Category Archives: baking

Yeasted Pumpkin Bread

24 April 2009 by local kitchen

Hallelujah! The oven is fixed. The ‘Oven Guy’ came yesterday, replaced the igniter, and now I should, ostensibly, have much more consistent oven temps during baking. In celebration, I made one of my favorite “one-day” breads, a yeast bread with my favorite all-purpose vegetable, pumpkin. The eggs and pumpkin puree in this bread give it a moist, cakelike texture with the delicious but subtle flavor of pumpkin and a lovely golden color. The eggs also work to give the bread additional structure, […]

Categories: 100% local, baking, breads, whole wheat flour, winter squash, year round • Tags: baking, bread, cooking, food, local, recipes, whole grain breads

Whole Wheat Rosemary Focaccia

15 April 2009 by local kitchen

This is another one of Peter Reinhart’s two-day whole grain bread recipes; this one for whole wheat focaccia bread. I’ve been tinkering with this recipe for a while – it appears that you need the right volume of dough, as well as the right hydration, in order to get a good rise and a nice, airy structure. I think I’ve finally got it right; this one was nicely browned, chock full o’ holes, and had fabulous flavor. I’ll spare you […]

Categories: baking, breads, rosemary, vegetarian, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: cooking, food, local, recipes, whole grain breads

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

6 April 2009 by local kitchen

I’ve been testing out cake (and filling, and frosting) recipes for Kami’s birthday celebration this Thursday. Kami is turning five years old this Thursday – and while her parents are certainly dear friends of mine, Kami and I are fast friends in our own right. She has very discriminating taste for an almost-5-year-old, so I generally try to pull out all the stops for her birthday cake. Not as easy as it sounds, when you consider that most “pull out […]

Categories: baking, berries, cheese, dessert, sauces, spring, summer, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, food, local, recipes, vegetarian

Mini Zucchini Quick Breads

25 March 2009 by local kitchen

Ah, zucchini. The magical summer squash that proliferates in every amateur green thumb’s garden each August, resulting in gigundo green monsters, bigger than your head, and the inevitable question, “What the hell am I going to do with all this zucchini?” So why am I torturing you with thoughts of zucchini, when asparagus and sugar snap peas are still weeks away and summer squash is a mere pipe dream? Maybe I am just reminiscing on the long, lazy days of summer, […]

Categories: baking, breads, citrus, eggs, fall, summer, vegetarian, winter • Tags: cooking, food, local, recipes, whole grain breads

Rosemary Lemon Drop Biscuits

22 March 2009 by local kitchen

A truly quick-n-easy biscuit recipe that produces light and fluffy free-form biscuits that are crunchy on the outside, melting and tender on the inside. Fresh lemon zest and rosemary make them sing, especially in the heart of winter. In the snowy Northeast, rosemary over-winters quite well in a sunny window indoors. It doesn’t thrive, but holds a sort of status quo until you can put it back outside in the spring. Worth it to have access to fresh herbs at […]

Categories: baking, breads, citrus, rosemary, vegetarian, whole wheat flour, winter, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, food, local, recipes, whole grain breads

Raspberry Chiffon

16 March 2009 by local kitchen

What to do when your thawed red raspberries have turned to mush. This intensely flavored chiffon was paired with a deluxe pastry pie crust and glazed blackberry topping; the resulting pie earned rave reviews. Adapted from Strawberry Lover’s Chiffon Pie in The Pie & Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. ————————————————————– Raspberry Chiffon INGREDIENTS 1 lb frozen, unsweeted red raspberries 2 tsp lemon juice 3 tbsp filtered or spring water 2 tsp gelatin 1/2 cup heavy cream 6 tbsp sugar, divided 1 […]

Categories: baking, berries, pastry, pie, vegetarian, year round • Tags: cooking, dessert, food, local, recipes

Glazed Blackberry Tart

11 March 2009 by local kitchen

It’s March and I’ve been cleaning out the freezer of last season’s bounty, preparing for the new season’s bounty that is right around the corner. One of the recipes I’ve been experimenting with is a glazed berry tart, using local berries from my freezer. The first version was a strawberry-black raspberry-wild blueberry pie with concentrated juices from each of these thawed berries; the berries were delicious, and the pastry stayed perfectly crisp, but the glaze was too thin (not enough cornstarch […]

Categories: 100% local, baking, berries, pastry, pie, spring, vegetarian, winter, year round • Tags: cooking, dessert, food, local, recipes

Pink Grapefruit Curd (And Friends)

11 March 2009 by local kitchen

Firstly, let me start by saying that “curd” is a horrible word. Like “moist” and “slacks,” it makes me cringe just to think about it. It’s like someone combined “curse” and “turd” and decided that was a perfect name for a delectable dessert. For such a delicious concoction of eggs, butter, sugar and citrus, there should definitely be a better word: “deevine”, perhaps? (as opposed to “divine,” which might offend some). Pink grapefruit deevine? Sun custard, maybe? Or perhaps we […]

Categories: baking, citrus, dessert, eggs, vegetarian, winter, year round • Tags: cooking, dessert, food, local, quick & easy, recipes

Sausage, Herb & Mozzarella Bread

6 March 2009 by local kitchen

It’s been a crazy week. My business tends to be feast or famine; this week has defnitely been a feast, work-wise, but a famine, cooking-wise. I’ve had no time, in between 12-hour days at the computer, to cook a thing and I realized today how much I missed it. Cooking, and most especially baking bread, can be enormously relaxing. There’s a science to measuring and combining the ingredients that is soothing in it’s detail and familiar rhythms; kneading the dough […]

Categories: baking, breads, cheese, fall, pork, sausage, spring, winter, year round • Tags: cheese, cooking, food, local, pork, recipes, whole grain breads

Cheddar Scallion Scones

19 February 2009 by local kitchen

These cheddar scallion scones serve as my basic savory scone recipe and I’ve made dozens of different versions over the years. I’ve since come to believe that the scones turn out even better with just a little butter in the dough (duh) and so have updated the recipe below to include a small amount (2 tbsp) of butter. I still call these my “cheater” scones, as I don’t work the butter into the flour, just toss in small chunks and let them […]

Categories: 100% local, baking, breads, cheese, quick & easy, scallions, vegetarian, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, spring, vegetarian, whole grain breads

Cranberry-Orange Scones

6 February 2009 by local kitchen

It’s that time of year again: the dreaded Valentine’s Day looms, like a visit to the DMV or a root canal, just around the corner. It was quite ingenious, I will admit, to invent a holiday that irritates everyone: single, married, or dating, there is just no getting away from V-day. So, what’s a girl to do? I don’t really know, other than avoiding going out to dinner (it’s got to be the worst night of the year for a restaurant […]

Categories: baking, breads, breakfast, citrus, cranberries, vegetarian, whole wheat flour, winter, year round • Tags: baking, berries, cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, whole grain breads, winter

Chicken & Wild Mushroom Pot Pie

4 February 2009 by local kitchen

As a kid, I loved chicken pot pie, rare for me as I was suspicious of any food that was “mixed together” and certainly anything in gravy. As an adult, I don’t like most chicken pot pies; the gravy often tastes of nothing so much as cream, flour and salt. This dish, however, is wonderfully savory, flavorful and satisfying. It is elegant enough for a fancy dinner party yet homey enough to serve to kids just home from an afternoon’s hard sledding. It elicits groans […]

Categories: 100% local, chicken, fall, herbs, leek, parsley, pastry, stew, winter

Pumpkin Walnut Bread

29 January 2009 by local kitchen

Sweet and savory, delicious and nutritious, a vegetable and a dessert: pumpkin bread is all things to all men. And women. And dogs, if they can get their paws on some. (Although I suspect cats would just bat it around for awhile before disdainfully leaving the room to find some furniture to ruin. But I digress). Pumpkin bread, like pumpkin itself, is a lovely thing. This one is nicely spiced, not too sweet, easy to make, and stores well. And? […]

Categories: baking, breads, breakfast, chocolate, dessert, fall, nuts, Use it or Lose it!, whole wheat flour, winter, winter squash • Tags: baking, cooking, fall, food, local, pumpkin, recipes, whole grain breads

Rose’s Deluxe Flaky Pie Crust

29 January 2009 by local kitchen

I cannot recommend enough The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. If you’ve never heard of Rose, you are either new to cooking, or simply are not a baker, because she is justifiably famous for her Cake Bible; the Pastry Bible and Christmas Cookie books are equally as wonderful. I’m sure the Bread Bible is as well, although I have yet to get my hands on a copy. Friends that I cook for often simply have to hear […]

Categories: 100% local, baking, dessert, pastry, pie, vegetarian, whole wheat flour, year round