Fruit and nut crackers

There's a new place in the neighborhood called Wrecking Bar Brew Pub and not only do they have the freshest, tastiest beer in town, but they also have these delicious little crackers. They're packed full of different seeds, nuts and fruit and they are great with cheese. I was slightly tipsy there one evening and was begging our server to just bring me a huge pile of them to wallow in ("All I want...are some more of these crackers. Can just get, like, a basket of these? But they're so gooooood!" And so on). She gracefully/wisely demurred and so I went home and figured out how to make them myself. This recipe is flexible--feel free to change it up with different combos of fruits and nuts! It uses a technique similar to making biscotti--first you bake the cracker batter together in a loaf, then once it is cool you slice into thin sections and bake once more until crisped.You need a total of 1 1/2 cups of seeds/nuts and 1 cup of dried fruit. In this batch I used a combination of hazelnuts, almonds, pecans and sunflower seeds for the nuts...And golden raisins and dates for the fruit. Dried cranberries would be excellent in here! Or dried apricots. So would pumpkin seeds.I liked the nutty, full flavor of the crackers at Wrecking Bar, so I figured I'd try to duplicate with a combination of whole grains along with regular white flour. You will need 2 cups of flour total and I think at least 1 cup should be regular white flour, to keep the loaf from being too dense. My combination was the following: 1 cup white + 1/2 cup rye flour + 1/4 cup wheat bran + 1/4 cup flax seed meal. The rye was a great touch although Phil thought it tasted a little like a bagel (not a bad thing if you like bagels). But you can do 1:1 with white and whole wheat, or even just all white if you feel like it.Mix the flours up very well along with 2 teaspoons baking soda and 1 teaspoon salt.Make a well in the center and add in 1/2 cup of sweetener. I used 1/4 cup each of brown sugar and honey.Measure out 2 cups of yogurt. You can also use buttermilk.And add it in!It will be a very thick batter so get ready to wrestle.And add in all your fruits and nuts! Mix it up as well you can but don't overbeat it.Actually, I don't think you can overbeat it. It's like concrete.Grease a couple of loaf pans well with olive oil, or a cooking spray. If you only have one loaf pan and really have no idea where the other one went go ahead and use your weird vintage Fire King dishes. At one point I kind of kitsch collected this stuff. These are the only two pieces I have left, now that the loaf pan has walked off.Fill 'em up. They will rise a little bit so leave some room.They bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. After they've cooled for a few minutes in their pans, turn them out to a wire rack to finish cooling off.Very nicely browned. Put the loaves into your freezer for about 15 minutes. This will make them firm and easy to slice for the next step of cracker-making. You'll need a sharp knife! I sliced mine into very thin wafer-like slices. I only used the big loaf and it made an epic quantity of these crackers. I froze the two other little ones to slice up and bake at a later point.So many crackers...Lay them in a single layer on an ungreased baking sheet... And let them crisp up for 10 minutes in a 300 degree oven. Flip them over and let crisp on the other side for another 10 minutes. Some of the thinner ones may get a bit over-toasty but that's OK. Take them out and let cool.They're so flavorful! And possibly even nutritious?Wonderful with brie or farmer's cheese and some fresh figs. Enjoy!

St. Patrick's Day 2011

One major difference for this year's St. Patrick's Day: Rick moved out of town so I had to make the Irish soda bread myself. But besides that, all the regulars showed up...4 heads of cabbage.Many potatoes...And assorted roots. Not the stars of the show but they build good flavor.Here's where those 12 pounds of beef went! Borrowed the world's largest pot from the Blivmore family so I could cook it all together at once. Covered the corned beef in water and let simmer for about 3 1/2 hours, until tender. Then added in the vegetables to cook for the last hour or so.
The soda bread wasn't too hard to make, thanks to Rick's careful instruction. I'll add the recipe here later as an update if he says I can share it.And the stand mixer helps too...just mix it and knead it all in one place, which helps when you're making 4 separate batches. I had no idea how often I would be using this! An excellent gift from my parents who know better about these things. It basically looks like a brain.You just plop it right on the baking sheet in its free-form brain shape.And it is beautiful. I made two loaves with raisins and two without.

Squash stuffed with field peas and snaps

Super simple and super yummy combination! I used (of course) kabocha squash, but you can scoop out and stuff any kind of winter squash that you like. Field peas and snaps are found in your freezer section or in cans (if you live in the south they are, anyway). I like the frozen kind. Bring a pot of heavily salted water to a boil and add 2 cups frozen field peas and snaps. They take about 15 minutes to cook through. Meanwhile, halve the squash and scoop out the guts. Roast the squash halves at 400, turned over in a baking dish with 1/2 cup of water until soft, which takes about 45 minutes. (Or microwave them. I know some of you have microwaves.) Those field peas and snaps should be done in 15 - 20 minutes. Drain and set aside. Sauté one small, chopped onion over medium heat along with some bacon. Oh, this bacon was so good. So. Good. It's made at the DeKalb Farmer's Market and they always run out, so stock up if you see it there. I used what was about the equivalent of 1/4 package of bacon, cut up into 1" pieces, so you don't need very much. Let it cook along with the onions until the bacon is getting crispy and the onions are soft and golden. When the bacon and onions are ready, add in the drained field peas and snaps and turn down the heat to medium-low. Add at least 3 dashes of Tabasco...more if you like! Continue to sauté all together for 1 minute or so then remove from heat. By now you have some squash halves that are cooked through and ready to be stuffed. Add in a couple scoops of the field peas mixture... And make sure to top with a scoop of the bacon pieces. Return the stuffed squash to the oven for another 5 minutes--the bacon will get a bit more crispy and the flavors will have a chance to meld together. So yummy. Enjoy every last bite.

Sweet potato and clementine biscuits

Here's some cute little biscuits--their natural sweetness is brought out by a bit of clementine zest. They'd be great alongside cold-weather soups, but I'm thinking they're particularly perfect for Christmas morning breakfast. You can make these sweeter by dusting the tops with cinnamon and sugar, or keep them on the savory side (they'd be great with slices of country ham).Get 3 cups of flour plus 1/2 cup cornmeal... Dump them together in a big bowl along with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Don't forget the chief! Add 3 teaspoons baking powder, mix well and set aside. This is the only annoying, do-ahead part of the whole thing, I promise. Bake one large sweet potato until very soft and mushy.
Scoop it out into a mixing bowl and mash it with 2 tablespoons honey plus the zest and a little bit of juice from one clementine. Now you'll need one stick of butter. One whole stick! Slice it into little pieces--you want the butter cold, straight out of the fridge, rather than at room temperature, by the way. And cut the butter, bit by bit, into the flour mixture. I do this by hand--just rub the flour with the butter pieces until it goes all flaky, like this. When you're done, your flour mixture should look granular and piecey. Here's my analogy--it's like putting in hair product. After you've incorporated all your butter, add in the sweet potato mixture. It will likely need a bit of help mixing, so measure out 3/4 cup of milk...And, very gently, blend it in along with the sweet potato. Do not over-mix--you just want to use the milk to barely bind everything together, rather than mixing it into a cohesive mass. Turn out your dough onto a floured surface and knead carefully just until it holds together, then pat it into a large square. Cut the square into squares... And those squares into more squares! I trimmed off the edges to make them more even looking, then re-rolled the scraps to cut a few more biscuits. Lay them out on parchment paper... There's actually quite a few here because I ended up cutting the last set of squares in half again. They were a bit too small though, in retrospect. Put them in a preheated, 400 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes. They puff up a bit and get a lovely golden brown color. I brushed the tops with a mixture of brown butter and honey. They'd also be nice with a dusting of cinnamon and sugar.Now, who would like some biscuits? Of course. Taste testers welcome!