Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Honey Balsamic Carrots #BloggerCLUE

Roasting brings out the natural sweetness in carrots, which is complemented by a beautiful balsamic honey glaze. 

This whole year is already going by in a flash, a sensation that is further emphasized by how early Easter is. The liturgical calendar starts with the four weeks before Christmas with Advent as the first season. But as Easter must follow Passover - when Jesus celebrated the Last Supper - and Passover is determined by the first full moon after the vernal equinox, Easter moves around according to the lunar calendar. So there are logical reasons but that doesn't help me get over that rushed feeling. One the plus side, since it’s almost Easter and it's also Blogger C.L.U.E. Society time again, our clue this month is to look for recipes in our assigned blogs for the upcoming celebration.

Sew You Think You Can Cook is written by Lauren, who is one smart cookie and one fabulous wife and mother. She’s put her aerospace engineering career on hold to stay home with two button-cute boys and support her husband as he has been studying for his Masters. I am really not sure how, but she also finds the time to cook delicious dishes and share them on her blog. When I plugged Easter into her search bar quite a few things came up. It was hard to decide between the soft carrot cake cookies, her Easter Bundt Cake and her Citrus Roast Chicken with four different citrus fruits! That chicken was closely rivaled by her Strawberry Pork Roast. I finally settled on Lauren’s Honey Balsamic Carrots because I needed a delicious, flavorful side dish to go with the fish I was making for dinner - for yet another group blogging event. I can assure you they were an excellent choice.

Ingredients
6-7 carrots (Mine weighed about 1 lb 2.5oz or 525g) 1 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoon olive oil
Salt
Black pepper
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup or 60ml balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon butter

Method
Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C and line large baking pan with foil.

Peel your carrots, trim the ends and cut them into 1 in or 2 1/2cm pieces.



Pile up the cut carrots on a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle on the olive oil. Stir them around to coat.


Spread the carrots out so they aren't touching and sprinkle them with some salt and black pepper.


Roast carrots in your preheated oven for 40 minutes. Give them a stir halfway through.



When there are 10 minutes left on the timer, combine the honey and vinegar in a small pan.


Cook over a medium heat until the sauce is thick and getting really sticky. Keep stirring because you don’t want it to burn. A spoon dragged through the middle should leave a space that closes back up again slowly.


Remove from heat and stir in the butter until melted.



Pour the carrots in and then stir well to coat them with the glaze.



Enjoy!



Check out the other Easter dishes from the Blogger C.L.U.E. Society this month.
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Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Chocolate Filled Bundt Bread #BreadBakers


This lovely Bundt loaf boasts loads of dark chocolate in a slightly sweet yeast bread, with a thick chocolate glaze. Perfect for a decadent breakfast or even dessert.

This month my Bread Bakers are pushing out the cacao boat, using cocoa, chocolate or carob in a variety of breads. Many thanks to my fellow Dubai blogger, Shireen from Ruchik Randhap, who is hosting this great event.

I bookmarked this recipe from Just a Pinch more than a year ago, renaming it Chocolate Filled Yeast Bundt Cake so maybe Bread. From a quick read through, it sure sounded more like bread than cake. I ended up adjusting a few ingredients so it's even more bread-like than the original but whatever you call it, it's good and chocolatey.

Ingredients
For the dough:
4 cups or 500g all purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
1/4 cup or 50g sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/3 cup or 315ml warm milk (110°F or 43°C)

Note: If you are using organic or unpasteurized milk, heat it to 180°F or 82°C and then cool down to the right temperature. Read more about how, why and when to scald milk here at Pastry Chef Online.

For the filling:
12 oz or 340g dark chocolate

For the glaze:
6 oz or 170g dark chocolate,
2 tablespoons butter, plus extra for greasing Bundt pan
1 tablespoon golden syrup

Optional: Sprinkles for decorating

Method
Grease a 10-inch  or 25cm Bundt cake pan with butter and sprinkle with flour.

Sift the flour into the bowl of your stand mixer and add salt, yeast, sugar, eggs and warm milk.



Mix with the bread hook until all of the flour has been incorporated into the wet ingredients and you have a sticky dough.



Cover the dough bowl with a kitchen towel and leave it in a warm place for about an hour or until the dough doubles in size.



When the hour is almost up, melt the 12 oz of dark chocolate either in a double boiler or in the microwave with a few short zaps. Set it aside to cool a bit.



Sprinkle your clean work surface with flour and knead the dough for a few minutes.

Roll out the dough into a rectangular shape that is 12 x 16 in or 31x41cm. Spread the cooled chocolate on it.


Roll the up the dough, jelly roll style, starting from the longer side. Pinch the ends together.



Quickly move the roll to your greased Bundt cake pan, trying to make sure the seam side is down. Sprinkle with flour and then cover with a towel for 30 minutes.



Start preheating your oven so it will be at 350°F or 180°C when the 30 minutes are up.

After half an hour


Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes. Leave plenty of headroom for the bread to rise. Because rise it certainly will!


Leave to cool for about 15-20 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack. I had to trim some off of one side of my bottom to get it to stand up straight.


For the glaze, warm up all ingredients in a double boiler or with a few good zaps in a microwaveable bowl until chocolate is melted. Let it cool a little and pour over the bread.

Decorate with sprinkles, if desired.



Enjoy!




Breads with Cocoa, Cacao or Carob in any form
Posted by at 4:48:00 AM 1 comments
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Sunday, March 6, 2016

Browned Butter Braised Baby Turnips

Sweet baby turnips, cooked till tender then pan-roasted in browned butter are seasoned with garlic and thyme for a special side dish where this much maligned root vegetable shines.
 


When I say much maligned, I am talking about by me personally. When I was young, my mom made a delicious vegetable soup with beef that was the perfect meal for a chilly day, except that in addition to chunks of potato, she also added similarly cut turnips. Try as I might when serving my bowl, I invariably ended up with a turnip or two. I did not like turnips, not one bit. The potential of the unexpected bitter bite made eating that otherwise tasty soup like spooning my way through a minefield of bitter turnips that might be masquerading as innocent potatoes.

I am more fifty years old now and I decided at the end of last year that I should give turnips another try. After all, some say that our tastes change every seven years and it has probably been a good 35 or 40 since I last accidently ate a turnip. (I certainly never ate one intentionally.) My mom says that since turnips are a winter crop, that is when they are they are tender and most flavorful.  

Before Christmas I bought a few and started searching “turnip recipes for haters”  and “turnip recipes for turnip haters.” A surprising number show up! Time for a true confession: Despite the research and initial enthusiasm my motivation was low and I ended up conveniently forgetting the turnips in the vegetable drawer. I found them there, wizened, in the new year and threw them away with just the slightest twinge of regret and guilt for wasting food.

When the root vegetable event was announced for Sunday Supper, I knew what I had to do: Pull up my big girl panties, buy some more turnips and get serious about creating a recipe that I might eat. I found some baby turnips that said, “Naturally sweet and tender” which seemed like a promising place to start. The baby turnips brought to mind a recipe I had tested for America's Test Kitchen for brown butter braised new potatoes so the recipe part was settled quickly, even as I put the babies in my shopping basket.

I am pleased to tell you that I am now a turnip eater. At least of baby ones cooked with browned butter, garlic and thyme. Sure, some of them were still a little bitter but not any more than Brussels sprouts, which I adore.

Small turnips work best with this recipe, but you could also use larger turnips and quarter them.

Ingredients
1 lb or 450g baby turnips
1 cup or 240ml water
3 tablespoons or 43g unsalted butter
3 garlic cloves, peeled
3 sprigs fresh thyme, plus extra to garnish, if desired
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper

Method
Top and tail the turnips. That is, trim both the root and the stem ends down to the white part. Cut the baby turnips in half.


Arrange turnips in single layer, cut side down, in a large non-stick skillet.

Add water, butter, garlic, thyme, and salt and bring to simmer over medium-high heat.



Reduce heat to medium, cover, and simmer until turnips are just tender, about 10 minutes.



Use a slotted spoon to transfer garlic to small bowl with the lemon juice. Use the tip of a sharp knife to cut the garlic into small bits. Add in a few generous grinds of fresh black pepper.


Increase the heat under the uncovered turnip pan to medium-high and vigorously simmer, swirling the pan occasionally, until the water completely evaporates and the butter starts to sizzle, 7 to 10 minutes.



Continue to cook turnips, swirling pan frequently, until butter browns and turnips are golden and roasty looking, 6-7 minutes longer.

Just at the end, add the garlic/lemon juice mixture and toss to thoroughly coat.

If you are transferring the baby turnips to a serving bowl, make sure to scrape the pan with a silicone spatula and drizzle all the lovely browned butter over them.



Garnish with additional thyme, if desired.



Enjoy!

Are you a fan of root vegetables? If your answer is yes, you are in for a treat this week with such a great line up of recipes from our Sunday Supper tastemakers. If not, perhaps we’ll win you over! Many thanks to Cindy from Cindy’s Recipes and Writings who is hosting this week.

Appetizers
Breakfast
Main
Sides
Desserts
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