, grain-free meyer lemon mug cakes.

Just replaced the weird sweetener with 1T +1t of granulated sugar. These make an amazing breakfast treat, too.

 
Ok, I made those a couple of times.

I made some ridiculously tasty Banana Bread with Coconut and Rum. Oh, and browned butter. Thank you, Joy the Baker, for that one.

And thank you, Blake, for your hunting skills.

This went into a "Goose Bourguignon" recipe. Which turned out gamy, but edible. I count it as a win.

Turns out making a wild goose edible requires a LOT of ingredients.

Britta was an amazing co-chef on this one. Turns out butchering a goose is a fairly nasty process.

On the lighter side, I made some appetizers.

These are purple rice crackers with avocado, a little greek yogurt mixed with a little lime juice, and garnished with my new favorite seasoning, shichimi togarashi. Virtuous, yet delicious.

And roasted some rhubarb.

Delicious over vanilla ice cream although also pretty good on its own or with yogurt.

And then there was this ham. This eight pound, big ass country Easter ham.

Three pounds of which is hacked up into large chunks in my freezer.
Where it will probably stay for a year until I no longer feel guilty about composting it because what am I going to do with huge chunks of frozen ham?

Any suggestions?

Rosemary, Sweet and Savory

Apropos of nothing, the first figs of the season arrived last weekend.

In case I haven't made it clear before or before how much I love figs, this little pint basket cost me $7.

Yes. I seven dollars love them.

No foreign figs for me! Steven Colbert would be proud.

And here comes the segue into what this blog post is really about.

Speaking of things I love, I really love the herbal scent of rosemary. (See what I did there?) I might like it better than any other herb. Well, not better than lavender. I love lavender.

I should probably just move to Provence, already.

Anyhow, after plying my coworkers with a variety of flourless baked goods in the past few months, a friend at work, Rachel, let me borrow her awesome cookbook, Good to the Grain. This cookbook in particular covers recipes featuring a wide variety of "alternative" grains. This is the kind of thing I get excited about.

One of the recipes I copied from Rachel's book (figuring if I brought the whole book home, she'd never see it again, or I'd do something horrible like spill a whole bottle of red wine on it) was for Olive Oil Cake.

It, like Jerry Maguire, had me at hello. Spelt flour (my favorite of the alterna-grains), rosemary, olive oil, and bittersweet chocolate. Yes, rosemary and chocolate. Read it again if you must.

There is something about the addition of traditionally savory ingredients to desserts that I am drawn to, fundamentally and physically, as if there were some sort of savory-sweet gravitational pull on my heart. See also: basil chocolate chip cookies.  

But when would I make this cake? I had no occasions for cake making. Back of hand to forehead. Despair! (Ok, not really. I'm totally being dramatic here. Just play along.)

Have you ever noticed how sometimes the timing of life is just really spot on and perfect? You know, in a way that makes you think that perhaps there really is a God, orchestrating this chaos? Like, maybe God is just really, really busy all the time and is juggling SO many plates that it's hard not to drop one now and then (oops, was that a tsunami?) but when all the plates are spinning simultaneously, you practically get knocked over by the serendipity of it all.

As it so happened, the day after I discovered and photocopied this Olive Oil Cake recipe, my friends Sneaks and Juju invited us all to their place to celebrate their engagement and cook us a boatload of amazing Italian food inspired by their recent trip to Italy, where they got engaged. I volunteered to bring dessert, and cooked up this cake along with some of the most beautiful strawberries I've ever seen, and a little mascarpone cream (with crushed amaretti on the side).

Gorgeous, no?

 
I'll be honest here, the strawberries/mascarpone cream/amaretti were totally an insurance policy against this cake. I was nervous about the cake. In case you weren't paying attention before, let me repeat myself: Rosemary. Bittersweet Chocolate. A LOT of olive oil.

I love savory in my sweets, but this felt like a bit of a different ballgame. This was no bit-of-basil in a cookie.

Here's my adaptation of the recipe.

Olive Oil Cake, adapted from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups white spelt flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 eggs
1 cup good extra virgin olive oil (the best you are willing to part with a cup of!)
3/4 cup whole milk
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves (from about 4 stalks)
3.5 ounces 70% bittersweet chocolate, chopped into 1/2-inch-ish pieces (I highly recommend Perugina if you're doing the Italian thing full-on. You can get Perugina chocolate at World Market.)


Directions
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Rub a 9 1/2 inch fluted tart pan with olive oil. Place the tart pan on a flat baking sheet.


2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Set aside. 


3. Whisk the eggs in a medium mixing bowl. Add the olive oil, milk, and rosemary and whisk to combine. 

Let the folding begin.

4. Using a spatula, fold the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. When just combined, dump in the chocolate bits and fold those in as well. 


5. Pour-slash-scrape the batter into the tart pan and spread it evenly. Slide the tart pan / baking sheet combo into the oven. 

6. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the top is domed and the edges are a bit darker than the middle. (You can do the toothpick test to confirm doneness. I think I overbaked mine a few minutes, so I'd start checking this thing at around 33 minutes.) Slide the tart pan from the baking sheet onto a cooling rack and let cool completely in the pan. 

Everyone at dinner gobbled up the cake to fairly rave reviews (I actually thought it was a little dry due to my overbaking it, but no one seemed to mind. Probably because most of us were a bottle of wine (each) into the proceedings. That is my number one tip for getting people to like what you cook for them. Get them drunk first.)

All in all, a success and I look forward to trying this again and pulling it from the oven a bit earlier.

There is one problem with this recipe, though, and that is this: at the end of it, you are left with a bunch of rosemary.

Well, that's not a problem. As we say at work, that is an opportunity.

Now you've got the goods to make a delicious dinner.

If you like cedar-planked salmon, you'll like this. It's very similar, except there's no tree-killing or grilling involved. 

Kate's Impromptu Rosemary Salmon in a Packet
Serves 1 (but you can make multiple packets to serve more people)

Ingredients
1 lovely piece of center cut salmon, skin on (mine was 6 oz.), rinsed and patted dry on paper towels.
2 stalks of rosemary (you will see that I used more than that but you should not unless you REALLY love rosemary.)
1 small onion, any kind, sliced
1 small lemon, sliced
olive oil for drizzling
salt and pepper

Directions
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Tear off a piece of aluminum foil approximately 15" long.  

Season the salmon on both sides with salt and pepper. Put one stalk of rosemary in the middle of the foil. (I used twice as much rosemary as my recipe above calls for. You might not want to do that. Just saying. You have to really like rosemary for that. Want-to-stick-it-UP-your-nose-like it.)

 Scatter half the sliced onion over it. Then layer half the lemon slices over the onion. Place the salmon skin-side down on top. 

Reverse the layering order: add the lemon, then the onion, then the remaining rosemary stalk. Drizzle olive oil over the top of the stack. 

Bring two of the foil edges (I suggest the short ones) together and fold over twice to seal. Roll the side edges in so they meet the top edge and make sure that the packet is well sealed all around. Place the packet in a pie plate or other rimmed oven-safe dish.

Bake for 15 minutes (for a 6 oz. piece).  Be careful when opening the packet not to burn yourself on the escaping steam.

Serve.

Yup, that's haricot verts and figs on the side.

Try not to eat the entire piece of salmon in five minutes like I did. Yum.

This salmon could not be more perfectly cooked. I love it when that happens.

Getting Over It

Hi Readers!

I want to begin this by thanking each and everyone of you who actually read this blog. It might sound silly, but I can't tell you how much it means to me to have "readers." I never ceased to be amazed that, according to Google analytics, you actually exist. I don't know who all of you are but I love you.

Please, please know that I appreciate every single one of you and the time you take from your busy lives reading about my homemade adventures and (often only semi-coherent) ramblings and reminiscences. You all are awesome. And I am truly humbled by your existence. I mean it.

Alright, so onto this post. It has been really hard for me to accept that I can't just eat whatever I want. I don't just mean in terms of quantity although THANK YOU, 30-something metabolism, for letting me learn that one the hard way.

What I'm talking about this time is more in terms of ingredients. Specifically, being challenged to create a delicious dietary life without all-purpose flour and its many relatives...bulgur, wheat berries, and many packaged things. (Pasta, I'm talking to you. And you, crackers. And you, Acme Bread. And croissants. UGH. I looooove croissants.)

But maybe I was meant to be this way. To paraphrase Lady Gaga, maybe I was "born this way". I'm a purist. Always have been. Since birth, I've loved and prioritized the freshest, most whole ingredients, almost instinctively. I'm not a picky eater in the classic sense...I've always been adventurous in the food department. It's not the food itself, but the freshness and the quality of the ingredients that have forever mattered to me. Always. Maybe GMO wheat and I were never meant to get along. Philosophically, we're just not on the same page.

Nevertheless, it is somewhat difficult for me to admit to you, aloud (or whatever the "aloud" equivalent of typing is), that I used a mix in making these cookies. To be fair, it was a gluten-free flour blend. But still. I do NOT bake from a box. I never have. That Cake Doctor lady has her niche and that's just fine, but that's not me. Not who I am. I've got "from scratch" written all over me.

All of that said, I'm excited about these cookies. Really and truly excited. Not just because they are gluten-free but also because I fed them to a bunch of people (science-experiment-style), who, in my view, can eat whatever they want and you know what? They loved them, too. And I think you will as well.


Kate's (Gluten-Free!) Salted Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from this recipe


Makes up to 4 dozen, depending on how much raw cookie dough you pilfer in the process.

Prepping ingredients. By the way, I have been using my own homemade vanilla extract and so far, so good! Here's the recipe.

Ingredients
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups gluten-free flour blend (I used Better Batter for this particular endeavor but you can sub an equal amount of regular all-purpose flour

1/2 cup oat flour
 (for info on how to make this, see here)
2 cups rolled organic (gluten-free) oats

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
 (I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chips and chopped them up since they are huge)
Maldon sea salt or kosher salt

Chopped gigantic bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions
1. In a stand mixer (or using a hand-mixer), cream the butter. 
Add the brown sugar, white sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. 

Creamed butter, adding sugars, baking powder, cinnamon.

Combine at a medium speed until the mixture has a crumbly texture. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix again until combined.

 2. Fold in the all-purpose flour and oat flour until just combined, being sure not to over-work the dough. Gently fold in the oats and chocolate chips. 

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and transfer to the refrigerator to chill the dough for an hour. NOTE: This is important. If you do not do this, your cookies will spread all over the cookies sheet and you will be sad. 



3. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. When the oven is hot, drop the cold cookie dough, using a tablespoon or cookie dough scooper, onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

Sprinkle the tops of the dough with sea salt or kosher salt. Do not skimp on this front. There's no salt in the dough, so you really need to be pretty liberal here.

Bake for 13-15 minutes until the edges are golden brown but the center is still kind of soft. The cookie should still be soft to the touch so carefully transfer them to a cooling rack. (If you bake on parchment, as I do, you can just slide the whole sheet off the pan onto the rack, which is a method I highly recommend.)

Serve to people without dietary restrictions and don't be amazed at their responses! These cookies are delicious!

Cookies as seen at our Point Bonita picnic.

Easter Feasts

This past Easter weekend, we had a family mini-reunion at my Aunt and Uncle's home.

A lot of Vitullos in the same place at the same time can only mean one thing:

ABBONDANZA!

On Good Friday, we dined on a feast of many fishes...

Grilled shrimp that I briefly marinated in a bit of lemon, wine, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Flounder Amandine. Aunt Margaret used corn flour instead of regular flour so I could eat this. And I'm so glad she did because it was unexpectedly my favorite of all the fishes. So good.

Pepper-crusted ahi. Perfectly cooked by the Uncles.

A giant bowl of mussels, Cousin Lucas' and my favorite. Also, two types of crab cakes. Because one type would never be enough.

We tried to make natural egg dyes...

It looked pretty, but the colors didn't really take...even after an overnight soak. So we resorted to the Paas.

The Paas worked.

Saturday, I made a Meyer Lemon Upside Down Cake.
It came from this recipe.

Prepping ingredients. The lemons I brought to DC from San Francisco. They came from the tree in my boss' backyard!

Prepping the pan.

Layering in the lemons. I love this picture. The lemons smell delicious.

Baked. Perhaps a little overbaked...

But at least the cake unmolded from the pan successfully.  That's always scary, flipping the pan and hoping the goods land in one piece.

Hmmm...

I've got to say, this is the first time Martha Stewart has failed me. The thinly sliced meyer lemons were positively bitter. I think this could be fixed by candying them first, so I'm going to try that, because I have high hopes in the future success of this recipe.

At least it came out pretty!
 

We made table decorations by stuffing jumbo cupcake wrappers with Easter grass and putting candied eggs in them. Cute and delicious!

We also introduced the cousins to the Easter Aardvark. The Easter Aardvark likes to sleep in on Easter Sunday, but when he does eventually show up, he brings candy and toys. Good deal.

Happy (belated) Easter!