EAB Designs

A Day of Crafts & Cooking

I've been busy since early this morning with preparations for Saturday evening's Halloween activities.  First up was making a big batch of chili for our dinner guests.  While the chili was simmering, I made my "Posh Squash" from the kits I ordered from Olive-Juice & Co.  I just love how they turned out.  The hand-dyed velvet is so beautiful and they will be perfect for our Thanksgiving decor as well!

 

 

After completing my "Posh Squash" it is was back into the kitchen to prep the ingredients for the remainder of our menu:  Buttermilk Cornbread, Pecan and Goat Cheese Salad, and Apple Crisp.  For my sweet girls, I also made our annual treat of caramel apples. An all time favorite of mine since I was a kid.

 

Homemade Pizza

Friends are always amazed when I tell them that it only takes an hour to make your own pizza dough and sauce and have it in the oven in an hour. Best part, it takes ten minutes to bake and is so delicious!  Of course, it helps to have the best ingredients on hand.  For tonight's pizza, a typical New York Style, I always use San Marzano tomatoes (I buy mine at Whole Foods) and fresh mozzarella cheese (a bit more expensive than a general grocery store brand, but definitely worth it).

It also helps to have a mixer on hand, to speed up the kneading process, and a couple essential "pizza making" tools.  The first would be a pizza peel and the second a baking stone.  Don't be alarmed at the site of my stone, it's had years of use and, believe it or not, this is what it looks like when it's clean!  My parents gave me my Kitchen-Aid mixer when I first got married and it still works like a charm.

The pizza dough recipe is easy and comes out perfect every time.  It takes about 8 minutes to make and within the hour it will grow from this cute little ball of dough into a wonderful smelling pizza dough ready for pizza making.

While the dough is rising, I make the sauce.  A handful of ingredients are added to the San Marzano tomatoes and simmered over the stove, cooled and set aside until the dough finishes rising.  Both recipes can be found in James McNair's "Pizza" cookbook, a wonderful addition to your cookbook collection.

All that's left to do is to shape your pizza (I'm actually pretty good now at tossing it in the air), place it on a corn-meal dusted pizza peel, add your sauce and any toppings, and slide it on top of your pizza stone that has been heating in the oven for the past hour.  Ten minutes later, your house smells fantastic and you are eating a slice of one of the best comfort foods around ... so much tastier than anything you could have had delivered.  

An abundance of eggs....

Finding an abundance of eggs on hand, (forgot about those I had stored in the basement fridge), I decided I better bake something to use some of them up.

 

What better choice than one of my favorite desserts, an angel food cake.  And with twelve egg whites required, I was well on my way.

 

The recipe I used can be found here.  It's the closest taste to the angel food cake I used to buy at Bristol Farms when we lived in California.  I miss a lot of things about California, and their angel food cake is definitely one of them.  This recipe however, is just as delicious.  Now....what shall I make with those twelve golden egg yolks?  Maybe some lemon curd to go with the cake.

Ganache Cupcakes

  

 

Year-end graduation activities bring many opportunities for baking up some delicious treats.  These ganache cupcakes are for my daughter's Varsity Sports Night.  Many people think ganache is difficult, or time consuming to make.  However, it's actually faster that frosting cupcakes in the usual manner.  And the results look so professional.  All you need is heavy cream and semi-sweet chocolate.  For eighteen cupcakes, I melted 8 ounces of semi-sweet morsels into 1/2 cup of heavy cream (heated over a double boiler).  Spoon it over the cupcakes and that's it!  For an added touch, I placed a sugar flower in the center of the dark shiny ganache.  Too pretty! 

A little bit of Tuscany

A beautiful day calls for an outdoor lunch, even if I'm only preparing it for myself.  It just takes five minutes and a few ingredients to whip up this delicious panzanella - bread and tomato salad.  Day old Italian bread is best, but for today, toasted leftover heels from our sandwich bread will do just fine!  No worries about exact measurements here, just chop up some ripe tomatoes, cucumber, and fresh basil.  Then add a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  I always have capers on hand and love to toss those in as well.  Chop up your warm toast, add it in and head outdoors!

 

Party Favors

I've been busy in the kitchen making party favor treats for a birthday party we're hosting Saturday evening.  These peanut butter balls are so easy to make and everyone loves them!  The recipe is from Gale Gand's, Just a Bite. 

 

I like to place each one in a little paper candy cup and package them up in cellophane bags.

I've also baked trays of these chocolate chip cookies.  I've never come across a chocolate chip recipe I like more than this one.  I think the addition of ground up oatmeal in the recipe is what makes them so delicious. 

 

After placing the cookies in cellophane bags, I stapled the top and affixed a strip of tissue paper garland with double stick tape.

 

I made tissue paper pom-poms to hang as decorations in beautiful aqua, blue and mint colors.  You can see a peek of them in the photos.  They are a surprise for the birthday girl so I'll post some photos after the party.  Not sure where the recipe for the cookies originated from, so I'm posting it here:

The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie

Cream together:  1 cup room temperature butter with 1 cup granulated sugar and 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar.

Add:  2 room temperature eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla

In a separate bowl:  Combine 2 cups all purpose flour, and 2 1/2 cups of oatmeal which has been previously ground in a blender into a powder.  Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1 teaspoon baking soda.

Mix the dry ingredients into the creamed butter mixture and then add 12 oz chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts.  Place golf-ball sized cookies 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheets.  (I place them on parchment paper.)

Bake at 375 degrees for 11 minutes.  This is the most important part of the process.  After 11 minutes it will appear as though the cookies are not done.  However, remove them from the oven and leave them on the hot cookie sheet for five minutes before placing them on a cooling rack.  This leaves the cookies so moist on the inside and a bit crisp on the outside.

Let me know if you try them.

Cold day...Warm Scones

   

A bitterly cold day called for a special after school treat...warm scones and hot tea.  This recipe is so quick and the scones are absolutely delicious - nothing like those cardboard type ones you buy at the store.  Any shape biscuit cutter can be used.  Today, I chose a scalloped heart.  You can alter the recipe by adding your favorite additions such as, currants, dried cherries, walnuts, or cinnamon.  I often bring a stack of these wrapped in a cellophane bag tied with pretty ribbon, along with a jar of jam, to give as a hostess gift.  After a busy night of entertaining, your hostess can wake up to a delicious breakfast already prepared.

Raisin Scones

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut in small pieces

2/3 cup milk

1/2 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In food processor combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Add butter.  Pulse with on/off turns until mixture resembles fine crumbs.

With processor running, quickly poor in milk, processing until just combined.  Add raisins.  Pulse with a few on/off turns to mix, keeping raisins as whole as possible.  (Dough will be very soft.)

On well floured surface, roll dough 1/2 inch thick.  Cut scones with floured biscuit cutter.  Arrange scones 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 6 minutes, turn the baking sheet front to back and continue baking 6 minutes longer until scones are just firm to the touch but not brown.

Enjoy!

The Ultimate Comfort Food - French Onion Soup

 

Years ago, while visiting Paris, I fell in love with french onion soup.  Once we returned home, I began my search for a french onion soup recipe that would transport me back to France.  After a lot of testing, I found the perfect recipe which can be found here.  The important part to remember is not to rush the amount of time needed to cook the onions.  It really does take about an hour for the onions to mellow into their sweet wonderful flavor as they begin to caramelize.  If you don't have homemade beef stock, substitute a good beef stock from the grocery store.  I use the organic boxed beef stock from Whole Foods.  (Just make sure you don't use canned beef broth.)  Also, I add 6 cups of beef stock to the recipe instead of 3 cups.  After a fun afternoon of shopping with my daughter today, we came home and I made this for dinner.  The perfect accompaniment was a green salad with goat cheese.  Bon Appetit!

Spooktacular Treats

   

Decorated the sugar cookies today for tomorrow’s party.  The spider webs are my girls’ favorite.  You can find the directions for creating these here.  We just have a couple of side dishes to prepare today and we’ll be all set for the fun to begin tomorrow.  Wishing everyone a spooky and fun Halloween!

P.S.  If you haven’t entered the giveaway yet, you still have time.  Winners will be announced on November 2^nd!  

 

Halloween Treats

 

My daughter is hosting a Halloween get together next Friday evening and we spent a good part of the day today preparing some treats.  These are one of the kids' favorites, chocolate covered pretzels.  We made about four dozen. They are super easy and look festive when placed in a cellophane pretzel bag and tied with a bit of ribbon.  I find all of our cellophane bags at our local cake and candy supply store, Fran's Cake and Candy Supplies,  and find they offer the best price and quality - less than a few pennies a piece.  We also made several batches of sugar cookie dough to be turned into bats, spider web and pumpkin cookies later in the week.  Will share pictures of those later.  We're expecting about twenty teenagers, so chili and cornbread are on the menu.  I've got a great recipe for the chili.  Does anyone have a cornbread recipe they would like to share?