Beginner's Palate

Buckwheat Everything Cookies

So I have an interesting little recipe for you. It's one of those clean out the kitchen sort of recipes. You know, when you have those little odds and ends leftover. Too little to actually make anything with but too much to feel okay about throwing away. I run into those situations quite frequently. This time it was a bit of crystallized ginger, unsweetened shredded coconut, molasses, and some Bob's Red Mill Spice Apple Bran Muffin Mix ( I swear I'm not getting paid to advertise for them). I also just purchased a bag of buckwheat flour that I've been itching to use, because I never have before, so I decided to make some cookies. Now, this was definitely an experiment. I just sort of threw everything together, and like I said I've never baked with buckwheat flour before so I didn't know what to expect, but these turned out to be pretty good little cookies. I call them buckwheat everything cookies because I felt like I just used a little bit of everything while making them, but the flavors blend together nicely and it doesn't feel like there's too much going on. They're very light, I think they taste healthier than they probably actually are, and you can taste the salt in them. That may sound like a bad thing, but it's not an overwhelming salty taste. They kind of have that sweet, salty thing going on, which I'm really into. If you're not reduce the salt just a bit, but honestly I think it's what  makes these cookies memorable. It may be because I used coarse Kosher salt, but I honestly have no idea. Whatever it is, you should try them for yourself and see what you think.

• 1 1/2 cups buckwheat flour
• 1 cup Bobs Red Mill Spice Apple Bran Muffin Mix
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
• 1/2 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degree.

In a large bowl mix together the first 5 ingredients.

In a medium bowl, beat the butter, honey, molasses, oil, vanilla, and egg. Stir into the dry ingredients. Add ginger and coconut and mix well.

Drop by the tablespoon (heaping tablespoon really) onto 2 greased cookie sheets. Bake for about 12-15 minutes. Keep an eye on these because they'll burn in a flash. It's hard to tell when they're done because the centers will still be very soft, you have to look at the edges of the cookies around the bottoms to see if they're brown and that's when you know they're done. Let them cool on the cookie sheets for a couple of minutes, before transferring them to cooling racks or they will fall apart...believe me. But if they do it's okay because these are really good with ice cream. I know I think everything's really good with ice cream, but it's hard to beat a freshly baked, still warm cookie over vanilla ice cream. All I'm saying is maybe it's not so bad if you break one or two...on accident of course.

Cookie or Energy Bar? You decide...

And yet again, in my constant quest to find a healthy dessert that's still appealing to the masses, I have created something that walks the line between cookie and energy bar. It tastes like a cookie, but the ingredient list reads more like the latter. Personally, I like to think of them as energy bars because then you can eat them whenever. You know, if you need a little pick me up before doing all the important things it is you do, you can just grab one of these because they're energy bars packed full of good for you stuff. And really the only questionable ingredient is the chocolate, which in my mind is a food group all it's own, equally as important as vegetables or grains. A little chocolate is good for you plus it's an all natural mood enhancer, and you can't really go wrong with that.

So, I'm going to leave the final decision up to you, but I think I've made a pretty convincing argument for why you should think happy, healthy thoughts when eating these.

Coconut Date Bars

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup almonds
• 1/2 cup dates
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 Tbs brown sugar
• 1/3 cup virgin coconut oil (liquid at room temperature)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup flax meal
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and lightly grease and 8"x8" baking dish.

Use a food processor to pulse one cup of the oats until it becomes a fine flour. Remove to a medium bowl and add the white whole wheat flour, coconut flakes, salt, and baking soda. Mix together and set aside.

Next grind the almonds in the food processor until they become a fine meal, remove and set aside.

Place dates in processor and pulse until they become a paste, remove and set aside.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together honey, sugar, and oil. Add egg and beat until well combined. Mix in flax meal, almond meal, dates, and remaining cup of oats. Then gradually beat in flour mixture. Next stir in the chocolate chips by hand.

Transfer to prepared baking dish and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the top becomes golden brown. Let cool before slicing.

Anasazi Bean Brownies

I know I know brownies made out of beans just sounds crazy, but seriously you should try these. They really were a hit and they're kind of healthy, which you definitely can't say about most brownies. So when my daughter thought she was just eating chocolate she was actually getting the nutritional benefits of beans, which she would normally never eat. Tricky, tricky. Okay, so they're not super healthy, but I just felt a little bit better about eating these than I normally do when I'm eating dessert. They're kind of messy, and the texture is sort of a cross between fudge and cake, which in my opinion is pretty heavenly. I was inspired by a recipe from 101 cookbooks, as I often am. She made black bean brownies, but I changed things a bit according to what I had on hand. I used anasazi beans because I had some already cooked in the refrigerator that I needed to use up. I imagine any red bean would be just as good in these though. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of these (that's how fast they went!) and I was going to make another batch and take a picture of those before posting the recipe, but I've had a couple of requests for it so I decided to go ahead and put the recipe up. I'll definitely be making more soon though, so hopefully next time I'll be able to get a picture before they're all gone!

Anasazi Bean Brownies

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

• 1 cup unsalted butter

• 2 cups cooked anasazi beans (or whatever red bean you have on hand)

• 1 cup pecans, chopped

• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

• 1/4 cup instant coffee

•  1/4 teaspoon salt

• 4 large eggs

• 1 1/2 cups honey

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease an 11x18 inch baking pan. Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave or over a double boiler on the stove, stirring to make sure the chocolate is completely melted.

Combine beans, half of the pecans, the vanilla extract, and a few spoonfuls of the melted chocolate and butter mixture in a food processor and blend until smooth. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the remaining pecans, chocolate mixture, instant coffee, and salt. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until light and creamy with an electric mixer, about 1 minute. Add the honey and beat well. Set aside.

Next add the bean mixture to the the coffee mixture and stir well. Then mix in the eggs and honey.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until the brownies are set and let cool completely in the pan before cutting. As I said these are a bit messy, so I would advise keeping them in the refrigerator where they will be easier to cut and will hold they're shape better.

Oatmeal Lace Cookies

It's snowing...again. So I am stuck inside due to these blizzard conditions. Well, maybe not blizzard but it does suck outside. I am not really a winter weather kind of person. I hate to admit it but sledding and snowball fights are not really happy past times for me. My body temperature just tends to run cold, I'm not sure why but that's the way it is. So mix that with the bitter cold winter temperatures combined with the wetness of snow and ice, and I'm pretty miserable. I know, I know, I'm a baby.

So to relieve my boredom of being stuck inside, I decided to bake. The only problem being that our shelves are pretty sparse at the moment. So I was flipping through some recipes that my mom gave me and I found oatmeal lace cookies. These cookies are divine, and they require minimal ingredients, so they were perfect for today. Now, as divine as these cookies are I must add a disclaimer: these cookies are finicky. Do not over-bake them or they will crumble. And, I don't think I can emphasize this enough, do not forget to grease the foil. Grease the foil and double check that you greased it, then check again. If you don't do this you will not have cookies, you will have crumbles, which is what I ended up with.

Yes, they still taste good, but cookie crumbles are not really what I had in mind when I started out. This recipe calls for vanilla, but I separated the dough into two batches and used vanilla extract in one and orange extract in the other. Just mix the dough as called for, but don't add the vanilla, then when all of the ingredients are mixed scoop half of the dough into another bowl and add the orange to one and vanilla to the other. Both are delicious! These cookies spread out very wide, so give them plenty of space. I'd only put 6 on each cookie sheet.

• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1 cup oats
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla or orange extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Cream butter and sugar, then mix in the rest of the ingredients. Drop by teaspoonfuls on foil covered cookies sheet (grease foil!). Bake for about 6 min, or until the edges are barely browned. Let cool completely before peeling of foil.

Grown-up Scones

Curried Ginger Scones

So here we go...my very first blog post. I have to be honest, I'm a bit nervous about it. It's kind of intimidating to just sit down and write about yourself like the whole world is interested in what you have to say. But I think this is going to be good for me. It's a place to center my food thoughts, reevaluate my recipes, and hopefully get advice from those who are surely, far more food savvy than I.

The first recipe I have to share with you was a success! It's a curried ginger scone recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour. These are savory and sweet and completely delicious. Everyone who has tried them has loved them. They're not the typical breakfast or dessert scone, but more an accompaniment to a meal. The curry flavor is very subtle and the crystallized ginger adds the sweetness.

One of the things I've tried to do with my baking is incorporate whole grains, dried and fresh fruit and veggies, and sweeteners other than white sugar in the hopes that my 2 year old can eat cookies and such while still getting some nutritional value out of them. I've had visions of being the mom who's child will eat and appreciate all of the healthy foods in life because I started early and was creative. Well, I have tried and I have failed. If I bake it thinking she will love it, then she inevitably hates it. I made her chocolate blueberry scones for her birthday and she cried! Yes cried! If I give her a cookie out of a box then she's in heaven. Even a graham cracker is more well-received than many of my baked goods.

So I made "grown-up" scones. I guess as a subtle and immature way to get back at my daughter, even though the logical part of me knows that she will never know or care about my scheme. But it seems my scheme may have backfired. As I was cutting up the crystallized ginger she ran up to me and asked for a piece. I gave her one thinking she would hate it, but of course she loved it. She had to go to bed before trying the finished product, so we will have to wait for the true verdict. And despite my grand idea of "grown-up" scones, I of course will be ecstatic if she likes them.

3 cups flour ( I used white whole wheat)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chopped crystallized ginger
1/2 teaspoon curry powder (I added a bit more and they curry flavor was still subtle)
5 tablespoons sugar
1 stick butter, cut into pieces-leave in the refrigerator until ready to use
1 1/4 cups plain whole milk yogurt (I’m sure you could also use buttermilk or sour cream)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix in ginger evenly, and then add curry and sugar. Cut in the butter until mixture is crumbly.

Add the yogurt, and stir until dough just holds together. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface, and roll it into a square about 1/2-inch thick. Cut the dough into 25 small triangles, and transfer them to a lightly greased baking sheet.

Bake scones for about 20 minutes, or until they're golden. Makes about 25 scones.