I've had this recipe sitting in my bookmarks for ages. It really appealed to me when I first saw it, but we didn't have all the ingredients (and also, it's pretty unhealthy, so I couldn't really justify going out and getting the bits for it). So, it sat there in my bookmarks, mostly ignored and forgotten.

I wasn't even planning on making it today. I was going to do a completely different unhealthy, cheese-based recipe. But, sadly, my goat cheese had gone off, so I had to punt on my original plans. But this still left me with half a package of cream cheese to use up. Perfect for making half a batch of brownie batter dip! And, since it's only a half batch, I feel less bad about its nutritional status.

(The recipe below reflects the original quantities since I figure I'm more likely to have a whole brick of cream cheese on hand than a half package, but feel free to scale it up or down as needed.)

Brownie Batter Dip

Slightly adapted from Taste of Home

Ingredients

• 250g cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 c. unsalted butter, softened
• 2 c. icing (powdered/confectioners') sugar
• 6 Tbsp. cocoa powder
• 1/4 c. milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar

Directions

1. Beat cream cheese with butter until combined.
2. Sift in icing sugar and cocoa powder.
3. Add milk, vanilla, and brown sugar and beat until smooth.
4. Serve with fruit or graham crackers to dip.

Bittarai Kirihodi (Egg and Milk Gravy)

This is a simple Sri Lankan egg curry and the "milk" in this case is coconut milk, rather than cow's milk.

I was reluctant to try egg curries for ages. They just didn't sound appealing to me. Eggs and curry didn't really seem like a natural match and I wasn't sure how I felt about it. But every egg curry I've tried so far -- and there have been several -- has been fantastic!
TM and the Kidlet were both particular fans of this one, so I wanted to make sure I got it written up promptly. (It looks like one of the other egg curries we made a while back missed getting posted, so I'll have to try to correct that at some point.)

Bittarai Kirihodi

Slightly adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

Ingredeints

• 2 Tbsp. canola (or other neutral) oil
• 1/2 tsp. fenugreek seeds
• 1-2 (3") cinnamon sticks
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 fresh green Thai or finger chilies, halved lengthwise
• 2 tsp. untoasted Sri Lankan curry powder
• 1 (400mL) can coconut milk
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
• 6 extra-large eggs¹, hard-boiled and peeled

Directions

1. Heat the oil over medium heat.
2. Add the fenugreek seeds and cinnamon sticks and sizzle for ~30 seconds.
3. Add the onion and chilies and cook for ~5 minutes.
4. Add the curry powder and cook for ~30 seconds.
5. Add the coconut milk, salt, and turmeric and stir to combine.
6. Add the peeled eggs (whole) and simmer, basting often, for 5-10 minutes.
7. Serve with rice and whatever veggies you prefer.

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¹ Iyer calls for either extra-large or jumbo eggs. I just ended up using large since that's what I had on hand. If you only have smaller eggs available, you may want to consider adding one or two extras. Or, alternatively, just do it with six and see how much sauce you have left over after eating them. If there's a lot of extra sauce, you can always boil up some more eggs and simmer them in the leftover sauce the next day! ^Back

I had some nervous energy to use up last night, so I decided to try out a new brownie recipe. I've been eyeing up this one from Northwest Sourdough for a few days now. It looked pleasingly simple and seemed like a nice way to use up a bit of starter. Plus, I figured TF and the Kidlet would be well-pleased to discover a fresh pan of brownies waiting for them.

In the end, these came out a bit more like a chocolate cake than a brownie. An ultra-rich, very delicious chocolate cake, but still leaning a bit more cake than brownie. Although the author does note that if you use the full amount of starter called for, it will make them a bit cakier, and if you reduce the quantity of starter, they will be denser. I used the full 200g of starter for this time through, but I think I'd try cutting it back to 150g next time and see how that comes out. I'd also be tempted to omit the baking soda next time. I just wasn't sure if the alkalinity was needed to counteract the tang of the starter. Maybe I'll just experiment with reducing it somewhat for now. We'll see how it goes...

The only other small change I might try making is to microwave the butter with the sugar (rather than starting with the butter and chocolate toghether). I found a post on the King Arthur blog that suggests heating the butter and sugar together and then stirring in the chocolate. I'm not sure how much of a difference changing up the order of the ingredients will make to the final result, but I figure it's worth a shot.

Sourdough Chocolate Brownies

Slightly adapted from Northwest Sourdough

Ingredients

• 113g unsalted butter
• 100g sugar
• 230g dark chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 150g ripe (active/fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 100g dried cherries (optional)
• 1/4 tsp. almond extract (optional)
• extra chocolate (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a 23cm (9") square pan.
2. If using both cherries and almond extract, combine them in a microwaveable bowl, cover, and nuke until hot. Then set aside to cool while you mix the batter.
3. Melt the butter with the sugar until hot and bubbling.
4. Add the chocolate and stir until smooth and melted.
5. Stir in salt and vanilla.
6. Mix in eggs.
7. Sift in baking soda and stir to combine.
8. Stir in starter.
9. Stir in any inclusions (like cherries, walnuts, raspberries, chocolate chips, peanut butter, marshmallows, M&Ms, etc.).
10. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake at 180°C (350°F) for ~25 minutes.
11. Remove from oven. If desired, sprinkle top of brownies with chocolate chips or more chopped chocolate.
12. Let cool completely before serving.

I still kind of can't believe that I found a recipe that fit my ingredients so well. I had cream cheese, fresh goat cheese, and mascarpone to use up. This cake uses all three. And it calls for cranberries and pistachios, both of which I had in the freezer. And the cranberries have been going begging for months now, so I was thrilled to finally have a use for them. (I kept contemplating trying to make cranberry curd to use as either a cake or pie filling, but never quite getting around to it.)

And the cake was delicious. Not, I think, my favourite cheesecake, but it was still really good.

The cake itself is very simple. Just cheese, eggs, and a bit of sugar and vanilla. No crust either! The topping is a little more complicated since you have to poach the cranberries and then strain them and use the poaching liquid to make a gelée. Plus there's making the candied pistachios. But none of those tasks are particularly onerous. I think the worst part of making this cake was all the waiting! Everything needs to be cooled and cilled to set up properly, so it takes forever to be ready to eat. (I actually got impatient and cut mine before the topping had completely set. It was still tasty, just a bit messy.)

Goat Cheese Cake with Wine-Poached Cranberries and Candied Pistachios

Slightly adapted from Food & Wine

Ingredients

Cake

• 375g cream cheese, softened
• 225g fresh goat cheese
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 vanilla bean
• 340g mascarpone
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature

Topping

• 1 c. port¹
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 2-3 strips of lemon peel (~2cm x 5cm each)
• 225g fresh or frozen cranberries
• 1 Tbsp. cold water
• 1 1/4 tsp. unflavoured gelatin
• 1/2 c. candied pistachios

Directions

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F) and wrap a 23cm (9") springform pan in tin foil.
2. Combine the cream cheese, goat cheese, sugar, and salt.
3. Split open the vanilla bean, scrape out the seeds, and add them to the bowl with the cheeses and sugar. (Put the vanilla pod in your sugar bowl or save it for another use.)
4. Beat the cheese mixture for 2-3 minutes.
5. Add the mascarpone and beat it in.
6. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
7. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared springform and place it in a roasting pan or other large vessel. Pour hot water into the roasting pan until it comes ~2/3 of the way up the side of the foil-wrapped springform.
8. Carefully transfer the cake in its bain marie to the oven and bake at 160°C (325°F) for ~60 minutes².
9. Transfer springform pan to wire rack to cool.
10. After 1-2 hours, transfer cake to fridge and chill for at least an hour or two before proceeding. (Overnight would be better, but I'm not that patient!)

Topping

1. Combine wine, sugar, and lemon peel and bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Cook, stirring occasionally, for ~3 minutes.
3. Add cranberries and cook until they begin to pop (~3 minutes).
4. Remove from heat and allow to cool (~1 hour).
5. Pour mixture through a fine mesh strainer, reserving both the cranberries and the poaching liquid. (Discard the lemon peel.)
6. Place cold water in a small bowl and sprinkle with gelain. Set aside for 5 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, return poaching liquid to pot and bring to a boil over medium heat.
8. Cook, stirring occasionally, for ~5 minutes.
9. Remove from heat, add softened gelatin, and stir until dissolved (~1 minute).
10. Pour mixture through a fine mish strainer into a bowl and let cool to room temperature. Skim off any foam or bubbles.
11. Pour gelatin mixture over the chilled cheesecake, tilting to completely coat the top of the cake.
12. Chill, uncovered, until gelatin has set (~1 hour).
13. Meanwhile, make the candied pistachios as directed.
14. Once gelée has set, decorate the cake with the poached cranberries and candied pistachios.
15. Run a hot knife or offset spatula around the edge of the springform pan, then remove the sides.

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¹ I didn't have any port and I didn't want to go out and get a bottle just for this, so I mixed ~1 tsp. of brown sugar into a cup of dry red wine and called it a day. ^Back
2 I checked my cake after 60 minutes and it still seemed really, really jiggly, so I gave it another 10. Then I was worried that it still wasn't done, so I turned off the oven, but put it back in the warm oven for another 10 minutes. I think that last 10 minutes in the warm oven may have been a bit too much though, because my cake came out kind of crumbly. Next time I should probably cook it a little less. Oh well... ^Back

I've been eyeing the photo for this recipe for ages now. I just looks really, really appealing. I never used to be much for beans in my youth, but I've warmed up to them over the years and, especially in the last year or two, I've found cannellini beans particularly appealing. So, a rich, savoury thick soup built on a base of cannellini beans sounded like a pretty fantastic dinner to me!

The original recipe calls for a mix of chopped onions, carrots, and celery as the vegetable component. I was running low on veggies when I made this though, so I ended up swapping in some frozen "spaghetti" mix (onion, red bell pepper, carrot, green bell pepper, and celery). I used ~3 c. total. I also swapped in a few olives and an anchovy in place of the pancetta that I forgot to get. I think it would've been fine with just the olives, but I figured I'd toss the anchovy in since we had an open jar in the fridge.

Pasta e Fagioli

Slightly adapted from Cook's Country October/November 2018

Ingredients

• 2 (450mL) cans cannellini beans
• 1 c. water
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 rib celery, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped (optional)
• ~60g pancetta, chopped
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper, ground
• 2 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. red pepper flake (optional)
• 4 c. chicken stock
• 115g ditalini or tubettini
• ~1 c. grated Parmesan
• 1/2 c. chopped fresh basil

Directions

1. Drain and rinse the beans from one can and add to blender.
2. Pour in water and purée. Set aside.
3. Heat oil over medium heat.
4. Add onion, carrot, celery, bell pepper (if using), pancetta, salt, and pepper and cook for ~10 minutes.
5. Add tomato paste, garlic, and red pepper flakes (if using) and cook for ~2 minutes.
6. Add broth and puréed bean mixture.
7. Drain and rinse second can of beans and add them as well.
8. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for ~10 minutes.
9. Increase heat to medium and bring to a boil.
10. add pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until pasta is al dente (10-12 minutes).
11. Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan and basil.
12. Serve drizzled with extra olive oil and/or Parmesan cheese.

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Variants

Vegetarian Version

Ingredients

• 2 (450mL) cans cannellini beans
• 1 c. water
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 rib celery, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped (optional)
• ~60g green or kalamata olives, chopped
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper, ground
• 2 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. red pepper flake (optional)
• 4 c. vegetable stock
• 115g ditalini or tubettini
• ~1 c. grated Parmesan
• 1/2 c. chopped fresh basil

Pane di Amore

I'm not sure what makes this "love bread", but Valentine's Day is coming up and I had a little bit of rye flour left over from a previous bake that needed using, so I figured I'd give it a try.

This is an interesting bread. It has a little bit of everything in it. The recipe calls for regular (white) bread flour, rye flour, milk, potatoes, a bit of sugar, and, optionally, whole wheat flour. I also tossed in a little pâte fermentée since I had some that needed to be used up. I also put in significantly more whole wheat flour than the recipe recommended. (The instructions said that up to 160g of the white bread flour could be replaced with hard whole wheat flour. I think I ended up using ~600g of whole wheat flour for my rendition of this bread.)

I've only tried a small piece so far, but the rye flavour seems to have come through surprisingly well considering that there's only ~60g of rye flour in the whole thing!

Pane di Amor

Slightly adapted from Northwest Sourdough

Ingredients

• 200g ripe (active/fed) starter @ 100% hydration
• 600g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 60g rye flour (preferably freshly ground)
• 20g sugar
• 100g pâte fermentée @ 60% hydration
• 550g water
• 100g potato, boiled and mashed
• 80g milk¹
• 320g hard (strong/high grade/bread) white flour
• 20g coarse sea salt

Directions

1. Feed your starter up and get it nice and active.
2. Combine the whole wheat flour, rye flour, and sugar and make a well in the centre.
3. Pour in the starter, water, and pâte fermentée.
4. Mix everything up. Start by mixing up the wet ingredients in the centre of the bowl. It's okay if there are some lumps of pâte fermentée. Then begin gradually incorporating the dry ingredients into the wet, working from the centre outward.
5. Cover and let rest for an hour or two.
6. Boil, drain, and mash the potato. Make sure it is very tender and mashed very well.
7. Add your milk to the potato and mash it in.
8. Add the potato-milk mixture to the sponge, cover, and let ferment in the fridge overnight.
9. The next morning, combine the white flour with the salt and work it into the sponge. You may need to add a little more flour or water depending on the humidity and how thirsty your flour is. The dough should be fairly soft and loose.
10. Cover and let rest at room temperature. Stretch and fold the dough every hour or two for 4-8 hours.
11. Once the dough is nicely risen, divide and shape as desired.
12. Cover and proof in the fridge overnight.
13. The next morning, remove from fridge and allow to rest at room temperature for an hour or two.
14. Preheat oven to 250°C (475°F).
15. Grease a baking sheet and dust it with cornmeal. (Or, alternatively, preheat your pizza stone in the oven and dust a peel generously with cornmeal.)
16. Place a pan of boiling water on the bottom rack of the oven.
17. Turn the loaves out onto the prepared baking sheet. (Or turn one out onto the peel.)
18. Slash as desired.
19. Reduce oven temperature to 230°C (450°F) and bake loaves on middle rack over pan of boiling water for 15-20 minutes.
20. Remove water pan, reduce oven temperature to 200°C (400°F) and bake for another 10-15 minutes.
21. Turn off oven and allow bread to rest in hot oven for 10 minutes.
22. Remove from oven and transfer to wire rack to cool.

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¹ The original recipe recommended using evaporated milk. I didn't have any on hand, so I just used regular whole milk. I suspect that powdered milk would also work well here. You'd probably need ~2 Tbsp. of milk powder to be equivalent to 80g of evaporated milk. And, of course, if you did this, you may find you needed to add a little extra water to compensate for the missing liquid from the milk. Could be a useful option if you don't have any liquid milk readily to hand though. ^Back

I have a lot of soft cheeses right now. More, probably, than it's reasonable for any one household to have, but... so it goes.

I used up a bit of the giant pile of cream cheese that we had making bread and tasty spreads, but that still left me with a bunch of cream cheese and mascarpone that needed to be used up. And, in addition to that, I needed goat cheese for a recent salad. And, of course, the good goat cheese only came in a 600g package. So then I had a big pile of that to use up as well!

Fortuitously, I actually found an interesting cheesecake recipe that calls for all three of those cheeses! It even included a cranberry topping. Which allowed me to finally use up the bag of cranberries that I got by accident back in the fall. (It's been patiently waiting at the bottom of the freezer since October.) I don't think I could've found a recipe more tailor-made to the ingredients I had on hand. Very convenient!

Now, the cheesecake recipe came with its own instructions for making candied pistachios in the oven. And that seemed fine. But I knew that the last Cook's Country that we got contained a recipe for doing it on the stovetop. And that worked out better for me today, so I used that one. Same idea, slightly different process.

Skillet Candied Nuts

Slightly adapted from Cook's Country February/March 2021

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. raw nuts (chopped if large)
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. water
• 1/8 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground (optional)

Directions

1. Toast nuts over medium-low heat until fragrant (2-3 minutes).
2. Add sugar, water, and salt (if using) and stir to coat the nuts.
3. Cook, stirring frequently, until sugar caramelizes and nuts begin to clump (~3 minutes).
4. Transfer to plate and cool for at least 10 minutes.
6. Break into small clumps and serve or use as garnish.