Recipe - One of these Chocolate Chip Cookies is tasty and satisfying (Protein and Carbohydrate Watching)

Folks grow almonds and walnuts just north of where I live. 

Nothing beats a California almond - unless it's a cookie made with CA almond meal

Almond Meal Oatmeal  Chocolate Chip  Cookies Protein and Carb Watching?  Make 18 of these Tasty One Cookie is Sastisfying

     

Make cookie dough the regular way - Cream the butter and sugar, add the salt and baking soda and eggs then mix in the dry stuff. 

§ 2½ cups almond flour

§ 1/2 cup rolled oats (not instant kind)

§ ¼ cup walnuts, shelled and chopped

§ 1/2 cup unsalted butter

§ 2 large eggs

§  

§ ½ cup  sugar  

§  

§ ½ cup Guitard milk chocolate chips (OK you can use your own favorite - These are my favorite!)

§ ½ teaspoon salt

§ ½ teaspoon baking soda

§ 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Bake at 350 degrees

California Immigrant Raisin Buns

I love the raisin rolls in the bread-for-the-table baskets at Max's Opera Café  (I ask for only raisin rolls to avoid getting half white rolls) and thought I'd make my own. However, it was harder than I'd thought, finding a recipe for raisin rolls in any of my bread books. I found the original base recipe for these delicious rolls at a Dutch site, Weekend Bakery -  https://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/recipe-for-raisin-buns/.

When these rolls immigrated to CA, they developed some new ideas. They altered. That's the way it is when you move to a new country. So enjoy the new version, as well as the old.

Features of the original base recipe I found appealing :

1) The picture looked right!
2) What is more Californian than raisins? We grow tons of raisins in the Great Central Valley of California. Well apparently if I were Dutch, I'd feel the same way. The original baker uses a very goodly number of raisins He/she says...
 "The amount of raisins used is usually the same as the amount of flour used. It seems like a lot, but you need this amount to get a good raisin bun so you do not ‘have to bicycle from one raisin to the next’ as we say."
3)What is more Californian than lemons and oranges? Our Dutch friend includes a sweetener made from orange and lemon zest, something I often include in my own bread recipes.  

However I altered the original recipe - which I make in a bread machine.  I only make my bread dough in the machine. (The Dutch version has by hand instructions you can follow) I then shape that dough into rolls, proof them in a 200 degree oven and then switch the oven to 350 degrees for baking. That is how I always use my bread machine. I never use the baking cycle, because it came out weird when I first tried, and it's so easy to do the baking in my own pans in the oven. It's the kneading and temperature setting right that is work/challenge when making bread.

A) I converted the European measurements to American cups, teaspoons etc. I rounded some things up, and just changed a few, based on my own experiences making break. I think I increased the butter just a touch, and maybe the flour. (When I ran the measurements through the European to American converter, I did not get an equal amount of raisins and flour, btw) I may have changed some other things...
B) I noted that the Dutch baker suggested using more liquid for American flours. I used more than twice as much liquid - though he had only suggested 10-20 percent more. That was based on the taste I was going for. I like airy bread. 
C) I used more yeast. Again - I like airy bread.  If you want to be more rustic, use less and check out the amounts in the original recipe. 
D) I use a combination of buttermilk and water (half and half) and, as I said I use a lot more liquid than in the original. I use buttermilk a lot. Buttermilk makes dough rise more. Did I say, I like airy bread? I love the taste too.

The original baker uses milk.
E) I use a mix of CA black raisins and CA golden raisins. The Dutch baker has an interesting writeup in the original recipe, about raisins, currents and more,  that is definitely worth reading.
F) I do the hurry-up version of prepping the raisins, alluded to by the original baker (see 'Prep 1')

* * *

Here is how I make these California Immigrant Raisin Rolls - They are delicious

Bread Machine Note: (Different machines require different  ingredient order. In my machine you put in the dry stuff and then the liquid. My old machine was the opposite)

Prep 1
- Put on tea kettle to boil water
- Measure out 2.5 cups of mixed raisins (Today that's 1/2 cup golden , 2 cups black - but whatever I have on hand)
- Pour boiling water over raisins. Let them soak 5-10 minutes or more. Strain in colander/strainer. Add enough flour to take away any residual moisture. This is by feel. I don't want wet raisins. Work them by hand till they feel relatively dry. Do this in the colander/strainer over the sink so that extra flour falls through.

Prep 2
Grate peel from one big  CA lemon and one CA navel orange, Mix with 4 T sugar.

Measure out another 1T sugar, and set aside

Dry  Stuff 
4 cups bread flour (has higher gluten) I admit when I run out of bread flour I use all-purpose.
1 and 1/2 teaspon salt (don't skip this) - but remember that salt retards yeast growth - so I always put the salt far down in the machine or at least not near the yeast

Wet Stuff
1 egg yolk
1/2 stick (4 T) butter I use unsalted 

***

Primero/ I put the dry stuff in the machine
Entonces/Then I put in the raisin mix in the machine
Entonces/Then I put in the orange peel mix in the machine
Entonces/Then I put in the wet stuff in the machine
Entonces/Then I add that last 1 T sugar to the machine
Entonces/Then I put about 2 and 1/4 teaspoons  of GOOD FRESH YEAST in the little trap on the top of my machine . My yeast goes in a trap door on the top of the machine. OR If you add the yeast to your dry ingredients inside your machine instead, then I recommend making a nest in the flour and putting the 1T sugar and yeast together. Yeast likes sugar to grow

(2 1/4 is a typical package of yeast sold in grocery stores around here. (Also my machine won't hold more than that amount of yeast!) However, I buy large bags of yeast at Costco and keep it in a jar in the refrigerator. I always smell my yeast and if it doesn't smell yeasty, I get fresh yeast. Those Costco bags are so economical that even if you put half of it in the compost bin, it's still more cost effective than the packages - Watch the expiration dates on the packaged yeast too. If if doesn't smell like yeast. It won't do the job.)

* * *

Because this is a high rising recipe - you need to make sure you don't just assume your dough cycle will stop on time. I messed up my old machine leaving dough in for too long. So set your machine to the dough cycle, but start checking around 1 hr 30 minutes and keep an eye on it to avoid the dough rising out of the canister and into your machine. I let my dough rise as high as it will go. You can stop sooner for denser bread. Same thing when you proof it. I think some bakers might think that I over rise my bread. I think it's a matter of taste and what you like.

* * *

About 1 hr 30 minutes after I start the machine... I turn my oven onto 200 degrees and spray my muffin pans with cooking spray. The original recipe made 12 regular rolls. My version makes 15 very large rolls. I think you could get 20  (or more) out of this with no problem.

Once the dough cycle is done  to my satisfaction (I run mine for 1:40 - 1 hr 50 minutes) then I take the dough out. Shape the rolls in the muffin pan. The dough is very sticky - because I use so much liquid I think. Watch out for the dough spilling into your oven if you overfill pan (I put a cookie sheet below in case of dough drips, because we like the bigger rolls)

I put the rolls in the 200 degree oven to proof for 20 minutes. You can go longer if you forgot to set your oven early, or if they just look like they need it.

Reset the oven to 350 degrees - It's OK that the rolls are in the oven as the temperature changes.

I last baked them at this temperature for 28 minutes. I checked them around 20 minutes, and simply stuck a good old fork in to test.  Ovens vary. Pan thickness varies. Check them early, maybe eat a sample roll or whatever works to get the right bake on your rolls.

* * *

These rolls don't need anything on them. But I'm sure cheese, peanut butter or butter would be good.

My California Garden - Fuyu Persimmons (Eating and Recipe suggestions)

Fuyu Persimmon

Make prime smoothies and salads

California!

Persimmons started out in China, but now they call themselves California natives - having lived here since the mid 1800's. This year we've had a prime crop. I'm partial to non-astingent Fuyu type, since they taste good either crispy - we eat them out-of-hand like apples or add chunks of them to our main dish salads. Then again, if they soften we scoop them out, freeze them, and make them into delicious smoothies - I throw the frozen pulp together with some pieces of frozen bananas, a little non fat milk and some vanilla - better than ice cream!

Do delicious persimmons grow where you live? https://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/persimmon.html

Peaches from California!/Melocotones de California!/Peches de la California!

 Melocotones de California!

Peches de la California!

Peaches! 

Recipe - My Favorite way to make Peach Cobbler http://postcardfromcalifornia.blogspot.com/2010/09/summers-end-peach-cobbler_19.html

Still Life With Sprouts

Brussels sprouts, who knew,

That I was partial to you?

With cranberries, yum!

Recipe: A delicious, and easy, way to make sprouts with fresh cranberries.

My beautiful daughter makes them this way.

http://lacasadesweets.com/blog/2013/11/14/maple-roasted-brussels-sprouts-with-cranberries/

90% of brussels sprouts come from nearby Watsonville! http://patch.com/california/watsonville/love-em-or-hate-em-but-brussels-sprout-season-is-here

Fall in California (Cornbread Recipe)

It takes until this time of the year to feel like fall here in our part of California. It was finally cool enough to wear a fleecy vest before dark and want to eat a hot supper - baked acorn squash, chicken sausage, tomato basil soup, cornbread (see recipe below) - you know a real fall meal. 

How long has it been feeling like fall where you live? In the Northern Hemisphere that is - OK, I know for you folks way down undAH we're talking springtime gamboling lambs...

* Cornbread from Scratch

Bake at 350 degrees

Dry Stuff
1 and 1/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
2 T baking powder (yes really - Tablespoons)
1/4 cup sugar (more if you like it sweeter)

Wet Stuff
2 eggs
2 T butter melted
1 cup milk

* Mix the dry stuff together.
* Mix the wet stuff together
* Make a hole in the hollow of the dry stuff and mix the wet stuff in gently. Don't beat it - just till combined.

Bake in a greased square pan till done. Usually 20 - 30 minutes. Also makes good muffins.

Apples Need a Home? California Apple Pancake To the Rescue! (Recipe)

Do you have some apples in your house that need a home?

The perfect California apples grow on a little tree overhanging our driveway. We planted it there because our yard is pretty shady and we have to tuck in the sun worshippers where we can. Kind of fun though, as we can share the produce with our neighbors.  If it's hanging down on their side, those are their apples!

It's a little golden delicious apple tree and that's perfect for us. Not being big time foodies, there's a limit to how many apples my husband will turn into sauce and can, how many apple crisps he'll make or how many California Apple Pancakes I will bake. Those pancakes are, however, a lovely, simple dish, something I can make quickly and easily. I've been making it since college days, and I never get tired of it. Here's how.

~ ~ ~

California Apple Pancake

Serves 2 -3

Leftovers OK, saved in refrigerator and reheated the next day

Tools 

 * two skillets- one must be oven proof. I use a good old cast iron skillet for that. The other will go on top of the stove, so whatever works there.
* An oven
* Blender or wisk and medium large bowl

Locate your ingredients

* 3 (or more apples) whatever kind you like when they're cooked or that you have handy. Of course I prefer the ones that fall down into my driveway
* 3/4 cup flour
* 3/4 cup milk
* 3 eggs
* Some cinnamon
* For the apples - Sugar or Not to taste (maybe 1/4 of a cup or more, or none at all, depends on what you like, and the sweetness of your apples)
* Something to grease a pan with (spray on stuff, margarine, whatever works in your house)

Now do the work

* Turn on your oven to 410 degrees, so it will be ready

* Core and Cut up the apples into slices or chunks. I leave the skin on of course - good for you, and we like the taste.

* Grease the skillet that goes on top of the stove. (Grease the oven-proof one at the same time so she's ready). Toss in the apples and as much cinnamon as you like. As it heats up pour in a little bit of water. Sauté the apples and when there brown enough for you, turn down the heat to simmer, pour in enough water so that they will cook up into cooked apples, not be too wet, and not burn - a judgment call. My husband likes a little apple syrup left on the apples that top off his pancake, I just like the apple pieces.

Work Continues , While your apples are cooking...

* In blender, or with your whisk, beat/froth up all those other ingredients - eggs, flour, and milk
* Turn the heat on the stove top on medium high, pop on your oven-proof skillet, and pour in the mixture. I just leave it on there for maybe 30 seconds, so it helps make a tiny bit of a bottom to the pancake, don't over do that. You just want it to kind of stick on when you swirl the pan. Better to under do this step.

* Pop the skillet into your hot oven.

* After 15 minutes, turn the oven temperature down to 350 degrees (with the pan still in the oven). Back another 10 minutes, but check it occasionally to make sure it's not overdone, since ovens vary a bit, don't they? (If you forgot to preheat the oven, you might just bake it a little more. This is not a picky item.)

* When it puffs up into a beautiful ever so slightly golden brown - but mostly still egg colored - it's done!

* Take it out, cut into 2 or 3 wedges and serve with the cooked apples.

~ ~ ~ Variations ~~~

Clearly you can use other seasonal fruit. You can also experiment with baking the fruit and batter together in the oven. I have a version for one I do in the microwave, where I use 2 eggs, 1/3 cup milk, 1/3 cup flour, and I bake it over a piece of cut up fruit. I have to take that out and loosen it up several times during the microwaving process, and how it bakes depends on what fruit is in it.

CA Style Eatin' Enchiladas

We have been making enchiladas a lot. Doesn't that sound very California? They are easy and we feel virtuous making them. Yeh, I used sauce from a jar! - Trader Joes makes a good one. We mix in a bunch of vegetables - vary the veg, depending on what's handy. Tonight used 4 kinds of vegetables - 3 fresh (spinach, celery and yaller squash)  and one can of drained corn. Doesn't that sound like every nutrient you could imagine?  Oh, also leftover shredded chicken, and corn tortillas spread with a tad of whipped cream cheese. A tiny, tiny sprinkling of cheddar on the top - but nothing like Paula Deen style (I love that woman - but we dont' need the stick-o-butter style casseroles here). Also I made Chocolate-Covered-Katies frosting shots as a mousse style dessert. That's canned coconut milk with cocoa poweder and vanilla whipped up in the mixer and sweetened to taste with whatever you use. I used just a little bit of  Blue Agave, just enough to take the edge off the cocoa powder. There is a little bit of saturated fat in coconut milk but my Nutrition Major daughter said it is not excessive, and we don't eat much red meat, milk fat, etc. So I think that's about as much saturated fat as we have in our occasional bits of cheese.

Should have a productive evening of work after a nice supper. I hope you do too.

Persimmons on Parade

Thanks to my good neighbor Jen, we have persimmons this year. I know I could buy them at the downtown Farmer's Market, good ones too. But, around here, buying persimmons is like having to buy lemons. It feels wrong.

I scored both types that grow in the area, Fuyu and Hachiya. We actually have a Fuyu tree in our yard, and we used to get a lot of fruit from it. But no more. The squirrels scored all but one pathetic half of a fruit. Or maybe it was the raccoons. They were certainly busy with our small tomato patch this year.

But, luckily for me I scored with the homegrown persimmons. Of course, as y'all know, the Fuyu are the kind you eat hard. You can eat them out of hand, but we are pretty partial to them in our regular big supper salads. Tonight we had our first local crab salad of the year. Hooray for crab season! The pairing of persimmon and crab is right up there with apples and honey, mashed potatoes and gravy, or apples and cheddar cheese. Some flavors were just meant to go together.

I used some of the ripe Hachiya (you never want to eat those astringent guys until they are good and mushy) in a persimmon cake for Thanksgiving. I lost my original recipe, but there are variants on the web and I just played around with what I found. I'm not actually sure what I ended up putting in other than buttermilk, plenty of persimmon, dark raisins, local walnuts, and no oil or butter. It's basically a very minimal any-kind-of-oil-or-butter with 3 ripe persimmons (about a cup and a half of fruit). Delicious. That is what fruit cake should taste like, not heavy but dense and rich with fruit.

I'm partial to these little darlings in a smoothie with frozen bannana, milk and vanila as well. Heaven. I better freeze up those other two Hachiya's right now so I can have one tomorrow. BTW if the Fuyu get over ripe they work in any of the same way as their astringint cousins. That's why we planted a Fuyu tree. You get the value of both types of fruit.

Good simple California eating. Could food grow any better?

Time Traveling Forward to Fall

Just this morning I was listening to a BBC History Magazine podcast, time traveling back to World War II. But tonight I'm going forward, just a few weeks really. Fall officially starts on September 23, 5:05 a.m., according to  The Old Farmer's Almanac.

I'm thinking fall now because I just put a batch of applesauce spice muffins in the oven for the resident geologist to take out in the field. I made them with the apples I raked up and sauced from our runty little apple tree in the driveway. They are the ones the squirrels kick down, after chewing them and deciding they aren't reall….llly ripe. They also don't make the world's best apple sauce, because they are kind of green and they aren't cooking apples. But they make fine muffins PLUS the added benefit that if I don't leave them under the tree, Mr. Rat and his clan don't come a' callin' (at least not in the driveway).

Yup, it all just puts me in a very seasonal mood- the fall harvest, the squirrels and the jolly little rats. Here's my recipe, or receipt, as us time travelers like to say.

Applesauce Spice Muffins

A creation of The Simple Romantic

350 degrees, until baked/fork clean - depends on your muffin tin

Get out a Large Bowl 

Put in dry ingredients and mix 'em

Make a well in the dry stuff

 Beat one egg up in the well

Add in rest of wet ingredients. 

Put in muffin tins. 

Bake

Dry Ingredients

1 ¾ cup flour – type you like

½ cup regular oatmeal (NOT quick cooking type)

½ cup brown sugar

A whole bunch of black raisins (maybe ¾ of a cup?)

1 teaspoon baking soda (I run it through a sieve)

1 t ground cinnamon

¼ t nutmeg

(I also like the following spices in addition to the above – Resident geologist does not – though he eats them anyway – they are quite good either way)

½ t ground cloves

½ t ground allspice

Wet Ingredients

-   1 egg

-   ¼ cup corn oil (or butter if you like that)

-   ¼ cup buttermilk

-   1 cup applesauce –(preferably made from the culls that fall in my driveway)

Summer’s End Peach Cobbler

The weather’s been funny everywhere this summer. It poured rain several of the days I was in Madrid – a pattern the locals told me was normal ahora, pero antes, no! Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we had a cooler than usual July and August. And my facebook-friend Judy, up in Oregon was most unhappy because it either rained incessantly or was boiling hot, nothing like the quintessential blackberry-pickin’ season I always imagined in the northwest.

I wonder if the funny weather is why every peach I tried, this summer have been crummy? I look forward to fresh peaches all year, but every one I’ve tried this year has been, what my mother would call, ‘mealy’.

Last week my husband hopefully brought home one last lovely looking box of peaches. Surely this batch would be different! They were so attractive, a beautiful shade of yellow with lovely red blushes. Today they were perfectly ripe, giving just, so, when you pressed one finger against their delicate complexions.

They tasted lousy.

What does good old Ann Landers say? Or was it Ben Franklin who suggested the connection between lemons and lemonade? But in the case of peaches, it’s cobbler. Tonight we made, and ate, the best peach cobbler I’ve ever eaten. Could it be, the mealier the peach, the better the cobbler?

Pretty easy.

1) I mixed up a batch of my 1960’s Style Buttermilk Biscuits (it’s the same recipe I wrote about earlier this month, in the art-journal entry “Kidhood Memories:1960’s Style Buttermilk Biscuits”) and filled the bottom of a deep dish, square type casserole dish.

2) I set the oven to 400 degrees (instead of the 450 degrees I’d use for biscuits)

3) Cut up 3 large, delicious looking, but mealy tasting yellow free-stone peaches and covered the biscuit dough. Then I topped the peaches with some sugar (maybe ½ a cup?) and a sprinkling of cinnamon.

4) I bakes the cobbler for 20 minutes (checking after 10 and finding it still very much un done). Then I turned off the oven, leaving the pan inside the still hot oven and took my dog for a walk around the park! (Probably for about 20 more minutes). When we returned from the dog walk, I turned the oven back on, but now at 450 degrees. It was done and fork clean, 10 minutes later.

Yummm. The mealier, the better!

Kidhood Memories

With my older sister, Trisha, at Pike's Peak Colorado 1962

We thought everybody in the U.S. ate biscuits then

1960's Style Buttermilk Biscuits

We often eat these with homemade Damson Plumm Private Eye Raspberry Jam

Bake 450 degrees Bake 8 – 10 minutes till tops brown

In a bowl Mix the dry stuff: 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda,1/8 - 1/2 cup sugar, some cinnamon (½ teaspoon?)

Make a little well in the dry stuff pour in ¼ cup corn oil and 1 cup buttermilk (if using regular milk*, use 1 tablespoon bak. powder and no baking soda). Do not beat, just mix softly until combined.

Pam spray/oil muffin pan/ cookie sheet/pan

Additions: Raisins or a few blueberries (mix these w/ dry stuff) or A spot of strawberry or raspberry jam in the top of each biscuits (jammy biscuits)

*or make buttermilk substitute: A tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice plus enough milk to make a cup, let stand 5 minutes