Dutch Baby Pancake

I'd never heard of a dutch baby pancake before...

But just as I was starting to think about New Year's Day breakfast, Martha, bless her heart, sent me this recipe and it sounded like the perfect way to start off the new year...

And it turns out it was.

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Dutch Baby Pancake

courtesy of Martha Stewart

click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

NOTE: I'm providing the recipe as we followed it, but next time I make this, I'll probably cut the lemon juice by 25%. It was good, don't get me wrong, but just a little too much lemon for our personal tastes.  Also, Martha claims this serves 4.  I say, 4 children, maybe, but for adults?  2 of us had no problem finishing this whatsoever...

3 tbsp butter, divided

3 eggs
3/4 c whole milk
1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 c plus 1 tbsp sugar, divided

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

***

Preheat oven to 425°.

In an oven-safe, medium-sized skillet, melt 2 tbsp butter over medium heat and then set aside.

In a blender, combine eggs, milk, flour, salt, vanilla, and 1/4 c sugar. Blend until foamy, 30 seconds to 1 minute, depending on the power of your blender.

Pour batter into skillet and place skillet in the oven.

Bake ~ 20 minutes or until pancake is puffed and lightly browned.

While baking, cut the remaining tbsp of butter into small bits.

Once the pancake is cooked, remove from oven and dot with the butter bits.

Sprinkle with remaining tbsp of sugar and lemon juice.

Slice into wedges and serve immediately.

Cold Crab Dip

This year it was just Jordan and I for the holidays...  with the impending move, we're hoarding money like crazy and travel and gifts just didnt really fit in.  However, holidays can be saved, what with the miracle of Facetime and the recreation of culinary traditions...

This is part 1 of a series i'll call "how we ate our way though the holidays"

I never knew that crab dip was a Christmas tradition for so many people...  That was, until I started googling, looking for the crab dip my mom has made for the past bazillion Christmases...  However, it seems most of you enjoy hot crab dip.  and while i'm never one to turn up anything warm and cheesy, these holidays had specific demands - recreate the traditions...

so when google failed, i called my mom and just asked for the recipe.

duh.

Oh?  Did I forget to mention that there was a block of cream cheese involved?  One of my favorite culinary phrases has got to be "serve over a block of cream cheese"...

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Cold Crab Dip
courtesy of my mom
Click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

1 c ketchup
2 tbsp horseradish
1 tbsp honey

8 oz crab meat, cleaned and picked over

8 oz block of cream cheese

***

In a small bowl, mix ketchup, horseradish and honey together.

Add in the crabmeat and stir until incorporated

Chill in the fridge for at least a half hour

Spoon the dip over the block of cream cheese and serve with your favorite butter crackers.

Reindeer Cookies

Wait, what?  I'm actually going to post a timely post - you know, before you need it?

And i'm going to do this in the middle of what is always my busiest time of the year, to which i've already added trying to buy a co-op and the other half of my department being on maternity leave?  While I've got an awful head cold and have guests coming into town in a week?

I'm such a rockstar.

or, i thought i was until my sister told me that my 3 year old nephew had made these exact same cookies in NURSERY SCHOOL.

oh whatever.  they're cute.

(sorry for the crappy cell phone camera picture.  and yes, i should have
faced the Ms down - but I was REALLY tired...)

I made them for my work cookie exchange and while they were a HUGE pain to transport to the office (due to not wanting to lose the antlers, though the antlers seem way more secure than i expected), i fully expect to win (no actual award but lots of bragging rights for) cutest cookies on that exchange table...

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Reindeer Cookies
courtesy of Bakergirl with slight modifications by me
Click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

3/4 c creamy peanut butter
1 1/4 c firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 c unsalted butter (1 stick)
3 tbsp milk
1 tbsp vanilla
1 egg

1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

~ 72 chocolate-covered mini pretzels (1 box of the 100 calorie packages works)
~ 72 brown and green M&Ms
~ 36 red M&Ms in one of the larger varieties (i used pretzel but you could use peanut too...)

***

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Line baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

Combine peanut butter, brown sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed until well mixed and fluffy.  (it also tastes REALLY good - sample it now, cause the egg is about to go in...)

Add egg; beat again to combine.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.  Whisk to combine.

Slowly add flour mixture to peanut butter/sugar mixture with mixer on low. Mix til combined, but do not overmix - once everything is incorporated, shut it down.

Form dough into ~1-inch balls.  Place on baking sheet, an about 1.5 - 2 inches apart.  Pinch one end to form a nose and then slightly flatten the entire thing.  You will have a tray of alien-heads at this point.

Bake for 7 to 8 minutes, until set or just barely beginning to brown.

Remove from oven and immediately press red M&Ms into the point to make Rudolph's nose.  Then place either 2 brown or 2 green M&Ms into the middle to make the eyes.

Finally, push two mini pretzels at a ~90° angle (so, sticking straight up towards the sky) into the tops of the cookies for the reindeer's antlers.

Allow to cool 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  DO NOT TOUCH antlers while cookies are cooling as the chocolate will be melty and they are precarious at this point.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Malfadine with Lemon-Asparagus Sauce

When i started this blog - about 4 years ago - it was to not only share recipes, but also to share the stories behind them. I lost that somewhere along the way. i lost some of the story.

Keeping that in mind, you have to forgive me for posting this recipe at the absolute wrong time of the year. This is a spring dish if i ever tasted one. but i made it this week. When yes, it was warm, but its still october...

However. If you know me in real life, you know that i've seen more than my fair share of Better Than Ezra shows. You know that i have friends - real life friends - that i wouldnt even know if not for my hours on their messageboard and my travels to their shows. You know that when i start talking about someone you dont know, you have to ask 'is that a BTE person?' and you know that quite often, the answer will be yes.

So why is that relevant?  because a funny thing happened along the way. all of us BTE people? we grew up. some became real adults and had kids. some bought houses. some moved - many times. some got married. some broke up. but through the miracle of the internet, so many of us have stayed in touch. held eachothers hands through breakups. been to eachothers weddings. sent presents to those kids. and among it all, theres a number of us who emerged as being almost as obsessed with food as we were with that band - at least 3 of us have food blogs. so now, instead of trading live show tapes, we trade recipes. We send treats to those having a hard time. and not so long ago, i sent 1.5lbs of pasta all the way to california, because one of those friends mentioned that she couldnt find malfadine near her.

now, of course, if someone wants a specific shape pasta for a specific recipe that badly, you know i have to try it too, right?

So that 1.5lbs of malfadine has been sitting in my cabinet waiting for me to get around to this...

I ended up altering the original recipe a bunch, some based on reviewers suggestions, some pulled from other recipes we've known and loved (Cacio e Pepe, i'm looking at you), but the gist is the same... these long skinny lasagna-style noodles finished in an asparagus lemon sauce that just screams SPRING! (even if its October) when you bite into it...

and if you cant find malfadine near you? drop me a line - i'm an expert at shipping it ;)

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Malfadine with Lemon-Asparagus Sauce
courtesy of me, loosely adapted from Epicurious

Click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

1/2 lb fresh asparagus, tough ends discarded, tips and remaining stems separated
1/2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp softened butter
1 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tbsp dried parsley
1/2 tbsp lemon zest
Juice of 1/2 of a lemon
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1/2 lb malfadine or other pasta of choice

1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

***

Boil a generous amount of water (you will use this water 3 times). Once boiling, add the salt to the water. Watch the volcanic eruption. its fun.

Chop asparagus stems into 1-2" segments. Cook the segments in the boiling water for 6-7 minutes or until very tender. Transfer segments to a colander, reserving cooking water in pot (a slotted spoon or small strainer works well), and rinse under cold water. Set aside.

Cook asparagus tips in same boiling water until just tender, about 3 minutes. Transfer tips to a colander, again reserving cooking water in pot and rinse under cold water and set aside,

Purée asparagus stems with oil, butter, garlic, parsley, zest, lemon juice, black pepper and 1/4 cup asparagus cooking water. (be careful, that water is hot)

Cook pasta in boiling asparagus cooking water for about 3/4 the amount of time suggested for al dente pasta. Reserve 1 cup of the cooking water, drain pasta and remaining water out of the pan.

Return pasta to the dry pan. Add in the asparagus tips, the pureed sauce and the reserved water and cook over high heat, stirring frequently to prevent burning and to ensure the ingredients are combining well. Allow to cook ~ 3 minutes, or until pasta is al dente, and the sauce has thickened and coats pasta well. (it will still be too 'loose' at this point - thats ok, the cheese will help...)

Remove from the heat and stir in Parmigiano-Reggiano. Stir until cheese is meltedand well combined.

Serve immediately, adding salt to taste.

Introducing Pepperplate links!

(i'm going to wax poetic about my ipad for a moment here, but even if you dont have one, keep reading - this is for you too...)

so, about a year ago, i started thinking that maybe i wanted an ipad...  i'd spent many months making fun of what i felt was basically an overgrown phone that you couldnt use to make calls... (incidentally, my 3 year old nephew actually calls his dad's ipad 'the big phone') and didnt see why anyone would want one, but then, one day, it hit me.

i need this in the kitchen.

so when ipad 2 came out, i was right there on the pre-order bandwagon. I thought it would be great to have my recipes online instead of on random printed sheets all over the apartment.

and it was.

but, of course, i needed just a little more... So i went searching.

and i found the Pepperplate app.  a way to store recipes and turn them into menu plans?  score. exactly what i needed.

and, as it turns out, a lot more...

see, they have a website too (told you this wasnt all ipad love) and its amazing.  AMAZING.

Between the site and the app, you can do a million things...

• import recipes directly from supported sites
• use the bookmarklet on your browser to do a simple copy/paste of recipes from unsupported sites
• create manual recipes
• edit recipes for your modifications, no matter their origin
• menu plan
• create shopping lists, customized for your grocery store
• keep your ipad awake while cooking in the app
• share your recipes with others and allow them to import those recipes into their own pepperplate accounts.

and, oh yeah, its FREE.

So the other day i started thinking - how do i use this on Kitchen Hell?  So i tweeted the lovely @pepperplateapp people and asked - is there a way to create and share these links? and within moments, they got back to me with the details.

Therefore, from now on, any time i post a recipe, there will be a Pepperplate link under the title/creator - but before the ingredients - which will allow you to import that recipe into your own account.

(it also creates a clean print if you don't want to use an online version of said recipe)

I'll be going through the archives and adding links to old posts, but if you see any you want converted sooner rather than later, just drop me a line (or use the bookmarklet).

I hope you love Pepperplate as much as I do.  And no, this was NOT a paid or requested endorsement - i really, truly just think this site/app are that useful that i wanted to share :)