Hounds In The Kitchen » Recipes

Win Friends With Eton Mess {Recipe}

Rachel — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:46:04 +0000

For the past year, we have been dining with friends every Friday night. Alternating hosting with being guests, we compete not with each other but for the great dining experiences enjoyed together. Highlights have included a low country crawfish boil, the $5 Julia Child dinner, 18-hour braised pork, and the kid favorite, chicken and waffles.

Recently our friends served us Eton Mess. Neither Alex nor I were familiar with this layered dessert of crunchy meringue, sweetened whipped cream and fresh fruit. Upon a single taste we agreed that this dessert is perfection.

Eton Mess is a play of textures with simple, familiar flavors. The dessert is easy to make ahead and plate for individual servings as dinner comes to a close.

As the very name suggest sloppiness, it is perfect for a child to make. For our version, Lil picked the berries, piped the meringue, and dipped the chocolate strawberry garnish. I whipped the cream, but only because Lil was too busy playing. That component, too, is easy for the beginning cook.

Homer Simpson said “You don’t win friends with salad.” I add the positive “You win friends with dessert,” especially if your friend happens to be this adorable two-year-old.

Eton Mess
Serves: 8 (with a few meringues left over)
Time: 20 minutes prep, 2 hours cooking and cooling, 10 minutes plating

meringues:
2 egg whites (reserve yolks for mayonnaise, hollandaise, or another recipe)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

cream:
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 teaspoons powdered or granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

4 cups fresh strawberries, washed and sliced

8 chocolate-dipped strawberries (optional garnish)

for the meringues:
1. Place the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar in a large clean bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer.
2. Beat with a rotary mixer or whip until foamy, about two minutes. Increase the speed and continue beating.
3. Add sugar one tablespoon at a time, fully incorporating each addition until the egg white are smooth again.
4. Continue beating until whites are very stiff. Then whip in the vanilla.
5. Transfer meringue to a piping bag or gallon ziploc bag, pressing mixture to release any air bubbles.
6. Using a one-inch round tip or a one-inch cut in the corner of the bag, pipe the meringue onto a cookie tray covered with a silicone mat or parchment in two- to three-inch rounds.
7. Bake meringue in a preheated 275 degrees F oven for 45 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 250 degress F and continue cooking until meringues are lightly brown and hard to the touch. Turn off the stove but leave cookie sheet in the oven with the door closed until cool.

for the whipped cream:
1. Place 1/2 cup whipping cream in a large clean bowl or bowl of a stand mixer.
2. Using a whisk or whip attachment, slowly whisk the cream.
3. After it becomes foamy, increase the speed a little.
4. Slowly add sugar until fully incorporated.
5. Continue to whip just until the cream stiffens into solid peaks. Whipping too long will end up with butter and buttermilk, so watch this closely.
6. Stir in vanilla extract.

assembly:
1. Select clear glass cups or goblets, one for each guest.
2. Fill the bottom with 2-3 crushed meringues.
3. Layer on 1/4 cup of sliced strawberries.
4. Top with a dallop of whipped cream.
5. Layer on more meringues, berries, and cream.
6. Top with a chocolate-dipped strawberry, if desired.
7. Serve immediately.

Here’s the Simpsons reference:

Added to Simple Lives Thursday #96.

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Win Friends With Eton Mess {Recipe} is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Grilled Bok Choy & Tatsoi {Recipe}

Rachel — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:12:44 +0000

Remember last week when I picked strawberries and toured Bird’s Farm? The bok choy and tatsoi in the high tunnel were too beautiful for me to resist.

Rich in Vitamin A and C, these greens are tasty ways to supplement your diet. They are mild in flavor, sweeter than kale or mustard greens, and the crunchy stem adds texture to dishes.

The young plants are often sold as baby bok choy or baby tatsoi. The stems are so tender when young they can be eaten raw, sautéed in a stir fry mix, or cooked quickly as in our favorite preparation: grilled bok choy.

I predict bok choy and tatsoi will be the next ‘hot’ green vegetable like kale is now. They are even easier to assimilate into the standard American diet and oh so delicious.

Do you eat bok choi and tatsoi? What’s your favorite way to cook them?

Grilled Bok Choy
Time: 10-20 minutes heating grill, 5 minutes preparation, 5 minutes cooking

1 head of young bok choy or tatsoi per person
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1. Slice the head in two lengthwise and wash thoroughly for any sandy soil that may reside in between leaves.
2. Drizzle with olive oil and soy sauce and sprinkle on a light coating of salt and pepper on the cut side.
3. Grill the bok choy, cut side down, over very hot coals for 4-6 minutes or until the greens are browned but not burnt. Serve immediately.

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Grilled Bok Choy & Tatsoi {Recipe} is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Kentucky Derby Pie {Recipe}

Rachel Tayse — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:01:39 +0000

I’m not sure I ever watched the Kentucky Derby as a child. I certainly have no memories of it.

The horse race came into my life through Alex’s grandmother. She wasn’t a huge racing fan but she always watched the Derby. Towards the end of her life, when she was living in Columbus near us, we spent several spring Saturdays cheering on riders together.

Though Gram is no longer alive, we continue the tradition of watching colorful jockeys every Derby Day. We drink mint juleps with fresh mint from the backyard and usually throw in a few other culinary nods to Ohio’s southern border state.

Last year I wanted to create a Kentucky Derby pie. I had tasted one before that a long lost friend made. Searching the internet revealed a variety of pies, most containing corn syrup or other evils. I imagined I could do better with natural ingredients.

Experimenting resulted in a dense, walnut studded pie with dark chocolate, one I will make again this Saturday. The one-bowl pie is easy to bake up for Derby Day or any time.

Kentucky Derby Pie
Serves 12
Time: 1 hour

1 pie crust, unbaked
1/2 cup flour
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
3 ounces bourbon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark chocolate pieces or bar, chopped
1 cup walnuts, chopped

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Line 9 or 10 inch pie plate with unbaked pie crust and form edges.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, eggs, butter, bourbon, vanilla, and salt.
4. Stir in chocolate and walnuts until they are well incorporated.
5. Pour filling into prepared pie crust.
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the filling comes out clean.
7. Allow to cool slightly before cutting.

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Kentucky Derby Pie {Recipe} is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Spring Chimichurri With Boiled Eggs On Grilled Asparagus {Recipe}

Rachel — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:59:00 +0000

Nothing says spring like firing up the grill, eating local asparagus, enjoying herbs from the garden, and reveling in the wonder of the egg. Combine them all in this grilled asparagus chimichurri recipe and the season bursts forth from your fork.

Chimichurri is an Argentinian herb sauce typically made with chopped fresh parsley, oregano, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil. Like Italian pesto, chimichurri is flexible to your personal taste. Substitute any and all fresh herbs popping up in your garden or at the farmer’s market.

Traditionally, chimichurri tops grilled steak and is indeed a tasty light counterpoint to rich meat. Drawing on a fantastic appetizer prepared by Jim Budros, Steve Stover, and Rich Terapak at a Franklin Park Conservatory cooking class, we pour chimichurri over grilled asparagus. The herbal garlic sauce highlights the sweetness of the crisped asparagus. Full-bodied chopped boiled egg completes the dish.

Serve chimichurri asparagus with a bread salad for lunch, as a side for dinner or as an appetizer over toast points. We might make it to share with family this Easter Sunday.

Spring Chimichurri With Boiled Eggs On Grilled Asparagus {Recipe}

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Yield: 2 lunch or 4 side servings

An appetizer, side dish, or lunch that screams spring.

Ingredients

for the asparagus:

1 pound asparagus, cleaned and ends snapped off
drizzle olive oil
pinch of salt

for the chimichurri:

1 packed cup fresh leafy herbs (parsley, oregano, cilantro, tarragon, and/or mustard greens)
2-4 cloves fresh garlic
1 tablespoon white, red or apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup good quality olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black or white pepper
pinch red chili flakes (optional)
1 boiled egg, peeled and chopped finely

Instructions

Heat grill or cast iron grill pan.
Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle pinch of salt over asparagus.
Arrange asparagus crossing the very hot grill grate and cook for 5 minutes on each side.
Meanwhile, combine chimichurri ingredients in a blender or food processor and pulse until herbs and garlic are in tiny pieces. Add a little water or olive oil if needed to create the rough puree. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.
When asparagus is grilled, transfer to a warmed plate. Top with generous drizzle of chimichurri and scatter boiled egg pieces on top.
If any chimicurri is leftover, store in the fridge for up to one week or freezer for up to six months with a top layer of olive oil to prevent oxidation (browning).

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Spring Chimichurri With Boiled Eggs On Grilled Asparagus {Recipe} is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Quick Three Dish Cornbread Breakthrough

Rachel — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:29:59 +0000

One of the little games I play in the kitchen is to challenge myself to minimize the number of dishes I use. I also like to prepare recipes in the fewest steps possible.

Last week, I reworked my regular cornbread routine to lose one dish, one step, and several minutes of cooking time. I was overjoyed. Truthfully, I was probably too excited by what amounts to a few minutes of time savings. But hey, I have to get my kicks somehow when making meal after meal.

The Breakthrough

The cornbread I make requires melted butter. I usually butter the dish by hand, melt butter in a tiny pan over the stove, add to a liquid measuring cup, and go from there.

This time I melted the butter in our 12 inch sloped sided Lodge cast iron skillet, aka the best pan ever. With the heat off, I poured butter into the liquid ingredients. While I stirred the liquids into the dry ingredients, the oven preheated. I poured the batter into the still-hot pan, placed it in the oven and 22 minutes later pulled out crisp-edged cornbread.

I always think I am a culinary genius when I come up with a breakthrough like this. But then I realize that a real genius would have been preparing the recipe this way all along!

Fast, Simple Cornbread

slightly adapted from Betty Crocker’s sweet country cornbread
Makes: 8 large wedges
Time: 30 minutes

1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup milk or 1 1/4 cup cultured buttermilk
1 egg
1 1/4 cups yellow cornmeal (I love local Shagbark farm cornmeal)
1 cup white whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Place a 12 inch sloped sided cast iron skillet over medium heat.
2. Add the butter and melt it without burning.
3. Meanwhile, measure milk into a graduated liquid measuring cup and stir in an egg.
4. Turn off the heat. Pour the butter into the milk (it will clump a little and that’s ok).
5. In a medium mixing bowl, stir together cornmeal, flour, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Pour the liquids into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined.
6. Pour the batter into the still-hot pan and immediately transfer to the preheated oven.
7. Bake until the edges and top are browned. Remove from the oven, cut into wedges, and serve warm with honey or butter.

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Quick Three Dish Cornbread Breakthrough is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Petite Roasted Parsnip Fries {Recipe}

Rachel Tayse — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:55:17 +0000

Do you ever prepare a tired ingredient in a new way?

The other day we cooked Ohio bison burgers and wanted a ‘fry’ without potatoes. Riffing off the roasted root vegetables on Lil’s plate at Senate, Alex cut up some parsnips into very thin wedges. He arranged them in a single layer on a cookie sheet at roasted them with a thin cover of olive oil, salt and pepper.

My what a wonderous accompaniment! Parsnips roasted in this way are only slightly sweet and full of earthy anise flavor. The fries are crispy on the outside with a bit of bite still in the center. They compliment a rich burger like potato fries cannot.

This recreation of a common root vegetable makes me think a little harder about parsnips. I haven’t explored them fully. Perhaps 2012 will be the year of the parsnip.

Ingredients

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Petite Roasted Parsnip Fries {Recipe} is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Presidential Hoecakes {Recipe}

Rachel Tayse — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:26:10 +0000

It’s President’s Day on Monday and you know what that means, right?

Hoecakes!

No?

According to the Mount Vernon website, hoecakes were George Washington’s standard breakfast. I figured this meant I should experiment with hoecakes for President’s Day.

The site also shares a recipe. Unfortunately it is sized for a huge crowd and sounds a little funky.

Taking inspiration from Mount Vernon, I reworked the recipe and portions to fit my family’s taste. I added a little wheat flour to give more body to the pancakes. Before cooking, I stirred in an egg for lift and richness.

The hoecake batter ferments overnight, giving a slight tang to the final pancake. The taste harkens of cornmeal mush, a rustic breakfast starch my father and I love fried.

This recipe is so simple that it only really requires three things: very fresh cornmeal (I like Carriage Hill delivered by Green B.E.A.N.), time to ferment, and sweetener. Berries, maple syrup, and molasses are all great toppings. I prefer local honey.

Ingredients

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Presidential Hoecakes {Recipe} is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Handmade Chocolate Truffles {Recipe}

Rachel Tayse — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:12:06 +0000

Chocolate is a classic Valentine’s gift. It’s a special decadent treat that nearly everyone loves.

But there are problems with modern chocolate manufacturing: it often exploits the land and native peoples. Also, many big name companies use artifical flavorings and additives.

Treat your love like a king or queen and seek out fair trade, all-natural chocolate from an honest manufacturer. We like Dagoba, Equal Exchange, and Theo brands.

For an extra special gift, consider hand rolling truffles. This recipe is simple to put together and can be customized to a wide variety of tastes by changing the liquid flavoring and outer coating.

Lil and a friend made these truffles for holiday gifts. Their versions more closely resembled truffle mushrooms than a candy store confection, but they tasted fantastically gourmet. If distractable kindergarteners can make these, you can too.

Ingredients

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Added to Hearth and Soul blog hop 2/7.

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Handmade Chocolate Truffles {Recipe} is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Sorta Scones {Recipe}

Rachel Tayse — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:25:39 +0000

The urge to make scones hit me in early January. I wanted a perfect-for-me scone: not greasy, not overly sweet, full of whole ingredients, and easy to pull together in the morning before breakfast. I made many batches of scones and finally came up with this recipe.

Alas, Alex doesn’t think they are scones. He says they are more like muffins without the shape or biscuits without the fluff. Out the other side of his scone-crumbed mouth he admits that it doesn’t matter what I call them so long as I keep making them. Done and done!

These scones are a breakfast or tea time treat. Lil likes them with chocolate, so I use fair trade dark chips, the healthiest chocolate choice. With whole wheat flour, buttermilk, and less fat than most recipes, enjoy my real food interpretation of scones.

Sorta Scones

Makes: 6
Time: 30 minutes
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup cultured buttermilk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped dried fruit, nuts, chocolate chips or a combination thereof

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Mix flours, baking powder, salt, sugar and cinnamon in a medium mixing bowl.
3. Using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut in butter until mix resembles fine meal.
4. In a liquid measuring cup, measure buttermilk. Add egg and beat lightly with a fork. Pour vanilla into this liquid measure.
5. Mix together liquids into flours, stirring just until mixed. Add dried fruit, nuts, or chips and stir to distribute evenly. Do not over mix.
6. Turn dough out onto floured surface. Dough will be sticky but use floured hands to gently form into a round.
7. Cut round into six equal triangles. Place each on a silicone- or parchment-lined baking sheet.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until browned on top. Serve warm.

Added to Simple Lives Thursday.

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Sorta Scones {Recipe} is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Meyer Lemon Marmalade {Recipe}

Rachel Tayse — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

When I finished making candied Meyer lemons, I couldn’t toss the remaining syrup. Lightly lemon flavored, I tried stirring it into a cocktail but it was too thick. Jam-like already, all signs pointed to marmalade.

I chopped ten Meyer lemons from my surprise windfall from Green B.E.A.N. into tiny bits, carefully removing the central membrane and seeds. I simmered them with the syrup, water, and seeds in a cheesecloth bundle until the rind softened and the jam set up. I felt like the marmalade lacked sweetness and added vanilla bean plus a bit more sugar to smooth out that side of the flavor profile.

The resulting trio of quarter pints, plus a nearly full quarter pint in the fridge, represent my first home-canned goods of 2012. It feels great to be putting up again, though I bet these jars will vanish before I complete another canning project!

Ingredients

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Meyer Lemon Marmalade {Recipe} is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!