Beets!

This weekend has been filled with lots of baking, shopping and eating... not as much homework, but it will get done eventually. Let's call it my own little way of celebrating Valentine's day.

Another favorite knife in the background!!!

D and I were watching Good Eats last night while our cinnamon bread was baking. The episode was about  parsnips, or more specifically hiding veggies in other foods to trick unsuspecting children. He used parsnips because they're sweet, mildly nutty and easy to disguise. He uses them in pear sauce, in muffins and to make chips.

At the beginning of the episode he mentions that beets would also be a good veggie to use, but their red color gave them away.

Since I'm not as worried about hiding my veggies, when I saw beets at the store, I decided to grab a couple and see what I could do with them.

After some pondering, I decided to try red velvet cupcakes, using beets as coloring. Not only in the spirit of V-Day, but this was a perfect opportunity to use our new blender! [The RA's bought a blender as a group for smoothie study breaks! I am currently the guardian.]


They're incredibly tender and light, with a fairly strong beet and chocolate flavor that I think is wonderful. They're not very red, but they are very delicious so it's ok. I've also given them a sour cream frosting with a hint of nutmeg.

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One-Bowl (Chocolate) Borscht Cupcakes
makes 24 large or 36 regular cupcakes


Ingredients
1.25c butter, very very soft
3c beet puree [see Notes]
2c sugar
1.5t salt
3 eggs
1.5t vanilla extract
1c milk (soy or regular) with 2T white or balsamic vinegar added [see Notes]
3.5c all-purpose flour
1c natural cocoa powder [see Notes]
2t baking soda
1 recipe of sour cream-nutmeg frosting (see below)

Valentine's Day Surprise - A Guest Post

A Valentine's Day gift from the Mini-Mart.

If you bring home Russel Stover, she'll know it was last minute. Guaranteed. But you don't have any time, do you? So go to the mini-mart and get her favorite flat candy, preferably Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and large York Peppermint Patties. (Bonus points if it's easy to cut.)

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Peppermint Patties are not inherently romantic. Go figure. So make them romantic. With just a paring knife (or really any reasonably sharp object) you can turn mini-mart candy into a Valentine surprise.

You folks on the West Coast have three hours left. See how happy it will make her?

Notice I said peppermint patties and peanut butter cups,  not or.

--- D

Cinnamon Swirl Bread/Homemade Bagels

Cinnamon Swirl Bread with the Bread Baker's Apprentice open in the background.

I've been slowly working on baking my way through Peter Reinhardt's Bread Baker's Apprentice. I definitely haven't been going in order, nor have I made much progress, but the recipes I have made have been delicious.

Since Valentine's day is coming up, I decided I better make some of D's favorite foods. I'd say his two favorite ingredients are probably garlic and cinnamon, so I decided to make one goodie with each.

He recently bought me two brand spanking new loaf pans, so those were obviously going to factor into the equation. Since cinnamon + loaf pan = cinnamon bread, I knew exactly where to start. I don't want to reprint the recipe, because you should really check out the book but here are the basics:
1. Make a lightly enriched white bread dough (some eggs, sugar, fat, etc. but not a lot), with about a teaspoon of cinnamon in the dough. (Too much cinnamon will slow down the yeast. Don't worry, there's plenty more in this recipe.) Knead in chopped nuts in the last two minutes if you want. (Reinhardt's recipe calls for raisins, but really, who likes raisins???)
2. To form the loaf, roll the dough into a rectangle a few inches narrower than your loaf pans and fairly long (12-16 inches long). Sprinkle the topside with cinnamon sugar and then roll the dough tightly, pinching the end shut to create a seal.
3. Bake as instructed. When the loaves come out of the oven, brush the tops with about 1T melted butter per 2 loaves, and sprinkle with any leftover cinnamon sugar to make a nice delicious crust.

That's an awesome bread knife in the foreground. I'll post on knives soon.

Yum!! We finished about a third of a loaf as an evening snack.

Yes, all of those slices (and more) went into our belly immediately after this photo was taken.

Next task: garlic.

Lots of Training and Whole Wheat Apple Pastries

We're starting to transition into shorter pieces in preparation for the spring season. We've spent the fall and winter working mostly on our aerobic base, doing 80+ minutes of low heart rate work on a regular basis, with a few shorter (~45 minutes total work) stints at faster paces.

Our training now is phasing into 20 minutes or less of total work at much faster paces. It's really fun to see all our hard work translate into the faster pieces, without ever training these speeds.

We've also been lifting a lot. If you've never lifted before, it's time to start! Look out for an upcoming post on lifting basics.

I've been an athlete for most of my life, but I remember for most of it feel very out of shape. I got tired walking to the tops of stairs, couldn't run very far (or very fast) and just generally wasn't very energetic. This year that totally changed. I'm sure losing weight has helped, but we're also doing some incredible training this year.

We bought a bunch of apples from the 'soup bin' at our local grocery store, and have been collecting apples from the dining halls as well. I had originally intended to make my one bowl muffins (I have a post waiting, it just needs some good pictures.. they always seem to disappear before I can take pictures).

I then quickly remembered that I was trying to branch out and try new, different things. Quick breads and muffins are fairly straightforward, as are cakes and cupcakes. Instead, I thought I'd try pastries. I tried to make mini pumpkin pies with homemade crust over winter break and was sorely disappointed. I figured I'd give it another go.

I'd been wanting to try poptarts for a while, so I found a recipe. I also have an excess of whole wheat flour right now, that needs to be used ASAP. (Did you know that whole wheat flour goes rancid quickly?) I decided to sub whole wheat for the all-purpose flour and see what happened.

They were crumbly, not flaky, and the whole wheat gave these a great nutty flavor that went well with the apples.

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Whole Wheat Apple Pastries
makes 6-8 small pastries

Ingredients
Filling:
1 tart apple, peeled, cored and chopped into small pieces
0.25c brown sugar
1T cinnamon
0.5t ground ginger (optional)

Crust:
1.25c whole wheat flour
1 stick (0.5c) butter, cold, cut into small cubes
2T really cold water
1T sugar
0.5t salt

New books about cooking! (and a few posts to come...)

Instead of posting this week, I've had my head buried in books! D bought me two books this past week, and I'm super excited about both of them. First, he bought me On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee.. In case you're following my book reviews, you might have noticed I was already reading this. 

Well, turns out the library had the 1st edition. D bought me the second edition (which is so much better!!!) so I'm starting over from the beginning of a now 800 page book. I just finished the chapter on dairy, so expect a dairy-based recipe soon!

He also bought me Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-your-Mouth Cookies. I was fortunate enough to try this woman's amazing chocolate cake in high school, before I knew who she was. All I remember was thinking it was some spectacularly good chocolate birthday cake (and probably going back for seconds). I'm looking forward to (eventually) trying each and every one of these recipes.

For now, I'm reading and waiting for D to send me some long overdue pictures for some long overdue posts, including apple poptarts and absolutely delicious muffins. Expect both soon.