Sclones

This has turned into an epic weekend of baking- red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting on Friday, garlic knots on Saturday, and now, Sunday night, vanilla bean scones.  I've decided that they're not quite scones, but more like a cousin of a scone, which is why I've dubbed them "sclones".   Like a scone knock-off.  Either way, according to my housemates, they're certifiably delicious.

I've been trying to find a scone recipe which wasn't incredibly terrible for you, and after some searching I came across these vanilla bean scones.  I've had vanilla beans lounging around in my cabinet for a while, so I was excited to finally get to use some of them.  I mostly just followed the recipe online, with a few small changes.  To start with, I "cut" the butter into the flour mixture using two butter knives, which was a little labor intensive but gave me the coarse consistency I wanted.  The only substitution I made in the recipe was low fat sour cream instead of full fat, in an attempt to make these scones only sort of bad for you instead of really bad.  I think this substitution may have contributed to the slightly un-scone-like character, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.  I tried making the dough into a circle and then cutting it, but it was really sticky and the pieces seemed too big, so then I had to cut them again and the shapes were really awkward.  Next time I make these, I think I'm going to either just blob these out (like flattish cookies) or at least stretch the dough into more of a rectangle shape and then cut that into pieces.  I also, after cutting the pieces, wet my hands with some water and smoothed the tops so it wouldn't look so ugly.  Next time I also need to remember to space these out more, because I tried to fit them all onto one pan and some of them expanded until they were touching.

For the glaze I used milk instead of cream, and added in a vanilla bean for flavor and aesthetics.  I'm not sure how I feel about the glaze, which is basically confectioners sugar and vanilla, and it got mixed reviews from my taste testers too- some really liked it, while others preferred the sclones without anything drizzled on top.

The sclones were definitely a hit, and definitely something I will make again.  They were light and crumbly with a delicate vanilla flavor.  Not quite scone-y, as I said before, but still wonderful nonetheless. 

Tackling yeast

I have this thing against yeast.  I think it goes back to my childhood, when I would bake with my mom using yeast and we would have to "wake up" the yeast by singing, etc. to them.  This was, apparently, a fairly scarring experience.  At least scarring enough to make me never want to use yeast in my adult life.  However, I was willing to risk my sanity and face my fears to make these delicious garlic knots.  I compared this recipe to a few others on the web, and really the only difference I could find was that this recipe made fewer knots.  I doubled the recipe, so it should have made about 24 knots, but somehow I still ended up with only about 12. This is probably due to issues with getting the dough to rise (*shakes fist at yeast*).

The dough could have been a little fluffier, but again I think this goes back to the problem of getting it to rise more before baking.  I don't know if I can really blame this on the yeast, or if it's my fault for only waiting an hour before baking it.  Next time I'm hoping to magically figure something out so that the dough will be a little lighter.  But besides the minor issues with the dough (and it still was alright), the garlic knots were pretty darn delicious.  I did a mixture of butter (well, Smart Balance) and olive oil, mixed with about 5 cloves of garlic and some salt, which was a slight variation on the original.  I followed the directions about spreading some of this mixture on the dough, then baking it, then dipping it in the mixture again when it came out of the oven.  Some friends were wary of the rolls being dipped in the raw garlic mixture, but everyone liked them once all was said and done.  I also didn't use any chopped parsley, because I think it tastes like grass and doesn't really add anything to the flavor.  Maybe next time I'll add in a bit of fresh basil, if I have it, because garlic and basil go together perfectly. 

Overall rating: definitely a success, and definitely making these again.

Sometimes it's worth it

I'm not exactly a health nut, but for the most part I try to cook healthy food and avoid butter and other bad, fatty things.  Even a lot of the stuff I bake is low fat, with little or no butter and good substitutes like applesauce.  Tonight, however, there was none of that.  Tonight I made wonderfully delicious Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, and the most I can say for it health-wise is that I at least used a Smart Balance butter blend instead of the full out butter.  But oh man. Red velvet. So delicious.  I don't know if it's the fact that there's a whole bottle of red food dye in it, or the fact that a moist, just slightly chocolatey cake is covered in a creamy, sweet, cream cheese frosting, but these things are delicious.  I must have eaten at least 3 within the first hour they came out of the oven. I'm not ashamed. They're that good.  And while they're completely unhealthy, I'm kind of okay with it.  I believe moderation is the key to everything, so if I only make these once in a while (and possibly stop eating 3 at a time), it's totally fine.  Plus I'm planning on giving most of them away and making other people eat them.

Anyway, I got this recipe online, after doing research and finding lots and lots of red velvet recipes.  I used this recipe for the cupcake part, because the epicurious website has yet to fail me with any recipes, but then I wanted cream cheese frosting instead of vanilla so I switched to this recipe and just followed the directions for the icing.  The only thing I changed was only adding 4 cups of powdered sugar instead of 5 to the icing, because I thought it was plenty sweet with just 4. And I have a pretty intense sweet tooth, so that's saying a lot.

On a side note, I almost always bake from scratch (like tonight) because I think it's way better and much more satisfying.  However, last night I had a terrible craving for boxed chocolate brownies, and let me just say that the Godiva fudgy brownies are pretty darn good. I'm still planning on mostly baking from scratch, because I think boxed stuff is such a cop-out, but I may just keep a box of these brownies on hand in the future. You know, in case of emergencies.

Almost-vegan breakfast

I know it's been a while since I've posted, and this is mostly because school started up again and I remembered how ridiculously busy I am.  Also I was sick, so there was not very much culinary genius happening in the kitchen.  Mostly just tea.  There was some interesting stuff happening with silken tofu, in the form of a peanut butter pie by Katie and some questionable almond-chocolate mousse by me, but it wasn't that great or worth remembering really.  Anyway, the important part of this post is what happened today.

I'm not a vegan.  I just don't have the willpower to devote to it (I have never, however, broken my vegetarian streak since I started 13 years ago).  I'm more of a wannabe vegan- I get really excited when I figure out how to cook something completely vegan, and feel better about eating it. 

I had a snowday today, so I had time to make brunch.  "Brunch" actually occurred at around 2pm, but that's okay.  I was kinda feeling some cheesy scrambled eggs, but lately I've been feeling bad about eggs and milk and not really having them on their own.  I decided upon scrambled tofu instead, since tofu was one of the few things I had in the fridge.

To make the scrambled tofu, I first took the tofu in my hands and squeezed out some of the water, then crumbled it into a pan with a little olive oil.  While that started to cook I fished around for spices, and ended up with garlic powder, turmeric, cumin, coriander, and some soy sauce.  I just sprinkled some of all of them into the pan (heavier on the turmeric, lighter on the other spices, and just a few splashes of soy sauce) and cooked it all for a few minutes so the flavors could meld.  Once the tofu was at a texture I liked, I dumped it out onto the plate. 

Because I'm lazy I then used the same pan, still hot, to fry up a few pieces of my favorite fake bacon (Morningstar Farms).  Oh yeah, and while the tofu was cooking I made some whole-wheat toast to go with it.
Everything came out pretty well, and the tofu even looked slightly egg-ish because of the color from the turmeric. I had some maple syrup on my plate for the bacon, and it worked pretty well with my tofu too.  I liked the element of sweetness it added to the otherwise savory/saltiness of it.  Add in a nice cold glass of chocolate soymilk, and I have a wonderful *almost* vegan brunch.

Oh yes, and the reason it's only almost vegan?  I put Smart Balance on my toast. Sadness.

Salsa is such an attention whore.

Don't get me wrong. I love salsa, as long as it's not too spicy.  The problem that I have with salsa is that it's just so darn strong.  This is fine if I'm eating salsa and chips, or some other salsa-centered snack, but whenever I try to use salsa as a condiment it always overpowers whatever I'm eating.  Tonight, in an attempt to use up leftovers, I made a quesadilla with cheddar cheese, broccoli, and fake chicken. And a little garlic mixed into the broccoli, because everything is better with garlic.  I wanted it crispy without making it too unhealthy (ignoring the massive amounts of cheese) so I decided to pan-fry it.  To avoid using tons of oil or butter I put a few drops of oil on the pan side of each tortilla and spread it around, so it would be crunchy but not greasy.  I pre-cooked the broccoli and chicken, and then threw it (along with the grated cheese and garlic) in the pan, cooking it long enough so that each side was lightly browned and the cheese was melty.  After taking it off the stove I like to let it sit for a minute before cutting it, because if you cut it right away then the cheese is too soft and everything spills out of the quesadilla and then you have to try and scoop it back in and it just never works right and the quesadilla looks funky. So I let it sit.

It was delicious on its own, but I also ate part of it with salsa.  Unfortunately as soon as any decent amount of salsa came into play, all I could taste was salsa and my wonderful quesadilla was shoved into the background.  I ended up using only tiny bits of salsa, or none at all, so that my full gustatory experience could be focused on the deliciousness that was my quesadilla.  In the past I have combated the salsa problem by mixing it with sour cream, which looks a little gross but tastes really good and cuts down the strong flavor of the salsa.  But I didn't have any sour cream in the house so that wasn't an option.  Moral of the story- when making a quesadilla make sure I have sour cream and salsa,OR give in and eat the quesadilla plain, since its flavors are more than capable of entertaining my taste buds on their own.

Snickerdoodles

It's wonderful and snowy outside, and what better thing to do when it snows then have some friends over to bake? There's something magical about delicious smells wafting out of a hot oven while outside, the world is blanketed in white.  Tonight I had a couple friends over and, after much debate, we decided on snickerdoodle cookies.  Not too complicated yet delicious, even though it does use a little more butter than I normally like to cook with.  Some snickerdoodle recipes use cream of tartar, which make them a little edgier, but I stuck with the basic snickerdoodle recipe and they came out pretty darn good.  The dough is pretty delightful to eat on its own as well, although some foodie purists may frown upon the whole eating-raw-egg deal.

Luckily, at the end of the night, I was able to send most of the remaining cookies (we must have eaten half the batch fresh) home with friends.  Me + being snowed in + plate of cookies = a bad, if not delicious, future.

I love leftovers.

Don't get me wrong. I love to cook.  But there's something wonderful about leftovers, because then it's like I've cooked minus the clean-up.  And some things just taste better once they've had a while to sit and the flavors got a chance to meld....like lasagna.  Lasagna is always better as leftovers than fresh, although fresh-made lasagna is of course delicious.  But I wasn't even eating lasagna so I have no idea where that came from.

My list of leftovers included quinoa salad and *fake* chicken marsala.  Quinoa is one of those super-grains that's crazy healthy and packed full of protein and all that good stuff.  I threw it together with some blanched carrots, avocado, tomato, and sliced almonds.  For a dressing I used a mix of olive oil with lime juice, plus a bunch of things I grabbed off the spice rack- garlic powder, basil, salt, oregano, whatever.  I've in the past also just put a little Ranch dressing on there and it's been delicious as well, although it does kill the healthiness just a little.  As for the Marsala, which is absolutely delicious, I paired it with some whole-wheat cous-cous because I just love cous-cous. It's so fun to say too- "cous-cous". I'm pretty sure my version of the chicken Marsala is the lazy way but it's still delish- first lightly brown the chicken in the pan with a tiny bit of olive oil, then dump out the chicken and saute the mushrooms (also with a little olive oil).  Put the chicken back in the pan and splash in a whole bunch of veggie broth and Marsala wine, with a little salt, and then let it cook for forever. And by forever, I mean maybe 20 minutes or so, adding more liquid as needed.  The idea is that all the flavors cook together and the chicken really soaks up the liquid so that it's really flavorful and juicy.  While this is cooking, the cous-cous (say it out loud!) can cook too- I like to cook it with some veggie broth to make it more flavorful.  Plus I never use up all the veggie broth just on the chicken so I may as well use it in the cous-cous.

After all this I still needed something sweet, so I gave in and grabbed one of the low-fat Chocolate Almond biscotti I made two days ago.  It's one of my favorite recipes because it's pretty easy and fast, and it's healthy (as far as dessert is concerned) because there's no butter or oil in it!  Now if only I could stop burning myself every time I try to flip them over in the oven, it would be the perfect recipe.

I have to move a bunch of furniture tomorrow and have promised baked goods to anyone willing to help me, so I'll hopefully get to try out one of the many recipes that I've bookmarked on my computer.  I think I need to stop reading so many food blogs.

Well, lets see how this goes.

I've never blogged before, so I don't really know what I'm doing.  I've never even been able to update a journal regularly enough to actually deem it a "diary".  All my attempts would be better deemed "That blank notebook I wrote in once and then stashed away so that no one would find it, and then myself did not find until a year later when I once again wrote one entry and hid it again".  But somehow run-on sentences just don't have the same labeling appeal as "diary".  Which now brings me here to a blog, stepping into the 21st century.  Blogs are, apparently, the cool new diaries.  Instead of the old cliched, pink-and-ruffly notebooks with crappy plastic locks where little girls would write down secret crushes, blogs seem to be mostly for the purpose of sharing thoughts, not hiding them.  I myself have gotten hooked on quite a few good blogs, mostly on cooking and travel, although at this point the fine line between amateur blog and professional website seems to have blurred a bit, to the point where it is difficult to exclusively define a site as a "blog".

I have always been wary of writing my own blog, mostly because I'm pretty sure no one cares about what I ate for dinner or the fact that I keep worrying about next year and The Future, complete with its looming unemployment and uncertainty.  Maybe it's my love of reading other blogs that inspired me to write my own.  Maybe I can trace my blog-quest back to the fateful day I got snowed in with friends watching "Julie and Julia", and realized that I too love to cook but would most likely run away screaming if I ever had to boil live lobsters.  (Luckily, being a vegetarian, I never have to worry about that).  All the successful blogs I  have come across seem to have themes and specific topics they focus on.  I am not going to do that, so from the start I plan on having an unsuccessful blog.  I'm okay with this.  Most of the world has much more interesting stories, more hardships, and more delicious food than I will ever experience, have, or create.  There must be a million amateur blogs out there like mine with equally mediocre people writing about equally mediocre happenings, and I don't expect mine to get any more attention than any of theirs.  I know for a FACT that there has to be tons of mediocrity out there by the fact that it took me 5 minutes to come up with a URL that wasn't already taken.  Apparently there are plenty of other Rachels out there who also chose to name their blogs "Musings", keeping the entire theme of the blog bland, open-ended, and non-committed. 

So here it is.  My first blog posting.  I'm already rambling and I haven't even decided to write about anything yet.  Maybe my theme should just be "undetermined", because then I can still write about whatever I want and have it fall under a specific, one word theme.  Undetermined seems to fit my life quite well at the moment anyway, considering that I graduate from college in 4 months and after that have absolutely no idea where I'll be or what I'll be doing.  Ok, excellent, a theme.  My undecided blog.