Granola

Whenever I see granola at the supermarket, I think about mixing up the flavors to make the ultimate combination. Maybe I want cranberries and not raisins, or coconut and almond. Well, by making my own granola I can make my own flavors, and I can save money, too. Make two trays worth of granola and freeze half of it.

Lottie Biscotti

Although we found this recipe in a cookbook and properly cited it, we chose to take it down. We plan to share with you a new and equally delicious recipe for biscotti in the near future, so stay tuned! In the meantime, please enjoy our lovely photographs of the process. If you have any questions regarding this subject, feel free to email us or leave a comment.

I love biscotti, especially this biscotti. They sell them all over New York, but I’m always too cheap to buy it. So when my aunt gave me the recipe from one of the Lottie’s Kitchen cookbooks, I hung it up on the fridge, ready to bake it. Well, it took a few months to finally get started. Biscotti baking is a whole day activity, really. Especially if you only have two available baking sheets. Make sure you have enough time to make the dough, bake it off once, then cut them and bake them in batches. It took me about five hours, including clean up (well, I was working on a few other things at the same time and don’t have a dishwasher).

Pumpkin Ice Cream

We love making ice cream, and have been making it for years (though you can’t really tell from this blog!) It’s pretty easy, and the results are delicious! Much better than anything you can get at the supermarket. You can also experiment with all kinds of flavors, which is how I got to pumpkin. Though pumpkin season is over, the idea of pumpkin ice cream really got to me, and when I realized I still had a can of pumpkin in my pantry, I decided that this would be the perfect flavor to share with you.

Toasted Pumpkin Ravioli Appetizers

Remember when we made pumpkin ravioli and saved the ones with the store-bought wonton wrappers in the freezer for future use? Well, this time, instead of a classic brown butter and sage sauce, I decided to cook them up finger-food style as toasted pumpkin ravioli, not too unlike the toasted ravioli Rachael Ray inspired us to make a while back.

Flaky Pie or Tart Dough

If you have a food processor, making pie crust is very easy. If not, it’s a little more difficult (but still not so hard). I have tried many different recipes, but prefer the ones that don’t use shortening (or lard, of course!), so when I found an all butter crust in The Art and Soul of Baking, I became hooked. I don’t use it all the time, but it’s definitely a page that I turn to often.

Ribollita

I’ve been wanting to make this soup for a really long time, so when I saw that kale was showing up at the market, I added it to my menu. It takes a pretty long time to make, so I decided to make it on a Sunday and serve in on Monday. On Sunday morning I woke up early, soaked the beans, and went to work. When I came home a little before six, I went shopping for all the produce needed: celery, carrots, onions, garlic, basil, and kale. There was no kale at the fruit store, they ran out and are getting more tomorrow. There was no kale at the supermarket, either. They also ran out. I already soaked the beans, so I had to improvise on the soup. It came out delicious, anyway.

Guest Post: Vegetarian Empanadas

These were a team effort by me and Ricky Dweck. While he makes empanadas all the time, it was my first time, and his first time making vegetarian ones; usually there is chicken involved, but since we were serving these with pizza, we had to skip it.

These are very satisfying and delicious, and we made things easier by using store-bought empanada dough. It takes some time to dice up all of the vegetables and crimp all of the edges, so make a lot at a time and freeze what you’re not eating – they freeze very well.

Rolling Yebra

Yebra, or stuffed grape leaves, is a traditional Syrian food that can be prepared in a few different ways. But before you can eat it, you have to actually stuff and roll the grape leaves with hashu (there’s a pareve version, too). To make a whole 16-oz. jar of grape leaves, you need to double the hashu recipe.

I actually used a slightly different recipe for hashu. This one is from a cookbook called Deal Delights, a pretty old book with traditional Syrian recipes.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter Sauce

I like to cook with real pumpkin when it’s in season. About once every year I get my hands on a pumpkin, and after roasting the seeds, I cook with the flesh. Usually I make chocolate-chip pumpkin bread. This year, I decided to try a recipe I saw a lot of online: pumpkin ravioli with sage brown butter sauce.

Does anyone serve dairy for Thanksgiving? Instead of (or in addition to) a traditional pumpkin pie, this would be a great seasonal recipe for anyone whose menu wasn’t filled with turkey and meat. Try this for a vegetarian (or your unkosher) Thanksgiving feast!

After pureeing and flavoring the pumpkin for the inside of the ravioli, I made my own dough to wrap it in, and rolled it out by hand. I only got about as far as 20 raviolis before I broke my rolling pin. I suggest using a pasta maker or the pasta Kitchenaid attachment. I have neither, so I went out and bought some wonton wrappers the next day (for less than $3) to form the rest of my raviolis, which I threw into the freezer to save for another day.

Nutless Granola Bars

I often try to make granola bars, only to find myself with granola in the end. After watching Ina Garten so easily make granola bars for her friends, I decided to try it out again. I added dried fruits and flax seeds to her basic recipe, and omitted the nuts so I could bring them into school (nut-free) and snack on them while there.

I ended up with 17 granola bars. There should have been 18, but one completely crumbled. I had it with milk the next morning. These granola bars were pretty easy to make. I cut them after a few hours and wrapped each one in wax paper. I then stuck them in zip-top baggies and stored half on the counter and half in the freezer.

Next time I think I’ll lower the sweetness and add some chocolate chips.