Healthy Yogurt Pancakes

This is a riff on a great, versatile recipe from Smitten Kitchen. The Mister and I used to make this on weekend mornings when we wanted something quick and yummy.

Now that we have a baby, one who loves pancakes, I’ve changed the recipe a bit to make it healthier. The original recipe calls for 7 tablespoons of flour. I’ve swapped out three of the tablespoons for rye flour and three for barley. I think buckwheat would be a good substitute as well. Instead of the sour cream, I’ve used Greek yogurt. I absolutely love the original sour cream version, but yogurt is good too.

Crappy picture taken while holding a baby

The result is a thin, dense, and moist pancake. I make a batch (often doubling the recipe) and freeze them so I can quickly reheat them in the morning for a hungry baby.

Original recipe: Edna Mae’s Sour Cream Pancakes

Chili Con Carne with Cornmeal Waffles

My sweet husband gave me a waffle maker for Christmas (possibly after a few months of me whining about how much I wanted one). He was convinced that I wouldn’t use it very much, and he had a point. Waffle makers are often limited to breakfast.

Until now.

I present you with chili con carne over cornmeal waffles. I used Elise’s chili con carne recipe (delicious of course) and Paula Deen’s cornmeal waffle recipe. I wouldn’t mind doing more research on cornmeal waffles to find something better, but the combination was delicious. Hearty and spicy – the perfect winter dinner. We topped them with sour cream and shredded cheese.

Now I just need to find the perfect breakfast waffle…

Homemade Gnocchi

I’m not the “make your own pasta” type. I love fresh pasta. I think the taste of fresh pasta is leagues better than the various dried shapes you get in the store. That being said, I’m afraid of making fresh pasta. It seems like such a chore and so many things could go wrong.

After reading Heidi’s post on How to Make Gnocchi Like an Italian Grandmother, I decided to take the plunge.

I followed the recipe except for two places: I baked the potatoes and I didn’t make the fork grooves (because I’m laaazy). I read that baking the potato could make the gnocchi lighter and fluffier, and they certainly turned out that way. Depending on your belief on how gnocchi should be, I would bake the potatoes for really fluffy gnocchi and I would boil them for a firmer gnocchi. Personally, I liked how light the gnocchi were. There was no carb coma when I cleaned my plate. A good thing.

It was a super easy pasta recipe, and I would definitely make it again. As for the phenomenal, three ingredient sauce you see draped over the gnocchi, that deserves its own post.

Peanut butter. Bacon. Cookies.

Oh. My. God.

Don’t ask questions.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Make sure you have some peanut butter. About a cup. Chunky or smooth – doesn’t matter.

Fry up about 6-7 pieces of bacon until crisp, then dice it up.

Mix 1/2 cup of white and a 1/2 cup of brown sugar with the peanut butter until combined. Add an egg and a teaspoon of baking soda. Fold in the bacon.

No questions. Just do it.

Roll into balls and place on a baking sheet. (I put parchment paper down first, but that’s just me.) Use a fork to make a criss-cross pattern in the cookie. Or don’t. It’s not important right now.

Bake for 10 minutes. Take out of the oven and cool on baking sheet.

Then enjoy the most delicious, hot affair between peanut butter and bacon ever imagined.

And this wonderful recipe? I got it here: Joy the Baker. Go there. Check out her blog. You’ll thank me. And her!

Blackberry Yogurt Tart

This is another recipe from 101 Cookbooks. I’ll just tell you now that I’m obsessed with her recipes and will be using them frequently.

I saw this yogurt tart and thought that it would make a healthy-ish dessert. “Ish” is important here as the crust uses a healthy amount of butter. There is an option to use olive oil, which I may try next time. The butter crust was very good, though very rich.

Other modifications I made were to swap the natural cane sugar with regular sugar, omit the sesame oil (didn’t have any),  and use pureed blackberries instead of ginger.

The crust was rich and crunchy and the yogurt filling was still nicely tart. The maple syrup added sweetness without becoming too sweet, and the blackberries made it a nice purplish color. I think this recipe can swing easily from sweet to savory, depending on your cravings.

Barley Risotto

As it’s a new year, Cauli and I are trying to eat better. It’s so easy to wind up with a frozen meal on a hectic weeknight. Or worse, ordering pizza or picking up Taco Bell (our guilty pleasure).

One of the best healthy blogs out there is Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks. She uses whole grains, fresh vegetables, and lots of flavor. What I like best is that she doesn’t focus on being low fat; rather, she attempts to use fresh ingredients for a tasty and healthy meal.

Her seaweed risotto is a healthy take on a traditional risotto. In my version, I omitted the seaweed, used toasted almond slivers and creme fraiche instead of walnuts and mascarpone, and kale instead of spinach.

We were both very happy with the result. The barley was a little chewy and the Parmesan and creme fraiche gave it a light creaminess. I especially loved how the lemon zest brightened up the dish. The recipe makes quite a bit (and the barley is very filling), so there are plenty of leftovers.

Mixed Berry Lemon Bars

I love lemon bars. Now that warm weather is here, it seemed like a good time to make a batch. I’ve posted about regular lemon bars, as well as lime bars, on this blog. These great recipes come from the always delicious Baking Bites blog. Recently, I came across yet another great incarnation of the lemon bar: strawberry lemonade bars. I followed the recipe exactly, except in two places – one I feel is an important change, and one not so much.

The not-so-important change is that I substituted the strawberry puree for a mixed berry puree. This is a great recipe to experiment with. Love raspberries? Use a raspberry-only puree. More of a blackberry person? Use blackberries instead. Whichever summer fruit seems right. (Papaya or mango would also be an exciting substitution.)

The important change: I used an 8×8 pan instead of the suggested 9×13. The 8×8 pan allows for a good sized bar with a thick crust and a good amount of fruit to bite into. As with my experience with the pumpkin pie bars, I think the 9×13 just doesn’t allow for a well-formed bar.

Chicken Liver and Onions

After having chicken livers at a tapas restaurant a few weeks ago, I decided to make some at home. Chicken livers are super cheap – slightly less than a pound only costs about $2.00. I used a simple recipe from The Joy of Cooking – a great book for old favorites like liver and onions.

Put the livers in a colander and rinse them, then cut the connective tissue of the lobes. Heat about 3 tablespoons of butter in a skillet and let it brown slightly.  Add the livers (first seasoning them with salt and pepper) and cook them on high heat, about 1-2 minutes per side. When they are done (you should see a bit of pink still) take them out of the pan and put them on a plate.

Next, add 1/2 cup of chopped onions to the pan(you can also use shallots).  At this point, add additional butter if needed. Cook the onions until they start getting a bit brown on the edges and then add 1/2 cup of white wine. Cook that until it’s reduced by half than add 1/2 cup of chicken stock and cook that down until it becomes thick and syrupy. Then add about a tablespoon of chopped italian parsely and a few drops of plum cider vinegar. Then pop the livers back into the pan to heat them up a bit.

The liver and onions can be eaten alone, or served over rice or pasta. I liked the idea of them over raviolis, and I think the flavors of the goat cheese and liver worked well together (if you like strong flavors of course).

Another Pasta Casserole

Delicious cheeseless goodness.

On Friday, Cauli and I came back from a three month stay in Japan. Our condo is littered with luggage and clothes and we are jet- lagged despite our best efforts to ward it off. Our three months in Japan studying Japanese, traveling, and eating was amazing. Travel allows for a new perspective not only on where you’ve been, but where you come from. I hope to incorporate some of this perspective into my cooking.

This recipe is simple, in no way Japanese (there will be time for that later), and healthy. It is based off of Heidi Swanson’s, of 101 Cookbooks, recipe for Almost Cheeseless Pasta. The basics of the recipe are pasta, Greek yogurt, and eggs. If you have these ingredients, you can make this with most anything in your refrigerator. If you haven’t yet discovered Greek yogurt, I urge you to try it. It’s light and airy, and just tart enough. Topped with some honey, it makes for a great dessert.

But I was talking about pasta casserole. You will need 8oz of pasta for this casserole. The binding is made with two cups of Greek yogurt, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, two egg yolks, and 3 garlic cloves. I didn’t have garlic so I used 3/8 teaspoon of garlic powder. As for the body of the casserole, anything goes. I used some roasted chicken, tossed in a few handfuls of baby spinach and frozen peas into the boiling water just before the pasta was done. I mixed it all together and put it in a buttered oval baking dish. I topped with some crushed crackers and goat cheese, popped it in a preheated 400 oven and baked for 25 minutes.

Die hard cheese fans will miss the cheese, but this dish is flavorful and healthy. Heidi adds nuts and olives, which makes it even more healthy and interesting.

Pumpkin Pie Bars

I’ve never made pumpkin pie before, what with my fear of pie crust and because someone has always made pumpkin pie for me. I decided to make some for an election night party Cauli and I went to. This recipe calls for a shortbread-type crust, rather than a typical pie crust (hence “pumpkin bars” not “pumpkin pie”).

I got both the recipes from a great baking blog, Baking Bites. I used her recipe for the crust from this post (note, I did not use the pie recipe from this post, just the crust) and the recipe for the pie from this post.

The results were good – buttery shortbread crust that didn’t get soggy from the pumpkin pie (something I notice happens with pumpkin pie in a regular pie crust) and well-spiced pie filling.

The only drawback was how little pie filling there was. If you look at the picture, you can see that there is almost an even ratio of pie filling to crust. This certainly doesn’t make the bars bad (pie and shortbread, come on!), but I would have preferred a larger pie filling to crust ratio. I think next time I will halve the crust recipe and use an 8 inch square pan, keeping the pie recipe as is.

Regardless, this was fun and easy to make!