Peach crumble

I bought 10lbs of peaches and nectarines from Saturday farmers market over the weekend. I had to think of a way to use them all up before they go had.

A simple peach crumble would do. The extra topping is always a treat.

Blueberry pie

It's farmer's market day again on Nike campus. Unger farm was there too with their enticing berries. I went a little overboard and got a whole flat of berries, four pints of blueberries and two pints strawberries. For people who haven't had Oregon strawberries before, it's hard to describe to you how much better they are than the standard ones from California. The blueberry has a silky buttery mouth feel and it's juicy and sweet.

I bought more than we can eat fresh, so I decided last second to make a blueberry pie. Because it's last second, ready-made store-bought pie doughs have to do. I use Pillsbury one that comes in a pack of two roll-up doughs.

Blueberry pies are the easiest to make. You dress the berries with some lemon juice, a bit of sugar and touch of salt. Coat them with 2-3 tablespoon of cornstarch. And that's it. The berries are fairly sweet naturally, I cut the sugar down to 2 tablespoons. You can find more elaborate pie recipes at America's Test Kitchen, which involves using natural pectin from apples. That's not something I was going to attempt on a week night. =)

The baked pie has such a rustic look with over flowing blueberry juice, still bubbling out of the oven.
Guess what's for breakfast tomorrow?

Sunday brunch

It was a dreary Sunday morning, cold and drizzling. I woke before 7am and came downstairs to start prepping for brunch. I've invited Lisa and Cecilia to come over at 10am. Lisa works with Jose, and she's extremely nice and likable. We just discovered Cecilia, another IDer/IITer in Portland, about two weeks ago. She has an infectious laughter.

For brunch, I had three things on the menu: chard/gruyere strata, cinnamon rolls and home fries. I had started on the first two the night before. All I needed to do this morning for the cinnamon rolls was to roll them out and let them rise for another hour or so. For home fries, I wanted to do a mix of potatoes and sweet potatoes. The strata looks fabulous this morning. All the ingredients have been soaking in the egg/milk/cream mixture overnight. All I had to do is top with more cheese and pop it in the oven for an hour.

Home fries with potatoes, sweet potatoes and green peppers

For recipes of chard/gruyere strata and cinnamon rolls, you can find them on Serious Eats blog. I substituted rainbow chard for spinach in the strata.

After raising in a warm oven for an hour, the cinnamon rolls looked so adorable.

Luckily both the strata and the cinnamon rolls would bake at 325 degree. So half way through baking the strata, I threw in the cinnamon rolls. They'd be finished at the same time.
Even though I specifically asked Lisa not to bring anything, she brought over treats from her favorite French-y bakery from her neighborhood. Cecilia also brought her home-made bread pudding and strawberry salad. We ended up with enough food to feed an army of ten.

Baked goods from St. Honore Boulangerie

Cecilia's two-in-one bread pudding

The strata was very tender and so were the cinnamon rolls.

The strata's got a nice crust and a warm and gooey center

With pots of freshly pressed coffee, we sat by the table and devoured all the yummy food, determined not to let the dreary weather get to us.
It's gotta be one of my favorite things to do, Sunday brunch at home with wonderful friends.

Goat cheese brownies

This is another recipe from Serious Eats. They're heavily featuring recipes from a book on all things goats recently. This was one of them.

We are fans of goat cheese. It's hard to imagine that I didn't like cheese just ten years ago when I first came to this country. I thought they all smelled and tasted like stinky socks. But I'm glad I learned to like cheese over the years, as there's so much wonder in the world of cheese.

I like buying cheese from Trader Joe's. They carry a variety of cheeses at very low prices. I can not see myself going back to WholeFoods for cheese unless we are throwing a fancy party. TJ carries this fresh Chevre that comes in an 8-oz log. That's what I used for making the brownies.

The resulting brownies have a distinctive goat cheese aroma, but a very subtle tang when you taste it. The crumbs are very moist. I also cut the sugar by 1/2 cup from the original recipe, as I don't like overly sweet things. It was just the right level of sweetness for me.

Keeping to the spirit of a blooming spring

I took inspiration from a photo of a butternut squash tart I saw on the web. The tart took slices of butternut squash and arranged it to look like a blooming flower. It looked real pretty. So I decided to make my apple tarts that way. Here's the result. It tastes as good as it looks. =)

Oat and Date bars

I like making brownies and bars. You bake them in a foil sling in an 8x8 or a 9x9 square pan. But I hate cutting them. This oat and date bar is no exception. It's impossible to cut without mashing the different layers and getting crumbs all over the place. I always wonder how the bakeries cut them so neatly. However these mashed-up bars are no less tasty.
I followed a recipe from Serious Eats. It's one of my main sources of recipes these days. ATK is my cooking bible. We have both the ATK cooking and baking books. The executive editor at Serious Eats, Kenji Alt, also used to work at ATK. So anyway, it's a simple recipe, see link above. I had to cut out the sugar called for the dates filling. I also cut down sugar in the oats layers by about half. The finished bars were still quite sweet for my taste. So if you're trying this, be sure to adjust the sugar level.

Wake up to freshly-made cinnamon rolls

A little extra work the night before is all it takes to wake up to the smell of cinnamon rolls Sunday morning. And you get to eat it too.
I made the dough the night before, formed them into individual rolls and let them rise in a warm place overnight. Sunday morning I jumped out of bed at 7:30am, turned on the oven to 350 and bake them for 25min. It's so good.

After rising in a warm place overnight, the rolls are snugging up with one another

The inside texture is so soft, while the top is slightly crispy

 You can find this recipe at America's Test Kitchen.

almost no-knead cranberry pecan bread

I'm going through a carb craze these days. Jose would catch me munching on buttered toasts even when I am not hungry. After finishing up the last bit of olive bread from Trader Joe's, I decided to make my own over the weekend.

a rising dough

 I picked the easiest recipe I could find in America's Test Kitchen book. It's a no-knead bread. You don't even need a standing mixer for that. I added a handful of white chocolate chips to the dough to give it some sweetness.

Some of the cranberries and chocolate chips on the surface are a bit burnt. But it's got a nice crust, really good texture and flavor

Ginger people

I've been wanting to make these cookies ever since we got a pair of ginger boy/girl cookie cutters. They are adorable. The recipe is from America's Test Kitchen.

Aren't they cute together? They're holding hands!!!

V day breadpudding

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's day celebration. It was two days ago. But I just had time to update some photos of the bread pudding we made for dinner that day. It's our first bread pudding, straight from the recipe in ATK. There's for sure room for improvement. But it ain't bad.

Pre-valentine's day

Valentine's day is in the air, on television, in the media and everywhere you look now. We will be celebrate our first V day in Portland. We want to wish all our friends and family far far away a Happy Valentine's day and let them know that we love them.

We walked into TJ and I asked Jose "hey, would you want to buy me some flowers for Valentine's day?" That's how I have these pretty calla lilies sitting on our dining table. We are totally the romantic kind =)

Oatmeal ginger cookies

A simple and spicy alternative to oatmeal raisin cookies. I use freshly grated ginger as well as candied ginger in place of ginger power. It packs so much more flavor than the dry stuff. Though these needs more sugar even by my standard. That didn't stop Jose from stealing it from the cooling rack.