KitchenKatalog: Blog 153

I thought it would be nice to make and bring biscotti to the hospital for all of the doctors and nurses. I figured I'd make them ahead of time and freeze them.

So I pulled out my dad's trusty biscotti recipe and, without thinking, planned to make the basic kind I made for christmas. Unfortunately, that required I made my own candied cherries since they are hard to find this time of year (see below). In making them, I also figured out a trick to transfer (see below).

But anyway, the first (and originally only) batch came out pretty good, but I was looking at my dad's recipe and realized I really missed an opportunity. Meredith really likes lemon poppy seed and I didn't even think to make them. So what was I to do? I made another batch the next day. I used the recipe with the tips at the bottom though I went even heavier on both lemon ingredients. I also sliced these a bit thicker just to make my life easier. They also came out really good. Not the rich lemon flavor I was originally hoping for, but unmistakably lemon. According to my Dad, Emily sometimes uses lemon extract so maybe that is worth trying in the future too.

Anyway, now I have two giant bags of biscotti to bring with us! (and there were smaller bags leftover from each batch. We still have the lemon but we brought the Christmas-style to a friends' house)

Tips for transferring biscotti

I think I finally got it, though I broke one of the logs "getting it". After the biscotti have cooled for the 10 minutes, the first goal is to get them off of a rimmed sheet so you can more easily get in there.

To do this, I slide a big cutting board under the silpat from the long side (I originally did the short way and broke one). Then, I used a pastry spatula to slide under. Then, using another cutting board of the same thickness, I slid it over with the short side first (so I could better place it). It wasn't perfect, but seemed to work well enough

Cherries

As I noted above, I had to make my own cherries since I couldn't find them². I used the recipe from King Arthur Flour (LOCAL) and intended to stay pretty true to it. The only planned change was the reduce the final temp by about 10°F to align with the boiling point of water in Albuquerque¹. However, it went from needing 10° more to being 25° over! Oops! I made the "executive decision" to take them out of the liquid while they were hot as opposed to letting it cool as per the recipe. This was a good idea since the remaining sugar turned into a tough taffy and I would have never been able to free them.

I ended up adding them to the batter one-by-one (as I could free them) so they wouldn’t all stick. That also made them break up a bit more than they would have otherwise but I think that is fine.

When it comes to candy making, adjusting for altitude is actually a bit easier than other types of baking. Temperature is a proxy for the ratio since you are constantly at the boiling point. Since the boiling point for water is depressed by the lack of pressure at high-altitude, the candy should be adjusted the same. ↩
My Dad later told me that he has seen them at craft stores like Michael's. I didn't think to look there and just tried WalMart since someone on the internet said they found them there. ↩

Chicken cordon Bleu

I made Chicken Cordon Bleu following the recipe pretty closely. I tried to butterfly the chicken breast first and then pound it thin which resulted in unevenly sized servings. I used ham from Trader Joes and Jarlsberg cheese.

THe biggest thing is that I had trouble rolling them and the cheese was very much not inside very well. This played out when we baked it and most of the cheese oozed out. Oh well.

I actually prepped them on Sunday and then breaded and baked them later in the week. I also baked them with the leave-in thermometer which made it very easy

Lettuce Wraps

I made lettuce wraps. I actually prepped it yesterday with four things of noodles and a finely diced block of Trader Joes Super Firm Tofu. I tried to go a bit heavy on the ingredients since it seemed like a lot of noodles. That helped though I thought they could have used a bit more flavor. It may have also soaked less into the tofu than the chicken usually.

Brownies

I made, at Meredith's request, Glossy Brownies with Cream Cheese from BraveTart. I followed the recipe pretty much exactly but with the cream cheese being completely frozen so it shredded a bit more than cubed. Also, I was halfway through making it when I realized, even though I swear I bought it, I couldn't find the coco powder so I had to stop and go back and get more.

I tried to do it based on the timing and it didn't seem to be cooking quickly so I upped the temperature (we need to check the temp on our stove) and let it go longer. THe thermometer read as hot enough but it may have touched the bottom since, while it was cooked, it was not fully done. (which I think people liked more).

Overall, I was excited to try more from BraveTart and I think I would try these again, but I also want to read how to make them more chewy.

Sausage

Pretty standard sausage except I did it at 145 for about 3 hours. I used the lower temp since I knew it would go longer. This was jalapeno cheddar from Smiths. I think I still prefer Sprouts for chicken sausage

Falafel

Standard Falafel with extra harissa from Sunday.I think I made this a few weeks ago and froze all portions of it.

Donburi

I made donburu after Meredith had it at a restaurant last weekend. Here is a
photo of hers^(full-size) for reference and ours was much less pretty, and not as good. But ours was still not too bad.

For the stir-fry itself, I made a big batch of brown rice (used the same from Kimchi Fried rice with 2 cups of rice. And saved 2 additional servings). To that, I stir-fried a bag of cauliflower rice. I set that aside and stir-fried a thing of sugar-snap peas and broccolini. Finally, I took that off and stir-fried (well, really steamed) the chicken with the marinade.

When that was done, I combined it all with more marinade made with the same basic proportions, just a little bit more of everything. Except we ran out of soy sauce so I used coconut aminos.

It was good enough. The chicken marinated for way too long and basically came out cured! A bit odd. And the flavor itself was fine, but could have been less salty. I will look up a few more recipes for next time.

Banana Bread

Meredith made banana bread from Joy The Baker via Cup of Jo (LOCAL). I think she only made very minor changes to the recipe. It came out pretty good! I liked all of the nuts inside.

Her changes were mostly to up the temperature by 25°F and bake for either 1:05 or 1:10.

(not sure if it's our oven or the altitude, but it always seems like things need longer in the oven here)