Bread and Butter Pudding

I love bread pudding but, until today, I'd never actually made it myself. It turns out that your basic bread pudding is super easy to make! I'll definitely be making some tweaks and trying different flavour combinations but, as a first attempt, this made for a perfectly acceptable (if somewhat bland) pudding.

Basic Bread and Butter Pudding

Slightly adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 2-4 Tbsp. salted butter, softened¹
• 6-8 thick slices stale bread²
• 2-4 Tbsp. jam (optional)
• 2-4 Tbsp. currants or raisins³
• 1/4-1/2 c. sugar⁴
• 1 Tbsp. lemon zest
• 4 large eggs
• 2 c. whole (3.25%) milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)

Directions

1. Butter the bread¹.
2. Spread (or toss) with jam, if using.
3. If the bread isn't already in small pieces, cut into triangles.
4. Combine currants (or raisins), sugar, and lemon zest.
5. Arrange buttered bread in an ovenproof dish sprinkling in the sugar mixture along the way.
6. Beat the eggs with the milk and vanilla (if using).
7. Pour the egg mixture over the bread and let stand for 30 minutes, periodically pressing the bread down into the liquid.
8. Sprinkle top with more sugar if desired.
9. Bake at 325°F (160°C) for 1 hour.

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¹ In theory you're supposed to butter the slices of bread. In practice, I didn't have slices, I had bits and pieces of crusts and heels. So, rather than trying to spread soft butter on them, I tossed them with some melted butter. It seemed to work pretty well. Although I did have to use more than the 2 Tbsp. called for in the original recipe. ^Back
2 As noted above, I didn't have slices, I had random scraps and chunks of bread. I measured out ~6 cups (with a lot of air space) for this recipe. ^Back
3 The currants were nice, but I would've preferred a) a lot more of them and b) if they'd actually been raisins. ^Back
4 With only a quarter cup of sugar, this pudding was treading the line between sweet and savoury. Possibly this was down to the fact that I was using whole wheat bread. Maybe with white bread 1/4 c. would be enough. I also didn't use jam. If I had, then obviously that would've brought some sweetness to the table, so I might've been able to get away with the smaller amount of sugar. If you're using whole wheat bread and/or you're skipping the jam, I recommend upping the sugar to 1/2 c. to make sure it comes out sweet enough. ^Back

Did you know that gnocchi is actually pretty easy to make? And incredibly delicious? And actually reasonably nutritious? Especially when you make it with bright, flavourful, colourful sweet potatoes! I need to write this recipe down because we will be making it again.

Honestly, I'm craving it again already...

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Greens and Sage Butter Sauce

Slightly adapted from Pinch of Yum

Ingredients

Gnocchi

• 450-500g sweet potatoes
• 1 c. whole milk ricotta
• 1/4 c. Parmesan
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• ~1 c. all-purpose or hard/strong/bread/high grade flour

Greens and Sauce

• 1 small broccoli crown, cut into florettes
• 1 small bunch black kale, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 c. unsalted butter
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 Tbsp. dried sage (or ~6 fresh leaves)
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/4 c. heavy (35%) cream
• 1/4 c. Parmesan
• pepper, to taste
• lemon wedges, to serve (optional)

Directions

Gnocchi

1. Prick sweet potato(es) with fork, wrap in damp paper towels, and microwave until tender. (~5-7 minutes)
2. Scoop flesh from skin. Discard skins.
3. Mash flesh with ricotta, Parmesan, and sea salt.
4. If the mixture seems dry, add a couple Tbsp. of water to loosen it up.
5. Mix in flour ~1/4 c. at a time until a soft dough forms.
6. If you like your gnocchi soft and light and pillowy, try not to work the dough too much and handle the resulting dumplings very gently as they'll be prone to breaking up. If you like your gnocchi firm and chewy, knead the dough to develop the gluten a little.
7. Working on a floured surface, form the dough into a loaf.
8. Cut a slice from the loaf and roll it into a rope.
9. Cut the rope into ~2cm pieces.
10. Repeat with remaining dough.
11. Boil the gnocchi until it floats and toss with a little olive oil to prevent sticking. Reserve the cooking water.

Greens and Sauce

1. Once the gnocchi has been boiled, add the broccoli and kale to the boiling water and blanch for 1 minute. Drain and set aside.
2. Melt the butter over medium-high heat in a large pan.
3. Add the gnocchi and cook until outside is brown and crisp.
4. Add garlic, broccoli, kale, sage, and salt and cook for another few minutes.
5. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes.
6. Stir in cream and Parmesan.
7. Add pepper to taste.
8. Serve with lemon wedges if desired.

Okonomiyaki (Cabbage Pancakes)

I've been in a bit of a recipe rut lately. But, in looking for inspiration on what to do with the head of cabbage languishing in my fridge, I found a great new (to me) blog! Just taking a quick look through the "vegetarian" category has already done a lot to restore my kitchen enthusiasm. I think I may try to Balsamic Roasted Mushrooms and Kale Mashed Potatoes over the weekend. And in the meantime, the okonomiyaki recipe was a nice way to use up some of the cabbage.

When I've made okonomiyaki before they've honestly been mostly pancake with a few veggies mixed into the batter. Tasty, but definitely very different from this incarnation that is 90% cabbage with a little carrot and green onion thrown in for flavour and just barely enough batter to (mostly) hold it all together.

These are fine served on their own with a little soy sauce or sri racha mayo, but if you want to round out the meal a bit, I suggest serving them with sautéed mushrooms and/or sliced SPAM. I actually stumbled across some spicy Szechuan SPAM at the grocery store a few weeks ago, so I busted out a tin of that to complement the vegetably pancakes. Obviously, if you're trying to keep things vegetarian, mushrooms would be the better choice. Cremini mushrooms cooked in a little garlic, dark soy sauce, and miso paste would be lovely as an accompaniment. King oyster mushrooms cooked in a teriyaki sauce or simply fried in butter would also work well. Or perhaps even steamed black mushrooms. You have a lot of options, really.

Okonomiyaki

From Budget Byte$

Ingredients

• 1/2 head of cabbage (~4-5 cups), shredded
• 1-2 carrots, grated
• 3 scallions/green onions, sliced
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
• ~1 c. flour (hard or soft)

Directions

1. Prep all your veggies, combine, and set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients, adding flour 1/4 c. at a time. You may not need all the flour. Just keep whisking it in 'til the batter looks like a nice consistency.
3. Add the batter to the veggies and stir to coat and combine well.
4. Spoon a generous dollop of the mixture into a well-oiled pan and press to flatten into a pancake. Cook over medium-low to medium heat (depending on your range).
5. Once the underside is browned to your liking, flip the pancake and cook the other side.
6. Repeat with remaining mixture.
7. Serve with your choice of toppings and accompaniments: more scallions, sesame seeds, soy sauce, sri racha mayo, mushrooms, SPAM, etc.

Alabama Pork Chops

This recipe comes via Hello Fresh. As written, it's delicious, but we found that it didn't produce enough potatoes and corn for the amount of pork chops; for this writeup, I've doubled all the side dishes and the sauce. (The sauce is meant to go on the pork chops, but it's also delicious on the potatoes.)

Ingredients

• Sauce
• 128mL mayonnaise
• 32mL dijon mustard
• 20mL horseradish
• 32mL sherry or cider vinegar
• 5mL sugar
• 5mL ground black pepper
• Not-Sauce
• 1.2kg yellow potatoes
• 4 ~180g boneless pork chops
• 12 garlic cloves, minced
• 32mL unsalted butter
• 450g frozen corn kernels
• ~30g (one large bunch) fresh parsley

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F.
2. Slice the potatoes into 5mm thick discs. Toss in oil, arrange on a baking sheet (or two, with the doubled recipe), season with salt and pepper, and bake until golden brown and delicious, ~20 minutes.
3. Heat oil in a pan over medium high heat. Cook the pork chops until golden brown and just cooked through, 4-6 minutes per side.
4. Remove the pork chops to a plate to cool.
5. Reduce heat to medium and add the butter and garlic. Cook, stirring, until the butter has melted.
6. Add the corn and continue cooking until the garlic is browned and the corn is warmed through.
7. Remove from the heat. Stir in half the parsley.
8. Whisk together all of the sauce ingredients and the other half of the parsley.
9. Thinly slice the pork; add any collected juices from the plate to the sauce. Serve.

This is one of the many, many cupcake recipes posted in the Something Awful cake thread. PezMaster also posted it on her own blog. I'm glad to finally get the chance to try this one. It came out really well.

The cupcakes were simultaneously dark and rich while also being light and fluffy. If you really like your chocolate (cup)cakes dense and heavy, this might not be the recipe for you. But I really enjoyed the texture. Even if it did confuse my mouth a bit at first. With a chocolate that dark and intense, my mouth was expecting a close, dense texture. The first bite was a little disorienting. But once I got used to the fact that these were light, airy cupcakes that somehow had the rich flavour of a dense chocolate cake, I liked them quite a lot!

The icing was also lovely. This was my first attempt at a Swiss meringue. I've only ever made French meringues before. The cooking process for Swiss meringues has always intimidated me. And my buttercreams have always been American. Again, because I've never been confident in my ability to make any of the more involved buttercreams. I tend to go with very simple icings, when I bother to ice my cakes at all: glacé, royal, American buttercream, or a simple glaze. I was really pleased with how this one came out. And the Swiss meringue wasn't as tricky as I'd feared. My one complaint with this recipe is that the author recommended a bit of orange juice as an optional extra. As soon as I added the orange juice, the mixture instantly seized and curdled and no amount of warming, chilling, or beating could salvage it. I had to start over again from scratch. And when I started over, I also doubled the recipe. There's no way that the original amount would've been enough to decorate all the cupcakes!

And my last comment on this recipe is that I was in a bit of a flap and totally forgot to add the semisweet chocolate that was supposed to get sprinkled over the cupcakes just before they went in the oven. I'm sure they would've been even richer and more chocolate-y with it, but they were beautiful and delicious without it. So, use it if you have it, but don't worry about it if you don't. You'll get lovely cupcakes either way.

Chocolate-Coconut Cupcakes with Orange Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Slightly adapted from C&C Cakery

Ingredients

Cupcakes

• 1/2 c. cocoa powder, preferably Dutched
• 1/2 c. boiling water
• 1 3/4 c. soft (cake/plain/standard) flour
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 c. coconut milk¹
• 1/2 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• 3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 c. brown sugar
• 3/4 c. sugar, divided
• 3 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
• 3/4 c. shredded coconut²
• 85g (3 oz.) semisweet chocolate, chopped (optional)

Icing

• 4 large egg whites
• 1 c. sugar
• 3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp. orange oil³
• zest of 2 oranges

Garnishes

These are optional. I left a few cupcakes plain and then tried out different toppings on the rest.

• chocolate sprinkles
• chocolate shavings
• shredded coconut (toast it if you feel like being extra fancy)
• giant orange "sprinkles" (the bottle says sprinkles, but they're the size of small blueberries!)
• chocolate fudge sprinkle mix
• candied orange slices

Directions

Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
2. Combine cocoa with boiling water and set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
4. In a measuring cup, combine coconut milk and vanilla. Set aside.
5. In a large bowl, beat butter, brown sugar, and 1/2 c. of the granulated sugar until light and fluffy.
6. Add egg yolks to butter mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition.
7. Add cooled cocoa mixture and beat until well-combined.
8. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture followed by 1/2 of the coconut milk mixture. Repeat this, ending with the final 1/3 of the flour mixture. Set aside.
9. Clean and dry your beaters very well.
10. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites until frothy.
11. Add remaining 1/4 c. sugar, 1 Tbsp. at a time, until whites hold firm peaks. (You should be able to hold the bowl upside down without it dripping or sliding around.)
12. Mix about 1/3 of the meringue into the batter to loosen it. (You don't need to worry about knocking the air out at this point.)
13. Gently fold in the remaining meringue being careful to mix it in thoroughly while deflating it as little as possible. Toward the end of the folding process, sprinkle in the shredded coconut.
14. Spoon batter into lined cupcake tin(s). (This made two dozen 2" cupcakes for me.)
15. Optional: Sprinkle with chopped semisweet chocolate.
16. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for ~20 minutes.
17. Remove to wire rack to cool.

Icing

1. Combine egg whites and sugar in a large heatproof bowl.
2. Place bowl over a pot of boiling water and whisk egg whites until sugar is completely dissolved and egg whites have gone from clear to white.
3. Remove from heat and beat until stiff glossy peaks form.
4. If meringue is still hot, allow to cool to about body temperature before continuing.
5. Beat in softened butter, a little at a time.
6. Beat in the orange zest and oil.

Assembly

1. Once cupcakes are completely cool, pipe on the icing and decorate with garnish(es) of your choice.

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¹ The recipe specifically calls for full-fat coconut milk, but I only had "lite" coconut milk in the pantry so I just used that. I was very happy with my results. I wouldn't hesitate to use lite/light/low-fat coconut milk for this recipe in the future. ^Back
2 The recipe doesn't specify whether the coconut should be sweetened or unsweetened. I only keep unsweetened coconut on hand as a general rule, so I just used that. If you're going to use sweetened coconut, it might be wise to cut back on the sugar a little. I found the sweetness just right with the unsweetened coconut. Also, if you want the coconut to have a bit more presence, use a medium or large/coarse shred. I used fine which pretty much just disappeared into the batter. You could still taste it, but you couldn't see it or feel it. For some, that might be a selling point. For others, it might be a detraction. Adjust accordingly. ^Back
3 The original recipe calls for 2 Tbsp. orange concentrate. (Well, 1 Tbsp. actually, but for half as much icing as I made. So, scaled up, it would be 2 Tbsp.) I have no idea what that means. Perhaps orange juice concentrate? I'd be wary of putting that in though, considering how my experiments with adding orange juice went. Perhaps orange extract? I couldn't find that. The best I could do was orange oil. But that came in tiny little one dram bottles, so I assumed it was quite a bit more potent than orange extract. Zest from two oranges + 1/2 tsp. of orange oil seems to have done the job nicely. If you have some orange extract on hand, try putting in a teaspoon or two and see how it tastes. If you feel like experimenting with orange juice concentrate, go ahead, but be aware that your icing might curdle. ^Back

Between being sick, trying to keep the Kidlet entertained, and doing BBP and first aid courses, I haven't had my mind on food too much lately. There're a bunch of good recipes that I should've written down but didn't quite get to. I might try to go back and fill a few of them in. The cupcakes I made for my birthday, in particular, seem worth posting. (Wish I'd thought to snap a few photos before we ate them all.) In the meantime, here's a recipe for chicken enchiladas!

Chicken Enchiladas

Based on a HelloFresh meal

Ingredients

Sauce

• 1 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 Tbsp. flour
• 2 Tbsp. Mexican seasoning¹
• 1 c. chicken stock
• 1 chipotle in adobo, minced (optional)²

Filling

• 2 Tbsp. canola oil, divided
• 2 bell peppers, sliced
• 1 onion, sliced
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, halved horizontally, then sliced
• salt and pepper

Assembly

• 9 (8") tortillas
• 1 c. shredded Cheddar
• 1/2 c. sour cream
• 2 Tbsp. fresh cilantro, chopped

Directions

Sauce

1. Heat oil over medium heat and stir in flour. Stir until four is cooked, but roux is still white.
2. Add Mexican seasoning, chicken stock, and chipotle, if using. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer until thickened.

Filling

1. Heat 1 Tbsp. oil over medium-high heat.
2. Add onions and peppers and cook until softened. Remove from pan and set aside.
3. Add remaining Tbsp. of oil to the pan.
4. Add the chicken and season with salt and pepper.
5. Once chicken is cooked through, return onions and peppers to pan and add half the sauce.

Assembly

1. Preheat broiler to high.
2. Place a scant 2/3 c. filling onto a tortilla, roll it up, and place it seam side down in a greased 9x13 baking dish.
3. Repeat with remaining tortillas.
4. Pour remaining sauce over the rolled tortillas in the baking dish.
5. Sprinkle with shredded cheese.
6. Broil for 3-4 minutes.
7. Serve with sour cream and cilantro.

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¹ The HelloFresh meal came with a little packet of "Mexican seasoning". I think taco or fajita seasoning would work pretty well as a stand-in. Or, if you have the spices on hand, feel free to roll your own. I'd recommend chili powder, salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, garlic powder, and maybe a little onion powder and/or oregano as the base. ^Back
2 There were no chipotles included in the HelloFresh kit. If you like your sauce mild, feel free to leave it out. If you like a little more heat and smokiness, toss in a chipotle or two along with a bit of the adobo sauce to kick it up a notch. ^Back