I’m not a big pie eater but I do love a good strudel.  This was always my lunch of choice when I was younger and would go skiing in Germany.  The sweet creamy vanilla sauce mixed with the tangy apples and flaky crust are a sure winner for just about any occasion!  I took this to an Olympics opening ceremony party a few weeks ago and it got eaten up pretty fast.  I made the strudel dough from scratch as you’ll see below but that is really a big time commitment. This recipe would be pretty easy to do if you substitute pre-made packaged phyllo dough for the dough in the recipe.

Apple Strudel

Step 1:

Put 3/4 cup raisins in a bowl and cover with rum. Let soak while you make the dough (recipe below) or at least 20 minutes.

Step 2:

Peel and cut up about 4 apples into slices, and then cut each slice into cubes to make 6 cups.  Mix the apples with 1 Tablespoon of grated lemon rind and squeeze about half of the lemon over the apples. Then mix in the soaked raisins but not the run, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 3/4 cups of ground or finely chopped almonds, and a sprinkling of allspice. Set aside.

Step 3:

Heat 1/4 cup of butter in a pan over medium heat, and when melted, add 1 cup of unflavored breadcrumbs. Cook until the crumbs are light brown. Set aside to cool.

Step 4:

Assemble the strudel. The dough should be in a rectangular shape. Lay out the dough and brush the top with some melted butter, then sprinkle the bread crumbs all over the dough, leaving about a 1.5 inch border on the long sides of the rectangle, and about 6 inches on each of the short sides.

Then add the apple mixture and fold the long edges in on the filling.  Starting at one end, fold the dough over the filling and roll the strudel into a rectangle shape, as shown in the pictures below.  Brush the top with melted butter and bake at 350 degrees until golden brown and flaky, at least 30 minutes.  Serve with vanilla sauce (recipe below).

Vanilla Sauce

If you can find German vanilla sugar in the store, it will make this sauce great. But even without it, it is a delicious addition to the strudel.

Step 1:

Beat together 4 egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar (and 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar, if you have it) until the yolks are thick and pale yellow and the sugar is dissolved.

Step 2:

Heat 2 cups of milk over medium high heat, and when the milk boils, temper in the egg yolk mixture. Then heat the milk and egg mixture without boiling it until it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.  Then remove it from the heat and stir in 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste.

Strudel Dough

Step 1:

Soften 1/4 cup of butter and put it in the bowl of a stand mixer, with the dough hook attachment. (Alternatively, place in a large bowl). Then add 1 egg and 1/2 teaspoon salt and mix.  Add 3 cups flour and mix with the dough hook, adding enough cold water to make the dough come together into a ball, but not too much as to make it mushy.  Once you have a good consistency, knead with the dough hook until it is smooth and elastic. (Alternatively, mix with a wooden spoon while adding the cold water and then knead the dough on the countertop until it is smooth and elastic.)   Put the dough into a clean bowl and coat it with vegetable oil, and then let it sit and rest for an hour.

Step 2:

After the dough has rested, you will need to stretch it out nice and thin.  To do this, I put down a clean tablecloth on my dining room table and coated the cloth lightly with flour.  Then put the dough ball in the center and start rolling it out with a rolling pin to get it as thin as possible.  This recipe should make a dough that is at least 4 feet by 3 feet.  Once you have rolled it out as much as possible, let it rest for a few minutes then use your hands to gently stretch the dough out even more, but be careful not to tear it.  When it is as thin as you can get it, cut off any thick edges and cut the dough in half.  Brush one half with melted butter and carefully lay the other half on top.  (You could also cut it into 3 pieces and do the same, but make sure it is extremely thin if you do this).  Then follow the filling instructions above.

I almost feel guilty posting this recipe, because these sandwiches are so tasty and addictive!  They are fantastic in their simplicity, and I can’t imagine anyone not liking them. I took these to a super bowl party a few weeks ago and they disappeared ridiculously fast, and I even got a few sad eyes from people who didn’t get one before they were gone, and not from the kids at the party.  That’s always a good sign! These are actually quite easy to make. I got the cookie recipe from www.smittenkitchen.com and they were fantastic. They hold up really well in the freezer, not getting too hard or too soggy.  I used ice cream from the store (Breyers) because my homemade ice cream always gets too hard.  The combination of chocolate cookies and strawberry ice cream was delicious, but I think there is a whole series of these you could make: chocolate with mango sorbet, chocolate with peanut butter ice cream, chocolate with mint ice cream… I am also thinking about experimenting with this cookie recipe to see if I could remove the cocoa and make them into peanut butter cookies, or just vanilla cookies. Or even chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips, or mint chips.  That would really make the ice cream and cookie combos fun to play with!  Anyway enjoy these sandwiches and if you are taking them to a party, leave some behind at your house, you won’t regret it!

Cookies from Smitten Kitchen, reprinted below for your convenience.  The recipe calls for rolling out the cookie dough and then cutting it with cookie cutters.  This way you can make fun shapes.  I rolled mine out but just used a glass to cut them into circles. Another option if you want circle cookies would be to shale the dough into a log and wrap in saran wrap and chill, then slice the log into the thickness you want. To make ice cream sandwiches, 1/4-inch cookies worked well.

Brownie Roll-Out Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup lightly salted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Whisk dry flour, salt and baking powder in bowl and set aside. Mix butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and cocoa in mixer. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until smooth. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least one hour.

Roll out cookie dough on floured counter. Cut into desired shapes, brushing extra deposits of flour off the top. (It does disappear once baked, though, so don’t overly fret if they go into the oven looking white.) Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 8 to 11 minutes (the former for 1/8-inch thick cookies, the latter for 1/4-inch cookies) until the edges are firm and the centers are slightly soft and puffed.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Making the Sandwiches

To make the sandwiches, let the cookies cool completely, and make sure the ice cream you are going to use is completely frozen.  Tear off enough pieces of saran wrap to wrap each cookie, and set aside.  Then take a large knife and cut the ice cream carton away from the block of ice cream.  Then cut the ice cream into the right thickness and shape you want, and put between two cookies. You want to do this as fast as possible, and get them into the freezer as soon as each cookie is made.  Or you can just serve them right away!

Another option would be to let the ice cream soften a little bit and then use an ice cream scoop to scoop the ice cream onto a cookie, and then smoosh it down a little with the top half of the sandwich.  Either way works well, so take your pick.

A few weeks ago, Mike and I took a trip down to Baltimore for the weekend. It was a great trip (we saw Owl City in concert, ya!) and surprisingly, we had two food epiphanies that had nothing to do with crab or seafood. The first night we wandered down Eastern Ave on our way to the concert and spotted a truly amazing, cash only (always a good sign), hole-in-the-wall taqueria. The menu was a chalkboard with four taco filling options, all in Spanish and the open kitchen was stacked floor to ceiling with bags of masa. I grabbed a “Made in Mexico” bottle of coke (cane sugar, yum!) and ordered dos carnitas, Mike hedged his bets and got one carnita and one chorizo taco. And of course, a side of guacamole. The tacos came out steaming hot on soft, double layered corn tortillas topped with cilantro, diced jalapeno with a simple side of sliced radishes. And we had our own tray of two salsas and a little bowl of delicious guacamole. For me, it was a taste of home and for Mike, it was a revelation. All he’d had before was the stiff, tasteless corn tortillas that we can buy at our Wegmans. (Funny aside, when Hunter and Laura visited us, we took them to Wegmans and asked the bakery staff where the tortillas were. Blank stare. “Oh is that one of those Mexican things?”)

Moving on to the parfait. We stayed at the perfect B&B for our needs. For those of you anti-B&B people in the crowd (yes, you.), this is not your normal frilly, share a bathroom and mandatory breakfast at 9AM B&Bs. If you search for the Blue Door on Google, you’ll see that others share my sentiment (70 positive reviews, unheard of!). So if you’re going to Baltimore any time soon, I highly recommend staying there. Conveniently located with beautiful rooms and those little personal touches that make staying at a B&B ever so much better than a stale hotel room (with the possible, just as stale “welcome” cookie).  And breakfast. Wow. Crazy good coffee that was so smooth, I didn’t even need sugar. And tropical fruit parfait.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear parfait, I think two things – Shrek. And Boring with a capital B. Parfaits were all the rage for awhile, and then Starbucks, Borders and every other deli stop picked up on the craze. Suddenly blueberry, banana with a hint of strawberry, capped with mushy granola became the norm.

This? This is not boring. This is a parfait that would make Donkey proud.

Tropical Fruit Parfait
Serves 4 extra large appetites

1 papaya, small chunks*
2 bananas, sliced
1 orange, segments chopped
4 fresh pineapple rings, chopped
yogurt**
1/2 cup granola***

*Papaya that isn’t ripe yet is GROSS (in my opinion) so read this if you’re unsure how to pick out a ripe one.
**We used organic vanilla yogurt for this. We eat Fage greek yogurt as a general rule but that wouldn’t work very well in this application.
***Fresh, fresh, fresh is in order here. I bought just a large handful from the bulk bin at Wegmans but you could make your own if that’s your thing. You want it to be light and crispy without too much extra zing going on to distract from the fruit.

Using a clear glass (choose your own size, all we had were pint glasses which make BIG parfaits, FYI), start layering your yogurt and fruit (e.g. spoonful of yogurt, then a few pieces of each fruit, spoonful of yogurt, etc) and when you’re happy with the amount, top with a dusting of granola. Serve with a spoon and a smile.

–These hold well without the granola so you can make ahead of time and then top with granola before serving.

Risotto is, in my humble opinion, one of the easiest and highest impact dishes a person can master.  For some odd reason people think its tough to make and quite honestly I have no problem with that.  Sometimes you need a dish in your portfolio that is perceived as challenging but can be whipped up with little to no planning.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• A lot of chicken stock (either homemade, a large can, or one of the higher end cartons will do)
• 2 cups arborio rice (make a lot, it reheats pretty well)
• half a medium onion, diced
• Your rice seasoning (in this case a leek, a few sad twigs of asparagus and a few pieces of chopped crispy bacon)
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil

First things first, take a small to medium sized sauce pan, fill it with the chicken stock, and then heat the chicken stock on medium heat.  You don’t want the stock to boil, just warm up so that it’s hot to the touch.

When the stock is close to being the right temperature take a fairly large saute pan (stick or non stick is your choice completely) and saute the diced onion, leek and asparagus (with the 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil).

Once the onion becomes translucent toss in the rice and using a wooden spoon or spatula gently fold the rice into the sauteed veggies.  Continue to stir the rice for the next minute or two, allowing it to soak up some of the juices.

When the minute or two is up take a spoon or measuring cup and start adding the stock.  Take it slow, you don’t want to add too much, just enough so that it is absorbed in a minute or two.  Make sure to stir the rice for the majority of the time you are cooking it.  I’m not going to tell you that if you step away from your risotto for two minutes to check the score it will be ruined, but you do want to keep the rice moving.  So be prepared to spend thirty to forty five minutes on your feet and stirring risotto.

Some people feel obligated to dump a bunch of parmesan cheese into their risotto.  If you want a richer creamier risotto, by all means, dump in a 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese.  I won’t judge you.  Just know that the dish you had before the cheese was plenty rich and creamy all on its own.

- Team Denver

Textured vegetable protein (aka textured soy protein) or TVP for short is our new friend. In case you’re wondering, we didn’t quite make it through our cleanse. The first 24 hours were pretty brutal with headaches, grumbly stomachs and incredibly low energy levels (duh, that’s what happens when you cut the fun out of your diet). I’m pretty sure I didn’t even send one email that day, which is saying a lot. So to those who endorse and love cleanse and detox plans, more power to you. I’m just not one of you!

However, there were benefits that came out of that special hell. One, coffee the next morning was absolutely heavenly. I hadn’t appreciated coffee like that in a long while. Secondly, shopping for the cleanse really opened my eyes to how much at the store is really not that great for you. We’ve overall been much better about eating less and healthier since then. And as of right now, we’re still subbing in one liquid meal (vegetable smoothie or soup) which not only makes you feel better but also is faster and in some ways cheaper! So from that standpoint, I recommend subjecting yourself to a well planned detox/cleanse for as long as you can stand it. It’s truly a memorable experience.

So back to TVP. Mike and I sometimes crave burgers and fries. There was a time when we satisfied that with a McDonald’s Angus burger. And then we moved on to hand formed 1/2 lb lamb burgers (can you say rock in your stomach?). And now, we are at the frozen veggie burger portion of our journey. Perhaps someday we’ll be hand grinding our own veggie patties…who knows! But until that day comes, Amy’s veggie burgers have been a great weekday dinner. We keep whole grain buns and the veggie burgers in the freezer, so they make an awesome “what’s for dinner” meal. Great served with sweet potato fries or a salad, we’ve found that topping them with sauteed mushrooms or sliced avocado really takes it up a notch.

Currently we like the California style Amy’s veggie burgers but there are quite a few to choose from. Here’s a sample meal plan.

Turn on oven to 400. While the oven is heating, saute 1/2 cup of sliced mushrooms (per person that you’ll be feeding) in olive oil. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes, garlic salt and a little cumin. Use a medium heat. While these are sizzling, cut up one sweet potato (skin on) into fry shapes. Put on a cookie sheet, toss in a little bit of olive oil, sprinkle with your favorite seasoning and put in the oven. Once your mushrooms are nice and brown, remove to a bowl. Add a little more olive oil to your pan and add your veggie burger patty (straight from the freezer is fine). Let it brown on medium heat for 3-4 minutes. Put your frozen burger buns in the oven and toss the sweet potato fries so that they cook evenly. Flip your veggie patty (it should be nice and brown) and top with the sauteed mushrooms. Add some shredded cheddar cheese over the shrooms and cover the pan. Let it cook for another 3-4 minutes. If the fries aren’t quite done, you can turn the heat off the veggie patty and leave covered. Make sure you take out the buns before they get too crispy! Once everything is to your satisfaction, assemble your burger and enjoy!

It’s been pretty cold in Denver for the last month or so, and when it’s this cold I always think about roasting things.  Chicken has been my food of choice recently, and this recipe makes a good roast chicken – flavorful and moist but not overly flavored, so you can either eat it as is, or use the meat for other recipes like chicken pesto pasta or green enchiladas.  I used a 3.5 pound chicken this time, but you can easily accommodate any size bird with this recipe.  The seasoning is my creation but the cooking times came from Julia Child via foodnetwork.com.

Step 1:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Remove about 5 tablespoons of butter from the fridge and let warm on the counter while you complete this step. Remove any giblets from inside the chicken and discard (or use for gravy if you like). Rinse the chicken with water and pat very dry with paper towels.  Drizzle the bird with olive oil and use your hands to cover the entire bird with the oil.  Sprinkle the outside and inside the cavity with salt and pepper.  Then cut up a lemon, and squeeze half of the lemon over the chicken, stuffing the squeezed rinds into the cavity.  Also into the cavity stuff a half an onion, coarsely chopped, and a few sprigs of thyme and rosemary.

Step 2:

Finely mince a few sprigs of rosemary and thyme (add some sage in there if you like).  Then take the butter that was warming up on the counter and, lifting up the skin of the chicken on the bird’s drumstick end, stuff the butter between the skin and the meat of the bird.  I forgot to warm up my butter so it didn’t smoosh as well as usual; as you can see in the pictures below it was a little lumpy under the skin but that didn’t impact the final tastiness. Stuff the minced herbs in following the butter and move the butter and herbs around under the skin to even them out as much as possible.  Move the chicken to the roasting pan.

Step 3:

Roast the chicken at 425 for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 and roast until the juices run clear.  The total roasting time should be 45 minutes plus 7 minutes for each additional pound.  So my 3.5 pound chicken took 70 minutes, with 15 minutes of that being at 425.

Yep, we’re going to need all the happy thoughts and support to get through the next four days. Mike and I are going to follow Whole Living’s Whole Body Action Plan over the next month but, I figure once the four day detox is over, we’re home free. No gloriously steaming cup of coffee to help wake me up the morning? No spicy, warming, happy glass of wine to celebrate the end of the day while we cook dinner? ::sigh:: Where is the fun in that??

Well, I suppose we’ll find out.  Mike has been wanting to try a detox/cleanse for pretty much as long as I’ve known him. Thanks a lot Tim and company. This one actually seems healthy without ridiculous rules, so I’m game to see if it really is as life changing as cleanse addicts say it is.

So starting tomorrow, we’ll be starting our detox and following the Whole Body Action Plan along with tons of other motivated people. There is a support site with daily emails (if you sign up) to keep you on track and pretty yummy recipes (no rice cakes and spicy lemonade here!). If you guys want to join in, we’d love the company! Or if you think we’re crazy and have no chance of making it past the second day, place bets! Nothing like a little competition to keep us on the straight and narrow.

PS. Last night for the “pre-detox”, we had steamed baby bok choy, sushi rice, and sauteed shiitake mushrooms with garlic & onion. I’d post a picture but I guarantee your mental image is MUCH better.

I have a big weakness for anything made with puff pastry.  I’m not even sure the word weakness is strong enough, I really love the stuff.  I also love appetizers/hors d’oeuvres, so this recipe is a favorite of mine. I made these on new year’s eve to tide us over until dinner was done and they did the trick!  In addition to the spinach and feta ones, I also did some with just a cinnamon sugar filling that were great too!

You can buy puff pastry dough at most grocery stores, I know Pepperage Farm has one that is pretty good, but if you can find Dufour brand, and are willing to pay their astronomical prices, you won’t regret it. It is out of this world delicious, and I almost think it would be as good without a filling. I found it at my local small, family owned, gourmet-ish grocery.  These pastry doughs usually come in sheets, either folded or rolled up, and are stored in the freezer.  Be sure to read the package instructions and defrost in the fridge appropriately (usually 2-3 hours before you want to use them) before you start cooking.

Step 1: Cook a half slice of bacon, cut into strips, in a frying pan until it has released all its grese and is very crispy.  Then add about 1 cup of frozen spinach and cook with the bacon until the spinach is fully warmed through and not very wet.  Remove the bacon from the mixture and sprinkle with a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Transfer to a bowl and add a half cup of feta cheese and stir. Set aside to cool.

Step 2: Remove the defrosted pastry dough from the fridge and unfold the amount you will use. For 1 cup spinach you need about half a package of Dufour, or piece about 12 inches by 6 inches.  Lay the dough on a lightly floured cutting board or silpat mat, and lightly sprinkle the top side with flour too. There are a lot of ways to fill the dough, and as you can see in the picture above I tried out a number of ways.  My favorite ones were where I took a 2 inch square of dough and put about a tablespoon of the spinach mixture in the middle. Then I took each end and pulled it to the middle and pressed the dough together in the center of the filling so that they all met in a point in the middle, but it left some of the spinach showing between the pastry.  Another good way is to use the same amount of filling on a square, and bring only two of the opposite corners to the middle, and join them so it looks like a taco.  I also cut out longer thin strips of dough (about an inch by 3 inches) and then spread a thin layer of filling on the whole piece, and then roll it like a jelly roll.  But they all ended up tasting the same so its really just about which one you think looks best.

Step 3: Place the formed snacks onto a cookie sheet and cook at 375 degrees until they are quite brown and solid. This will depend a lot on the brand you use and your oven’s heat, so keep an eye on them after about 8 minutes.

Back before sushi was a household term, this was my only savior at the sushi bar (well that and salmon kama, another story). On a weekly basis, my parents had to drag me to the sushi bar for their craving fix. They were addicted, I was repulsed. Their sushi chef of choice ran a tight ship and frowned on cooked food being delivered to the little sushi bar tucked into the back corner of a hibachi house. And he considered it his personal crusade to get me to like sushi. Which meant I had to at least TRY quite a few things. As if that wasn’t enough, I hated that I had to sit facing the very items that triggered my gag reflex with surprising power. I wanted to be sitting at the big, flaming hibachi tables…waiting for my own plate of stir fried onions, mushrooms, steak, chicken and shrimp with a side of fried rice.

It’s funny how things change. For quite some time, sushi has been my comfort food of choice and I’m pretty dismissive of hibachi houses in general. Whether sick, stressed or starving, it’s sushi that I turn to for satisfaction. But I still hold my first love dear. It’s simple and cheap. Flavorful and easy. All you need is sushi rice, rice vinegar and a bottle of your favorite furikake blend. You can keep it simple or add a little umph with some tamago or sashimi.

For this lunch, I pressed one serving of vinegar sushi rice into a tea cup and then upended it on a plate…sprinkled it with furikake and then served with a mug of steaming green tea, a bowl of miso soup (from a dried packet) and a clementine.

My Dad is not typically the baker in the family, but he made some interesting cookies the other day so I invited him to blog about them.  – Laura

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The other day I was intrigued when Emeril Lagasse prepared snickerdoodles with cayenne pepper on Good Morning America, so I made a batch today.  The recipe can be found on the GMA website: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/recipe?id=9242172

I was afraid that the cookies would not have enough bite, so made two batches of the sugar mixtures to roll the cookies in—one as described in the recipe and one with light brown sugar and double the cayenne.  In the picture, the two cookies at the top and right have the extra cayenne.

The Verdict:  The mixture with less cayenne was milder and subtler and Jana’s favorite.  I liked the version with light brown sugar and more cayenne; however, the extra cayenne seemed to mask the flavor of the cinnamon.

As a side note, using the left-over sugar mixture to sweeten a cup of English breakfast tea made for an interesting beverage.

- David