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Caramelized Onion Dip

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A shift in the weather has finally come to North Carolina.  After a disgustingly hot Labor Day weekend, the last few days have been gloriously cool. I’m thrilled for fall to arrive, but sometimes, I think the transition into the season is almost more exhilarating than the heart of the season itself. Just a few months ago, I ached for the warmth of summer. I couldn’t wait to shed my scarves, jeans, and sweaters and swap them out for flip flops and tank tops. But now, as we teeter on the outer edge of a long, hot summer, I can’t wait to don my long-sleeved tees, comfy socks, and tall, brown boots.

Buuuut it’s still a bit warm for that. But there are still plenty of ways to get ready for fall. One of them is to add this rockin’ dip to your TO MAKE IMMEDIATELY list. Take it to your next football tailgate, Halloween party, or movie night. Seriously, I urge you to find any excuse.

I’ve “made” onion dip before. A packet of onion soup mix and a tub of sour cream and shazam! Chip & dip time! But this is unlike any onion dip I’ve ever had. probably because it actually features the fine, fine flavors of real onion. A LOT of onion. This recipe yields about three cups, but it starts with four full cups of raw onion. Then, aided by the deep and sultry additions of balsamic vinegar and brown sugar, those crisp raw onions transform until their decadent, caramelized selves.

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Supertall Strawberry Shortcake

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Spring (though it’s actually starting to feel more like summer here in NC) has officially begun. It seems like the trees were, just moments ago, blossoming in delicate flowers and poking little green buds into the cool air, but they are suddenly enrobed in lush, green leaves still blinking in their new-found sunshine. The daffodils and tulips have come and gone, and the light lingers a few moments more every evening.

But just in case there was any doubt:

The berries have arrived.

Glistening, ruby-red, and more photogenic than any berry I know, strawberries are the first fruit of the season to reach the farmers market in Durham. They’re the first float of the summer produce parade; it’s definitely cause for celebration.

And what better way to celebrate than with a classic, fresh, and simple strawberry shortcake?


Okay, okay, I know you might be skeptical about my use of the word “simple” when discussing a six-layer cake, but I promise, it’s really rather easy AND is so totally worth it once you have your first bite.

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Potica

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January.

Generally quiet, cold, and frugal, it’s never been my favorite month. The anticipation of the holidays has passed, and the next break seems distant. But I’m still juuuuuuuuust close enough to December that I am still savoring the memories of a holiday baking project conducted in my parents’ kitchen.

Potica (pronounced po-tee-tza) is one of those recipes that my grandma made rarely but talked of often as a favorite family treat. It apparently is known by many names and varies dramatically depending on which eastern European recipe you happen to be following. To create this spiral nut bread, a sweet dough is rolled extremely thin and slathered with a mixture of butter, pecans, and sugar before it bakes into lovely loaves, fitting for a simple breakfast or a stunning gift.

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Disasters (Volume One of Many)

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the kitchen, it’s that failure is real. It happens a lot. I share a lot of my successes here, and I have more on the way, but I want to make sure you all are perfectly clear that I do suffer some total, utter failures in this little kitchen of mine. Sierra has been lobbying me for a while to do a post on these disasters, so I sifted through some of my unpublished recipes this week to find the best worsts.

I keep all the photos I take when I shoot recipes, sorted into folders, and let the folders sit in an “Unpublished” folder until a recipe is posted on the site. It turns out that I have almost as many unpublished recipes as published ones. Sometimes they sit unpublished because the photos are hideous, sometimes because their moment in seasonal cooking has passed, and sometimes they are abandoned on my hard drive because the recipe itself (or my execution of it) was a total failure. Here is a sampling of some of those disasters.

Maple Pecan Muffins

Maple Pecan Muffins

Pretty, right!? Ooooooh I was so looking forward to this recipe. Maple syrup, chopped fresh pecans, a thick, warm crumb supporting a pat of melting butter… how could they possibly be bad? This is one I wanna try again because seriously, I still don’t know what happened. The muffins were far too dense, flavorless, hard as hockey pucks on the outside, and crumbling to pieces when removed from the wrappers. See how the batter is sitting far below the top of the muffin wrap? They hardly raised at all! Things only got worse the second day, at which point the whole batch was virtually inedible. So much for the world’s best muffin I was hoping for.

Simple Winter Fruit Salad

Simple Winter Fruit Salad

I suppose, in terms of scope, this doesn’t totally qualify as a disaster. Just more of a meh. When I discovered that someone at my farmers market grows kiwi that ripens in early December, I flipped out. How could such an exotic fruit grow somewhere that I live? In an effort to use up fruit already in my fridge before heading to Colorado for Christmas, I decided to feature the kiwi in a little fruit salad. And in truth, it didn’t taste bad. But it was way, way, WAY too acidic. Kiwis, I discovered, are used in some areas as a substitute for tomatoes in salsas. Pomegranates and apples, of course, are also fairly tangy and acidic. The combination of the three, with nothing like a peach or banana to break them up, made this a really, really tart experience that made my mouth feel the way too many Warheads does. Not a condition I would wish on anyone else.

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Community Garden: An Eight-Month Tale of Garlic

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You guys.

You see that garlic? I grew that garlic! Me and eight months of nature magic, that is.

When I scored a plot on my community garden, I was excited for the salad greens, the squash, all the fresh goodies. But one of my major goals was to learn to grow some of the staples and storage goods that I pull off the shelf before anything else when it’s time to make a meal. Garlic is, perhaps, the poster child of that concept: I mince up at least a clove or two in just about everything.

One of the vendors at the farmers market grows copious amounts of garlic, selling the trimmed and cured heads by the pound during the summer and fall, so I picked his brain one day last September about planting garlic myself. Armed with new knowledge and a few heads of garlic, I spent a crisp October morning starting what would become a significant test of patience.

Most garlic is grown by planting a single clove for each head you hope to produce. Planted in the fall, garlic grows slowly throughout the winter. It’s a remarkably hearty plant. When most of the garden plots around mine were dormant or inhabited only by kale, my perky little garlic plants stood tall and leafy.

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Classic Stovetop Mac & Cheese

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Easy Stove-Top Mac and Cheese

I’m just gonna come right out and say it. When discussing cheese and pasta, sometimes one must be blunt.

I like stove-top macaroni and cheese more than baked macaroni and cheese.

This is the truth, straight from me to you.

I mean, that’s not to say I won’t consume a mound of baked mac rapidly if it’s served at a potluck, a cookout, or a picnic. And I won’t say no to a fancy mac, like this one I made last year. But the macaroni of my dreams is prepared on the stove-top: al denté, piping hot, and swimming in thin, just-a-little-bit-spicy, orange cheddar cheese sauce.

Mac and Cheese
Is this a product of being raised on the blue box? Perhaps. Is this a product of wanting my pasta so firm that it nearly crunches between the teeth, a state that is nearly impossible to achieve when baking pasta? That’s probably reading too deeply into the whole thing. Maybe I don’t like the breadcrumbs that typically accompany a baked mac? Maybe I don’t like the waiting?

One significant downside of loving so much a mysteriously created product of food science is that it can be incredibly difficult to replicate at home. What the hell is that orange powder anyway? I theorize it must be fairy dust, for I have searched for years for a mac and cheese recipe that, if not identical, could at least be a satisfactory homemade replacement to the mac and cheese of my childhood.

Friends, I HAVE FOUND IT.

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(Almost) No-Bake Cheesecake with Fresh Cherry Sauce

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Almost No Bake Cherry Cheesecake

I have this issue with cheesecake. The issue is that if it is in my fridge, or available for purchase on a dessert menu, or available for purchase within walking distance, or even capable of being created with ingredients in my apartment, I have exactly 0% ability to resist it. As a result I make a point of not buying cream cheese very often. If I don’t have that one essential component, I can pretend that I’m happy living a life where I don’t eat cheesecake every single day for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, right? Right??

I live for good cheesecake. But I am kind of picky about what makes one good. There are few things more disappointing than cheesecake that looks delicious and is, well, meh. If it’s too lemony or too dry or too rich or too dense or has too much topping or not enough or has too many mix-ins or just a gross combo of them or the crust is too thick or some crazy person put CINNAMON in it I get really cranky.

Sweet Cherry Cheesecake

Most of the time, when it’s time to make cheesecake again, I fall back on two, trusty recipes I’ve used for a long time. The first is a classic, baked cheesecake that, actually, I’ve only shared here in a version dressed up for Thanksgiving. The other I fashion exclusively in miniature form, a holiday tradition in my family as essential as the tree and the Home Alone soundtrack.

Lots of dairy in this cheesecake

Making crumbs

But this summer, I’ve been reveling in the availability of locally-grown sweet cherries (difficult to obtain in both Columbus and Durham), and a cherry cheesecake seemed like just the ticket. And while we are “enjoying” the high-nineties here in Denver, I’m pleased to report that the oven was only on for a few minutes, and even that is not totally required if you don’t want to.

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How To’sday: How to Make Swiss Meringue Buttercream

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Swiss Meringue Buttercream

For the first several years of my training as a cake decorator, I used an icing composed primarily of Crisco and powdered sugar. And I’ve gotta admit, for someone decorating 1-2 practice cakes (and in later years, simply styrofoam cake forms) every month, there was nothing better: it’s snow white, doesn’t take long to bring to room temperature, holds it’s shape  and consistency even as it gets warm in the piping bag, and seemingly never spoils.

That icing served me well for a long time. But as I grew older I started to grow wary of the mysterious ingredients in Crisco, and the gritty texture of the powdered sugar irritated me more and more. I started to think perhaps it was time to up my game in the icing department. And it only took a teensy bit of digging around the cake-baking community to know that I needed to learn, above all other things, the art of Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

The very best buttercream
And boy am I glad I did. Each batch I make reaffirms my obsession with this icing: impossibly smooth and creamy, light and airy, shiny and stable, and delicately sweet. It freezes well, so it can be made in large batches even if you only have a small cake to bake. Because the sugar is dissolved, there is no grittiness whatsoever. It’s stable once applied, gives strength to your cakes, and is gorgeous enough to be used as an outer icing with no need for fondant. Plus, it can be adapted to just about any flavor you want.

I’ve now used this buttercream for two wedding cakes, a birthday cake, cookie icing, cupcake icing, and dinner party cakes. It’s extremely versatile and soooo tasty.

So today, I want to share it with you. And it’s not scary! Though it is a bit time-consuming, it’s pretty straight-forward to make. So let’s dive in and make some SMBC!

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Cranberry Scones

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When asked if I could bring scones to a “Ladies’ High Tea”, I found myself suddenly faced with two questions:

1. What exactly is a Ladies’ High Tea?
2. How the heck do I make scones?

Scones are something that I always hear about, that people some to rather enjoy, but that I’d never made before. But what better excuse to learn a new recipe than a chance to share it with new friends?

Not really having the time to experiment with several recipes, I began hunting for a recipe that seemed simple, basic, and classic. I was, however, incredibly surprised by the range of this pastry, and have now added many recipes to my list to try in the future. Apple cheddar scones? Blueberry lemon scones? Cinnamon scones?

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Carrot Oatmeal Cookies with Cream Cheese Glaze

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It’s June! And this first day of June is many things!

1. The first day of June, which is exciting enough on its own
2. The first day of National Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Month
3. The first day of National Accordion Awareness Month (who knew we even had that? Consider yourself aware.)
3. Mah birthday!

I’m spending the day doing what any sensible girl would do. Reading on the balcony, possibly getting a pedicure, re-organizing my spices in tiny matching jars (!!!!!!), taking a stab at cooking crème brûlée, seeing a movie with friends… it’s a lovely day off! Full of little birthday presents to myself.

My birthday present to you, however, are these cookies.

Last year around this time, we talked about carrot cake. I was never a particularly big fan in the past, but I now frequently find myself craving those tender bites of spice-filled, textured cake topped with a healthy dollop of tangy icing. Plus, the carrots in my garden are now bursting from the soil (okay not bursting, they actually require rather a lot of coaxing to come out of the ground), and my experiment with a curious variety put carrot cake on the top of my list to make.

Aren’t these neat? I wish I had taken pictures of them straight out of the earth, their brilliant fuschia dims slightly within minutes: they are easily the most intriguing vegetable I’d planted so far. And what fun would it be to use purple carrots for carrot cake?

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