Je Mange la Ville » Nuts

I Can’t Believe They’re Kind of Healthy Muffins!

mlb — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:36:18 +0000

Wow, these are so good. In fact, I think they are my most favorite muffins that I have ever made. Seriously. And, I made them quite a bit healthier than the original. That recipe had 12 tablespoons of melted butter, which is kind of insane, imho. I used 4 tablespoons instead, subbing in some low-fat yogurt for the rest. I also added some whole wheat flour and some flaxseed meal. You wouldn’t even know they were kind of healthy if I wasn’t telling you. So go ahead and make some and be amazed! They are super moist and very buttery tasting.

If you don’t have any ground flaxseed meal, you can just use 2/3 cup of whole wheat flour. But you really should get some — it’s very good for you and pretty easy to incorporate into baked goods. Okay, so go make some…I’ll wait.

(I Can’t Believe They’re Kind of Healthy Muffins): Banana Nut Muffins
Recipe adapted (quite a bit) from one by Tyler Florence
1-1/3 cup AP flour
2 Tbsp ground Flaxseed Meal + enough Whole Wheat Flour to make 2/3 Cup
1-1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
1/2 tsp ground Cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground Ginger
3 super ripe Bananas
1 cup brown sugar
4 Tbsp melted Butter
3/4 cup low-fat plain Yogurt
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup chopped Walnuts, toasted (don’t skip the toasting — I just threw mine in the toaster oven for about 3-1/2 minutes)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and lightly spray a jumbo 6 muffin tin with non-stick spray. You can also use a 12 muffin tin. If you use the jumbo, be ready to accommodate a little overflow. I ended up using two ramekins.

In a large bowl, combine the flours, ground flaxseed meal, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt; set aside. Mash 2 of the bananas with a fork in a small bowl so they still have a bit of texture.

With an electric mixer fitted with a wire whisk, whip the remaining banana and brown sugar together on high speed for about 3 minutes. Add the melted butter, yogurt, eggs, and vanilla and beat well, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice.

Mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Fold in the nuts and the mashed bananas with a rubber spatula. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins to fill them about halfway. Give them a rap on the counter to get any air bubbles out.

Bake until a toothpick stuck in the muffins comes out clean, 24-28 minutes for jumbo muffins and 18 to 20 minutes for small muffins.

Let cool for a few minutes before turning the muffins out. Serve warm or at room temperature.

These are so good. Make sure to eat one while it’s still warm. If you are using a regular-sized muffin tin, you will probably want to eat two.

Weekend Browned Butter Brownies

mlb — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 04:34:32 +0000

What’s better than fudgey, chocolately, crinkley-topped, walnut-filled brownies? Brownies made with browned butter so they are even nuttier and tastier.

These are good for a weekend because you have two whole days to eat a lot of them before you decide you really should take them into work Monday, so you don’t eat them all.

Or something like that…

Browned Butter Brownies with Walnuts
From Bon Appétit Magazine
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
10 tbsp (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder (spooned into cup to measure, then leveled)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs, chilled
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup walnut pieces

Position rack in bottom third of oven; preheat to 325 degrees F. Line 8x8x2-inch metal baking pan with foil, pressing foil firmly against pan sides and leaving 2-inch overhang. Coat foil with nonstick spray.

Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium heat.

Continue cooking until butter stops foaming and browned bits form at bottom of pan, stirring often, about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat; immediately add sugar, cocoa, 2 teaspoons water, vanilla, and 1/4 teaspoon (generous) salt. Stir to blend. Let cool 5 minutes (mixture will still be hot) and transfer to either a stand mixer or a bowl you can use a hand-held mixer with.

Add eggs to hot mixture 1 at a time, beating vigorously to blend after each addition. When mixture looks thick and shiny, add flour and stir until blended.

Beat vigorously 60 strokes. Stir in nuts. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake brownies until toothpick inserted into center comes out almost clean (with a few moist crumbs attached), about 30-40 minutes (mine took 40 minutes). Make sure you start checking for doneness after 25 minutes and go from there if needed. Cool in pan on rack. Good luck with the waiting-to-cool thing.

Using foil overhang, lift brownies from pan. Cut into 4 strips. Cut each strip crosswise into 4 brownies.

Oh, these are so good! You may start cutting little pieces off before they are even out of the pan. That’s okay. It’s the weekend…that’s the kind of thing you do on the weekends.

In other news, I think it’s finally Spring here! We have ~~blooms~~ the beginnings of blossoms on our apple tree and it was actually sunny all day today.

Looking out into the backyard. Little frog things for garden pots. Right now they are all just stacked up in a pot. I should probably plant something in there instead, maybe. Perhaps my container eggplant or some chard.

FFwD: Beggar’s Linguine

mlb — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 05:22:05 +0000

Well, well, here we are at another French Fridays with Dorie. This time, a pasta dish with dried fruit, nuts and cheese. Sounds good to me! I really liked this one. It’s kind of surprising how it all comes together but it really does. Unexpected and delicious!

Notes/observations from this French Fridays with Dorie Experiment.

1. I halved the recipe because there are just two of us. I did not halve the cheese. Mahahahahahaha! evil laugh.
2. I added about 1/4 cup diced red onion in when I added the nuts and fruit to the butter.
3. Speaking of butter, I just couldn’t use 6 tablespoons of it….I did four of butter and two of olive oil, and I feel okay about that.
4. I forgot to get parsley and chives at the store. I did have some arugula in the fridge. I chopped up about 1/4 cup of that to sub for the parsley and chives. Added a nice color and flavor. I think I will forget to buy parsley and chives next time too.
5. I refrained from adding garlic. Next time, there will be no refraining.
6. Oh yeah, and I had no raisins. I did, however find some currants. I used those instead.

Links to everyone’s Beggar’s Linguine can be found here.

Okay. On with the pictures.

Mise en place!

Butter and olive oil doing their thing.

The pasta finishes cooking while everything else gets all toasty in the buttery goodness!

Starting to get golden and delicious.

Tossing it all together.

Nom-nom-nom-nom. And nom.

See, you should really get this cookbook, shouldn’t you?

FFwD: Orange Almond Tart

mlb — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 05:10:50 +0000

Well, it’s (almost) Friday again. Let’s go to France with French Fridays with Dorie!

This week was the Orange Almond Tart, which to my delight, I had practically everything I needed to make it already at home. A couple of months ago, I picked up a bag of Almond Meal at Trader Joe’s and hadn’t even opened it yet. Perfect! I also had a ball of Dorie’s ‘Good For Almost Anything’ Pie Dough in the freezer. Now, I know the original recipe called for the Sweet Tart Dough in Around My French Table, but I figured the pie dough would work just fine (it did). All I had to do was defrost it the day before.

Verdict: This was delicious! I was going to bring some into work Friday, but after tasting it I changed my mind. Plus, it is a little messy to slice, so it is all for jwa and I this weekend! Hooray!

Anyway, things I learned/did while making this recipe:

1. Almond Meal from Trader Joe’s. I just used that for the Almond Flour..was I supposed to do anything special with it? I assumed I could just substitute.
2. I was about 2 tablespoons shy of the granulated sugar. I added two tablespoons of brown sugar to make up the difference. It was good.
3. Instead of dark rum I added 1 tsp amaretto and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract just to be wacky. Why choose just one?
4. I had leftover orange slices. I just snacked on those while the tart was baking!
5. I took the 2 day approach to this. Night 1: sliced the oranges and set them to dry out between paper towel layers in the fridge overnight. Defrosted the pie dough and made the almond cream. Night 2: Rolled out the dough and par-baked the crust, let it cool, put the tart together and baked it.
6. I baked mine for about 57 minutes. After letting it cool 40 minutes I tried slicing into it and it was just a little bit, not as firm as I expected it to be. Maybe I just didn’t let it cool enough? It tasted wonderful though, so I’m not too upset or concerned.
7. Upon looking at everyone’s at the LYL so far, I’m thinking the almond meal made my pastry cream a little heavier and that the small amount of subbed brown sugar that I had to use, made my almond cream darker.

Okay. Enough of that…on with the pictures!

Oranges about to be supremed.

Drying out a bit.

Almond cream in search of a tart.

Tart shell ready to be par-baked.

There was a little shrinkage. Oh well…

Putting it together.

About to go into the oven.

Waiting…

Finally! Ready to taste.

And…here are everyone’s posts.

As usual for these FFwD posts, the recipe is in the cookbook, Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan. You should get it if you haven’t already. But, if you are dying to try this (and you should be) but don’t have the cookbook yet, I did notice that the recipe is online here: Cape Cod Online.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Walnuts and Capers

mlb — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 04:10:36 +0000

This is now my favorite Brussels Sprouts recipe ever. As a late convert to sprouts, I thought I had done almost every delicious thing with them so far — braising, roasting, shredding & tossing with tasty things, but this roasting + tossing with tasty things has them all beat!

The original recipe was for frying, but due to the other items I was making for dinner (salmon w/ a feta and artichoke topping and couscous) and the attention they would need, I opted for roasting, since I know that produces a fairly golden, crunchiness that would work just as well here. And, most importantly, I was able to just pop it in the oven, while leaving the stovetop and my hands free for other things. Yeah, it worked well.

My substitution are included below in the recipe ingredients. Originally, the dressing was chopped/minced and whisked together and anchovy fillets and serrano chili were used. I chose to utilize my food processor because I am a bit lazy. I also made just a half recipe of what’s listed below, but next time I’ll know better. Make a full recipe. It’s awesome!

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Walnuts and Capers
Adapted from the cookbook, Michael Symon’s Live to Cook.
2 tbsp olive oil
1 (big) clove garlic, minced
2 tsp anchovy paste (or 4 salt-packed anchovy fillets, rinsed, filleted and minced)
1-2 tsp jalapeno Tabasco sauce (or 1 serrano chile, seeded and minced)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tbsp honey
2 scallions, white and green parts
1/2 cup walnut pieces, toasted and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed and quartered lengthwise (if your sprouts are small, you may want to just halve)
2 cups loosely packed flat-leaf parsley leaves
2 tbsp salt-packed capers, rinsed and patted dry
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Add the garlic, anchovies (or paste), serrano (or jalapeno Tabasco), red wine vinegar, honey and scallions to the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. Stream in the olive oil, it should emulsify a bit.

Remove the dressing to a bowl large enough to toss all of the Brussels sprouts and add in the walnuts. Set aside.

Toss Brussels sprouts with the 1 tablespoon of remaining olive oil and give a sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for about 15 minutes. Check for brownness and crispiness. They should be getting both.

Add the parsley and capers to the pan and return to the oven for another 5-10 minutes. Add the sprouts, parsley and capers directly in the bowl of dressing. Toss to coat. Add salt and pepper to taste. Oh my god, so good!

Sprouts on the side of some salmon with artichoke & feta topping.