Girl Scouts, Improved

It's been a bit lonely around the apartment, with Matt in Nepal for work. But I've been making the best of it, mostly by deep cleaning the refrigerator and cooking up a storm. Today, my kitchen has been filled with delicious -- if incongruous -- smells of chickpea curry, roasted broccoli, various kinds of homemade pickles, and my test batch of spent grain thin mint cookies.

What? Thin mints?? Made with spent grain?! Yes. With my Oktoberfest party coming up in a couple of weeks, I figured it was time to start testing some festive new recipes.

Now, don't get your lederhosen in a bunch trying to explain to me how girl scout cookies aren't authentically German. I know that. Neither is spicy pickled okra, but both are on the menu for Oktoberfest. And if you're coming to the party you will be glad I am departing from the traditional kraut-pickle-sausage-pretzel regimen (though all of these will be represented as well). The cookies turned out so well it is only because I really like my landlady that I have decided to share some tonight while we catch up on the latest John Oliver....

For your baking pleasure, I offer this easy recipe, courtesy of The Brooklyn Brewery's delicious Mash recipe blog:

Spent Grain Thin Mints

Ingredients
Cookies

• 1 stick of butter, room temp
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1/2 cup Dutch cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 3/4 cups Spent Grain Flour

Frosting

• 8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped (a half block of Trader Joe's Belgian dark baking chocolate, in this case)
• 1 teaspoon mint extract (or use 1/4 teaspoon mint essential oil) 
• 2 tablespoons butter 

Directions
Preheat oven to 350F.

Beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Add in cocoa powder, salt, and vanilla and mix until well combined. Fold in the flour 1/4 cup at a time until fully incorporated. Using your hands, form dough into a disk. (If super sticky, put in the freezer for 5 minutes to chill. This will give you time to lick the eggbeater and wash some dishes.)



Roll out dough on a floured work surface (and with a floured rolling pin) pretty thin, @ 1/8" thickness. Using a circle-shaped cookie cutter cut out dough and place on parchment-lined baking sheet.



Depending on the size of your cookies, bake for 8-10 minutes. (They are thin mints, so they bake quickly. Be careful not to burn them!) Carefully transfer cookies to wire rack and let cool completely.

In a double boiler (or a heat proof bowl over a pot), melt your frosting ingredients: chocolate, mint extract, and butter. Carefully dip cookie in melted chocolate, flip to fully coat and remove with a fork. Return to lined baking sheet and repeat for all cookies. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to set chocolate coating.



Just try not to eat them all in one sitting. They are FABULOUS.

Oh? The stuffed dragon? That's Werner. I needed a little help with some key parts of the process. I'm hopeful Matt will be around for the actual baking for the party itself. I'm going to need to buy more chocolate. And more milk for dunking.

Good morning kisses

It's not often that I come skipping into the kitchen on a Friday morning at 7am. (Usually, I am either still asleep then, or grumpy that I'm not still asleep then and rummaging around the fridge for a snack because of course if I'm up at that hour I'm starving.) But THIS Friday, when I woke up to get ready for a morning teaching stint, I had chocolate meringues to wake up to. Ahhh....

Before I proceed any further, let me just thank two amazing mothers: my own (who gave me the standing mixer) and my boyfriend's (who gave me the idea to make these most delicious of confections that, until last weekend, I had never heard of before). FINALLY, a good use for all of the dang egg whites I keep generating with all of these custard desserts I keep making.

I know, it's a tough life.

Speaking of tough, consider the half year of unemployment of my poor standing mixer. Since I've more or less given up gluten, and thus bread-making, he's been sitting there sulking, stashed in a large tote bag under a table in my kitchen for the better part of the past six months. But now look at him: beating egg whites and sugar and cream of tartar like a champ:

Though I was nervous, after my only other attempt at meringues a handful of years ago failed miserably, I opened up my oven last Friday morning to two trays of delicate, perfectly set cookies with melty chocolate centers. At first, I was actually a little worried they hadn't cooked all the way through -- they seemed a bit sticky on the outside, where I recalled meringues of my childhood being quite dry -- so after taste-testing one (purely to be sure that I would be the only one suffering from food poisoning, should it happen from undercooked cookies) I turned the oven on the lowest setting for about a half hour while I got ready for work. I taste-tested another one, which was a bit more firm, turned off the oven once more, and headed out the door.

The rest of the two dozen cookies disappeared over the next two days during a series of picnics, brunches, and raidings of my kitchen by a meringue-crazed boyfriend.

They were perfect. So I'm sure you'd rather I just stop yammering here and get to the recipe. Here you have it: an adaptation of the (in)famous "Forgotten Kisses."(There are some really great tips and visuals here, for those of us new to the meringue-making racket.)

Chocolate Meringues
(almost foolproof)
Makes about 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 3-4 egg whites, at room temperature
• 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar (er, so, like half of your 1/4 tsp spoon)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup sugar, finely ground in your coffee grinder (and if it comes out a little coffee-flavored, well then, enjoy the mocha meringues!)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (or peppermint extract, which I am to try next)
• ½-1 bag Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips

Directions

Set racks in upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat oven to 400°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on medium speed until foamy and frothy, about 20 seconds.

Add the cream of tartar and salt; beat on medium-high speed until fluffy and soft peaks form, 45-60 seconds.

Add the sugar, a little at a time, and continue beating until glossy and stiff, 4-6 minutes.

Beat in the vanilla extract, then fold in the chocolate chips with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon.

Use two spoons to drop heaping tablespoons on the prepared baking sheets about an inch apart. (They don't really spread, so you can put 'em quite close together if you're short on space.)

Place the cookies in the oven, shut the door and turn the oven off. Leave the cookies in the oven for at least 8 hours or overnight to cook.

When completely cool, store in an airtight container…in you can resist eating them all on the spot, that is.

Holiday jewel scones

Okay, I'll admit it: I've had baked goods on the brain more than usual these days. I think it started when I went on a self-imposed gluten fast for the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving (to see if gluten was the nefarious force behind my many months of back pain -- you never know), but it turned into a full-fledged craving after Kenton told me about the fancy tea he'd been to with his parents and aunt last weekend. Lemon tartlets, cucumber sandwiches, and the fluffiest, most decadent sounding scones... ohhhh... I wanted some.

After three weeks of almost absolute gluten abstinence, I may have gone a little crazy this weekend. Puff pastries and lobster risotto and cookies at Kenton's holiday office party last night. Pizza for lunch today -- though to my credit I did halve the regular whole wheat flour with some (gluten-free) rice flour. And I couldn't resist cranking out a batch of scones using some of the fresh pomegranate seeds dad gave me during my visit to Northern Virginia yesterday afternoon. I mean, I haven't made scones since the summer. It was time. And, boy, were they good. You'd never guess that they're actually pretty healthy, too.

Pomegranate and almond scones
makes 8 large scones
(Thanks to budgetgourmetmom for the general recipe idea, but especially the tip on grating butter, which allowed me to get the butter mixed in quickly, before my hands warmed it too much -- genius!)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup raw sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons butter, cold
• 1-2 handfuls pomegranate seeds
• 1 handful slivered almonds
• a bit less than half a pint (6 ounces or so) of plain, lowfat Greek yogurt
• 1 large egg
• zest from 1 orange
• splash of vanilla (1/2 teaspoon?)
• 1 egg white
• sugar for dusting

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°
2. In a medium bowl mix together the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Grate the butter into the flour mixture using the large holes on the grater. Use your fingers to work the butter into the flour until it resembles a course meal.
4. Stir in the pomegranate seeds and almonds.
5. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, egg, orange zest, and vanilla. 
6. Add yogurt mixture to the flour mixture. Use a fork to stir it until dough clumps form. Continue to press the dough together with your hands, but don't overwork it. (I don't purport to make scones as well as the ladies at The Rosemary House, but that is one of the big lessons I learned while baking there: don't manhandle the dough!)
7. Place dough on a lightly floured surface, press into a 7 to 8 inch circle, and cut into 8 triangles. Brush tops with egg white, then sprinkle with sugar.
8. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 15 minutes or so. Cool on a wire rack and then either devour (or freeze so you have some to share with others).

So far so good on the back pain after the 24 hour gluten extravaganza. Maybe its the post-scone-number-two delirium, but now that I look a little more closely, I can see what dad means about the pomegranate seeds looking very festive, like Christmas lights. As we move into holiday season, I wouldn't be surprised if I make these baked wonders again. Especially if dad takes care of the laborious seed removal process again, heheh.

I must have that recipe!

Today marked the first Slow Food University event that I have organized: a book talk and potluck with local author and culinary adventurer, Nani Power. She's my kind of woman. In fact, we have quite a bit in common:

1. We share a persistent search for meaning, love, and community through food.

2. Food is officially an obsession.

3. We find cooking therapeutic.

4. We are both just itching to get ourselves to India, primarily for the food.

We probably share a lot of ideals that I don't even know about yet. I need to get myself a copy of her latest work, Ginger and Ganesh, which tells the story of her life-changing experience learning to prepare authentic Indian cuisine from women all around her native Northern Virginia -- a two-year adventure which began with a simple ad on Craigslist offering to supply ingredients + $10 per hour for in-home cooking lessons from Indian women. Yep, I do believe this may be next up on my reading list. And I'm pretty sure quite a few of the 40-some folks at the gathering were thinking the same thing as we stacked chairs and bid our adieus at the end of the event.

So, yes, in spite of the past 48 hours of hand-wringing... and fear that nobody would show up... or that a bunch of people would arrive but wouldn't have brought any food... or that the guard would be home sick and hadn't unlocked the building... or... I swear I'm not a worrier (that's dad's specialty)... it was a resounding success. It's not just my own impression, either, I swear. Our esteemed speaker asked if I might be able to gather some of the recipes for the food offered by our humble Slow Food DC community this evening. A number of attendees seconded the request.

As I await the recipe for the divine coconut burfi made by my friend (and former teaching colleague) Carol, I offer my own Indian-inspired concoction. No, not the curried chickpeas with sweet potatoes and kale. (What can I say, I was worried people wouldn't bring enough food, so I made a few dishes.) I'm talking about the

Dark Chocolate Torte with Cardamom and Ginger Whipped Cream
...which is not so much authentic Indian as inspired by Indian spices...

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Brush an 8 or 9-inch cake pan with butter and dust with flour.

Melt in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently:

• 7 oz dark chocolate, cut into pieces
• 1 1/2 sticks (12 TBSP) butter, cut into pieces

Remove from heat and whisk in:

• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• seeds from 6-8 crushed cardamom pods
• a dash of ground allspice

Let cool for about 10 minutes.

In a separate bowl, beat together until thick (6 minutes or so) with an electric mixer:

• 5 large farm fresh eggs, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup raw/brown sugar

Gently fold chocolate mixture into the egg mixture until just mixed (uniform color). Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 40-45 minutes.

Cool in pan, run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen if needed, and then turn out on a wire rack or plate to slice.

Serve with fresh whipped cream beaten with:

• a few spoonfuls of powdered sugar
• a dash of ground/powdered ginger

Yeah, pretty delicious. Let me know if you try it at home!