Chewy Molasses Cookies with Einkorn and Teff

Your basic molasses cookie, but tweaked to include a blend of einkorn and teff flours for fewer allergens and far more nutrition. Healthy enough to be a post- or pre-workout snack! And DELICIOUS, too, with a perfect texture: tender and moist inside, delicately crispy outside. Not too sweet. See explanation below for more info about the ingredients.

Ingredients:

5 ounces einkorn flour
3 ounces teff flour
1/4 cup Stevia, the fluffy kind that is designed to measure 1:1 with sugar, or equivalent sweetener
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/3 tsp allspice
3/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp softened butter
1 egg
1/3 cup molasses

 Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and stir.

 Put the butter and the egg in a food processor and process until slightly fluffed. Add the molasses and process until combined.

 Add the dry ingredients to the food processor in three batches (one third of the dry mixture at a time). Each time, process until just smooth. Note that, due to the low gluten content of these cookies, you don't have to fear overmixing them. They will not get tough.

Scoop out into a bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes or so.

 Preheat oven to 350.

 Divide the dough into four pieces. Roll each piece into a snake about as long as your hand. Cut each snake into 6 pieces. This will give you 24 cookies of equal size with no need to bother measuring them--neat, huh?

 Roll each piece into a ball. Now, you have a choice. You can place them on the cookie sheet as-is, OR, you can roll them in sugar first. Believe me when I say they are delicious even without the sugar. I am chowing down on a plate full of them right now. However, many people feel that the texture of the sugar is a vital part of this kind of cookie, and far be it from me to deny you this pleasure if you want it!

Whether you've rolled them in sugar or not, either way, you will now bake them for 11 minutes or until set. DO NOT OVERBAKE or they won't be chewy anymore!

 Enjoy :)

Ingredient explanations:

Einkorn: Einkorn is a primitive wheat. It is grown mainly in Italy, where it was used for some traditional foods, and thank God for that or we might have lost it!

 Einkorn has been selectively bred to increase its yield and so on, but it has never been hybridized (cross-bred with other species). As a result, it has a less complicated genetic structure and a different gluten protein. Many people who cannot tolerate modern gluten have no trouble with einkorn. Now, if you have a wheat allergy, I do not recommend you go overboard on einkorn, even if you think you can tolerate it! Reason being, allergies are flexible things and you could easily develop an intolerance to this gluten, too. Instead, I suggest you preserve it for special occasions, like pies, birthday cake, and Christmas baking.

 Einkorn flour also happens to have a delightful silky texture, lovely soft-gold color, and a richer, almost tangier flavor than modern wheat. The only tricky thing about using it is, it doesn't absorb as much water as modern flour, so you will need to reduce the amount of liquids you use. With cookies, however, this is not an issue as there is no added liquid.

 I use Jovial brand of einkorn flour, but that's because I haven't found any others, not because I specifically prefer that brand.

Teff: Teff means "lost" and refers to its tiny size. It is the world's smallest grain. This is significant because it means the ratio of starch to "good stuff" is better.

Teff has more protein and more minerals than any other grain, and a lot of fiber, too. It's especially important for its magnesium content. Considering more than half of Americans get way less magnesium in their diet than they need, and considering what a deleterious effect low magnesium can have on mood and mental functioning, it's pretty awesome that one serving of teff contains 45% of your entire day's magnesium requirement!

Teff also happens to be incredibly flavorful, with a lightly sweet and fruity aspect that reminds me of cider and makes it perfect for this kind of cookie. I also love to add it to pancakes.

I use Bob's Red Mill brand of teff flour, and that is important because milling teff is not easy. I have tried other brands and they are gritty, as though sand or dirt got in with the tiny teff grains. So, not all teff flours are created equal. Bob's is worth the slightly higher price.

Brandy Chicken

A variant on something the recipe book called Drunken Turkey.

Ingredients:
4 bone-in chicken breast halves
1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion, about 3 medium
1 cup brandy
1/2 cup beef broth
1 tsp chicken bouillon
5 garlic cloves, sliced
Optional: 1/2 tsp Penzey's Boquet Garni (sp?) herb mix, 6 whole allspice berries

Saute the onions in a wide Dutch oven or large soup pot over medium heat until beginning to soften.

Make room for the chicken breast to touch the bottom, pushing the onions aside, and lay the breasts skin-side down. Cook, occasionally pushing the chicken around in order to keep the onions from sticking, for 6 minutes or until the bottom of the pot is showing golden-brown bits stuck to it.

Add the spices and garlic. Combine the bouillon and the broth; pour over the chicken. Add the brandy.

Raise the heat to medium-high and boil, uncovered, until the steam no longer smells like alcohol. Then reduce the heat to medium-low and cover the pot. Simmer for 45 minutes or until the meat is tender and fully cooked, turning occasionally.

If the liquid is watery at this point, then you can remove the chicken and boil the liquid to make it more concentrated. It will never become thick like a gravy; it's more like a very rich and concentrated broth.

To serve, pull off the skin and cut the meat from the bones. Discard the bones and skin, and slice the meat. Plate the meat and spoon the pan sauce and the onions over it.

If you're worried about fat, you can peel the skin off BEFORE cooking the meat, in which case you need to be more careful about the meat burning. Alternatively, you can pour the pan sauce into a bowl and place it in the fridge until the fat rises to the top, then skim it off. That is more flavorful but also rather time consuming. The usual method of pouring off the fat doesn't work well because of the onion chunks.

Italian Cauliflower Casserole

From Cooking Light but edited to make it a more filling meal for active folks like us. To make it lighter you can reduce the amount of beef and/or cheese. To make it non-dairy just use Veggie Shreds for the cheese. You can leave off the breadcrumbs if anyone is gluten intolerant or can't have carbs.

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower, cut into bite sized florets
1 large yellow onion, minced
4 garlic cloves or equivalent garlic powder
1 tsp sriracha or ground red pepper to taste
1/4 tsp salt
1 pound lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce, ideally a garlicky or herby one
1/2 cup grated garlic and herb cheddar
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/3 cup bread crumbs

Steam the cauliflower 5 minutes or until it's crisp-tender. Drain and place in a large casserole dish. Sprinkle with cheddar.

Saute the onion in olive oil over medium heat for a couple minutes until it begins to soften. Then add the beef, stirring to crumble, and raise the heat to medium-high. Keep stirring and cooking the beef until it is all browned. Add the garlic, salt, and pepper while the beef cooks.

When the beef is done, stir in the tomato sauce and heat through. Pour the meat mixture over the cauliflower and stir to combine, gently so the cauliflower doesn't crumble.

Sprinkle the parmesan and bread crumbs over the top of the casserole. Broil for 4 minutes or until golden, and serve.

Chicken, Mushroom and Parsnip Soup

Cook Light's holiday edition has arrived in my mail and with it a new collection of recipes for my favorite food season. I tried this recipe tonight and it was so easy, tasty, and unique that I will be prepping it many times in the future, I suspect. As always, I didn't quite follow the recipe, so here is my version.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter or Smart Balance or olive oil (I used butter, recipe called for olive oil)
3/4 cup sliced shallots, about 2
3/4 cup sliced parsnips, about three or four
1 turnip about the size of a lemon, diced into 1/2 inch pieces
2 packages presliced white mushrooms, or 1 package mushrooms, sliced
1 minced garlic clove, or a scant teaspoon of minced garlic
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp minced dried porcini mushroom (optional but delicious)
The breast meat from a rotisserie chicken, chopped
Ground pepper to taste
Dash of ground chipotle pepper - if you don't have chipotle, use cayenne, or omit
1/4 tsp thyme leaves
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Melt the butter in a large pot, and sauté the mushrooms, parsnips, turnip and shallots until the mushroom liquid is mostly evaporated.

Add the remaining ingredients, and simmer about 10 minutes or until the turnips and parsnips are tender, stirring frequently.

You may have noticed that I didn't call for much broth. This is because I don't really make soups, as such, but rather make braised dishes. This necessitates more stirring to keep the cooking even, but it produces a more concentrated and delicious broth, and it is much easier to eat. I don't like to drink broth and so if there's too much of it, it just goes to waste. Unless you really love drinking the leftover broth in your soup, I suggest you try making your favorite soup recipes with as little as half the called-for amount of liquid. You may be surprised at how good it is!

Pumpkin Flan

There's a delicious recipe for butternut flan in Cookling Light, but it has serious flaws. Butternut squash, though delicious, is annoying to process, and the recipe produces a watery, bland result when followed exactly (reviewers agree).

I have a different version made with canned pumpkin. You might use fresh pumpkin, but I don't, not for pies: Fresh pumpkin is an unpredictable product, sometimes stringy and watery, sometimes picked unripe and allowed to turn orange off the vine, resulting in a flavorless result. But the biggest issue is the irregular moisture content.

Canned pumpkin has a good and predictable flavor, a low moisture content, and is very easy to use. The disadvantage is the slight "canned" flavor, which is not noticable in a highly spiced recipe, but unpleasant (to me) in a recipe where the flavor of the pumpkin is the dominant flavor, like pumpkin soup.

Thus, I use canned for pies and breads/muffins/cookies/etc., and fresh for soups and anytime I intend to use it as cubes instead of puree.

But all this is beside the point. The pumpkin flan is essentially a pumpkin pie, but instead of a crust, it has caramel flan sauce on the bottom! The filling can be made with Splenda (custards are one of the best times to use artificial sweeteners), and with no crust, there's no white flour or butter, so the end result consists mostly of wholesome milk, eggs, and pumpkin.

Filling:

1 can unsweetened plain pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1 5-ounce can evaporated milk
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup Splenda or equivalent
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves or allspice
3 eggs
1 egg yolk

Sauce:

1/3 cup sugar (raw sugar is okay)
1 tsp corn syrup (you can leave it out if you don't have any)
3 tbsp water

Coat 6 custard cups (ramekins) with butter or cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 325. Place 6 cups of water on the back burner and let it heat up while you're working.

Make the caramel sauce by putting the ingredients into a small pan, ideally stainless steel or heavy anodized aluminum, and stirring over medium heat until it melts together. Then leave it to boil, NOT stirring, until it turns golden. Then, immediately pour the hot sugar into the ramekins, working quickly because it will harden and become unusable if it cools. Fill the pot with water once you're done, and leave it to soak so it will be easy to clean later.

Combine the filling ingredients in a bowl and stir well. Don't mix air into it - that means be careful if you use a whisk, and don't use an electric mixer or blender. If you have an immersion blender, however, this is a great time to use it, provided you insert the blender carefully and keep it under the surface to avoid whipping air in. The reason to avoid stirring in air is because if you do, the filling will puff up and have an odd texture.

Place the ramekins onto a jelly-roll pan (baking sheet with a lip around the edges, as opposed to the kind that is totally flat) and pour the filling into them. Then place the pan into the oven. THEN, carefully pour the hot water you've been boiling into the pan, so that the ramekins are sitting in the hot water. Depending on the size of your pan, you might have to add more water; you want it to be almost full, such that the ramekins are sitting in water about halfway up their sides.

Bake for 25 minutes, then open the oven. Remove the ramekins carefully, putting them on a cooling rack, and leave the hot water in the oven until it's cooled off and is safe to remove. Don't try to take the whole pan out at once! It will spill and you might burn yourself!



Weird things I did and why:

1. Why some whole eggs and some yolks? An authentic flan is made with all yolks, but that's pretty rich and unhealthy, and then I never know what to do with the whites. But you can make it with 6 yolks instead if you like.

2. Can I make this non-dairy? Yes. Replace the evaporated milk with plain non-dairy liquid creamer, and replace the regular milk with your favorite milk substitute.


3. Why the immersion blender? I love my immersion blender. It is easy to use and easy to clean. It's good for custards because it will blend up the albumen (egg white stringy bits) so the custard has an even texture, without whipping air into it. Just slip the blender in carefully to avoid trapping air, and turn it on, keeping the head underwater. I also use this for mixing cheesecake batter for the same reason. Air bubbles are the enemy of cheesecake.

You can serve the flan by upending it over a plate, but I find that difficult, so I just eat it out of the ramekin. Yum!

Fun with Wheat Berries

I picked up a bag of wheat berries at the store the other day, for no reason other than that they looked cool. I like Grape Nuts Flakes, which are to wheat berries as instant oatmeal is to oat groats, so I thought they'd be tasty.

They were.

The particular brand I got was parboiled, so it only took 15 minutes to cook. I cooked it with a pinch of salt and then added maple syrup and melted Smart Balance, to excellent effect.

Delicious Basic Wheat Berries

1 Serving

1/4 cup wheat berries
2/3 cup water
Pinch salt
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 pat Smart Balance 50/50 Butter Blend (or regular smart balance, or butter)

Boil the berries and the water with the salt for 15 minutes, or until it's al dente - a firm exterior and tender interior. Drain and add the seasonings. Yay wheat berries!

They are also excellent leftovers, warmed in the microwave.

UPDATE October 6, 2010: New wheat berry idea :)

Harvest Wheat Berry Salad

1/2 cup wheat berries
2 cups water
Big pinch of salt
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tsp butter or Smart Balance
1 apple, peeled and chopped

Cook the wheat berries for 15 minutes, then drain. Add the butter and syrup and toss until the butter is melted. Then add the cranberries, walnuts and apple.

You can make this with pre-made wheat berries from the recipe above. You can also store this to eat later, but the apples will turn brown if you do, so either toss them with lemon juice first or add them right before serving. Makes a good afternoon snack.

Delicious Almond Milk Drink

I tried making homemade almond milk recently, grinding the almonds in my blender. It tasted great, but the texture was gritty and straining it through the cheesecloth was a pain.

So I tried commercial almond milk, specifically Almond Breeze (Blue Diamond's almondmilk). The flavor wasn't as good as my own, having an oddly metallic taste that I suspect comes from the vitamins and minerals added to make it a better substitute for cow's milk. But I've been enjoying playing with it nonetheless, and have settled on a favorite Indian-inspired recipe for it.

Makes 1 serving

1/2 cup Almond Breeze
1/3 cup whole milk
2 packets Ideal, Truvia, or whatever sweetener you like, or 1 1/2 tbsp Splenda or sugar
Honey to taste, optional
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
Dash cinnamon
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Just mix it all up in a cup and you're good to go. Indian food lore says the combination of almonds, milk and cardamom is an excellent restorative and cooling drink. I say it's really tasty.

White Chili with Chicken and Roasted Chile Peppers

Inspired by this recipe for white chili from Cooking Light, here is a subtle and unorthodox white chili whose richness comes from mashed cannellini beans and roasted chile peppers.

6 Anaheim chile peppers - Anaheim chiles are like long jalapenos, being about as long as your hand and solid green. Not to be confused with Italian peppers, which are lime green, or jalapenos, which are small (thumb-sized). If you can't find them, use 5 Poblano peppers plus 1 jalapeno.
2 chicken breast halves
1 1/2 cups chopped onion, about 2 medium or 1 large
1 tbsp minced garlic, about 3 cloves
1 large can cannellini beans or 2 small cans, drained and rinsed
1/3 tsp ground coriander
2 cups chicken broth (I use water + bouillon)
2 tbsp cornmeal
Greek yogurt, plain - use sour cream if you can't find it

Preheat the broiler. Wearing gloves to protect your hands, cut the tops off the peppers, then slice them in half and scoop out the seeds. Arrange the pepper halves on a baking sheet, skin side up, and press down on them with your hand to flatten. Broil for 5 minutes, then check on them. If the skins are blistered and blackened, take them out. Otherwise, give them another 2 minutes.

Place the peppers in a heat-safe bowl and cover with saran wrap or a plate.

Meanwhile, heat a large pot over medium-high heat and sauté the chicken breasts until well golden on both sides. Depending on your stove and the size of your pot, you might have to raise the heat to high in order to get them to turn golden. (Warning: DO NOT use a non-stick pan over high heat. It may release toxic fumes, and will damage the pan.) Remove chicken to a cutting board.

Add the onions and garlic and 2 tbsp water, and sauté until the pan is deglazed (all the brown bits are scraped up and the onions look brown as a result). Then add the broth and bring to a simmer.

Chop the chicken into bite-size pieces and add them as well.

Now take out the peppers, which should be cool enough to handle by this point. Wearing gloves, peel the skins away. They should come off easily. If they don't, then the pepper was undercooked - it doesn't matter, but next time you'll know to cook them a little longer. Throw the peel away and chop the peppers. Add them to the pot.

Put 1/3 of the beans on the cutting board and smash them with the flat of your knife, or a large spoon. Then add the beans to the pot along with the coriander and stir well.

Simmer until the onions are cooked and tender, about 5 minutes. Then stir in the cornmeal, stirring until it thickens.

Serve with the yogurt on top.

Very Best Pie Crust, Very Favorite Apple Pie

Well, it's that time of year again. Specifically, it's suddenly okay to use an entire stick of butter for anything, when during the other three seasons such a thing would be unthinkable. My favorite use for butter is pie crust, and I have a favorite pie crust recipe.

In my family, only the grandmother makes pie. She is Pie Empress, Pie Matriarch, Bringer Of All Things Pie, and final word on pie-related matters. My father learned to make pie by watching her, but could not practice while at home because GOD FORBID a MAN make pie in Her Kitchen. As a result, Pie Making was a holy and elite art.

When I was old enough to help in the kitchen, I was taught to make pie crust. This was a mystic ritual involving a great deal of care and attention, careful rolling, patching of holes to create a perfectly round disc of dough and plenty of sharp commands to "Be careful! You'll ruin it!" Still, nobody but my granmother would dare bring a pie to Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter. (No other holidays or gatherings had pie.) Even so, there was one Thanksgiving when there were more pies than people. It was a good year. Thanks was assuredly given.

Then I went away to college. I had my own kitchen. Autumn happened. I made a pie, with a recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

It was awful. It took hours, it was exhausting, I was terrified I would ruin it and it did, in fact, come out tough. So I stuck to pumpkin pie, where the crust doesn't much matter, for years.

Until one day I vowed I would break FREE of Pie Tyranny!

I went to the trusty old Internet. I asked Google to find me a recipe for pie crust that would taste good and be easy. And I discovered Kitchen Parade's Flaky Tender Pie Crust. A large part of the secret, she said, was to use a metric butt-ton of butter and/or shortening. The other half of the secret was to not give a damn about how it looked - just roll that sucker out every which way and slap it on your pie, nobody will care as long as it's delicious and IT WILL BE as long as you don't fuss about it. And add enough butter.

Sounds good to me. I tried it.

It was amazing.

I tried it a couple more times, just to see. It was amazing then, too. Now I have a new pie crust recipe, my dirty little secret because it uses almost twice as much butter and four times as much sugar as the family recipe.

Recently, a family tragedy tore us apart. My faction, to which I belonged by default since I wasn't personally involved in the disagreement (other than to occasionally comment on how crass it was to squabble over a dead man's meager will), was facing the smallest Christmas in my memory. That's myself, my husband, my dad, his wife, her two kids, my uncle John, his wife, and their two kids. And no Grandma.

No pies.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Pearl, my dad's wife, rose to the occasion marvelously. She was the hostess, and created pies for us and a special gluten-free pie for my dad - he had been reduced to eating the fillings out of Grandma's pies after he developed a gluten intolerance (that's no way to live). Considering Pearl had only been in America for, I think, six years at that point, having grown up in the sadly pieless Philippines, she did a great job and we were all delighted with her pumpkin and cherry pies.

I brought an apple pie.

I was terrified that Grandma or Tia would forgive us and come to Christmas anyway, which was really not in the Christmas spirit and did not do either of them justice because they've always been kind to me. But I was afraid I'd hurt their feelings by daring to bring my non-standard pie. Not only was the crust different, but I have a favorite apple and spice blend that was also a bit of a deviation. AND, I made the filling with Splenda, not sugar.

There weren't any leftovers.

I won't try to reproduce the crust recipe here. You really should go to Kitchen Parade and read it there. The instructions are wonderfully precise and easy to follow, and you can't go wrong with them. But I will tell you my opinion on the filling.

6 apples. The variety of apples makes a huge, huge difference. Always use more than one kind of apple; they are more than the sum of their parts. And always use half Cortland apples. If you can't get Cortlands, try Braeburn. The other half can be any kind, but I prefer old-fashioned, full-flavored varieties that are often overlooked because they aren't as juicy or sweet or crisp as new ones. But this is a pie! They don't have to be sweet or crisp, they only have to be flavorful.

3/4 cup Splenda, a little more if you use very sour apples

3 tbsp cornstarch

Spices:
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg

1 tbsp lemon juice

Peel and slice the apples.

Mix the Splenda, cornstarch, and spices in a bowl, then sprinkle over the apples. Toss to coat.

Add the lemon juice and toss to coat.

Ta-da!

Another thing I like to do: I make mini-pies, using custard cups, with only a top crust. They bake for 40 minutes at 375 and are perfect for a single serving. They can be frozen raw and baked whenever you want a fresh pie, without the temptation of a whole pie sitting in the fridge.

Korean Meatballs

Based on this recipe from Cooking Light, these meatballs are easy, fast, and delicious. I'm a big fan of the Korean sweet-and-garlicky meat style, but find it difficult to incorporate into everyday meals, so this was pretty awesome. I've made a few changes to make the recipe even easier and faster.

Ingredients:
1 package ground meat, any kind will do. About a pound or a pound and a half.
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp molasses
1 tsp garlic powder
3 tbsp tamari

Mix with a spoon, and then form into meatballs with your gloved hands while a nonstick pan heats over medium-high heat. Also be heating the oven to 375.

Form the meatballs, about the size of ping-pong balls. Add a teaspoon of peanut oil or canola oil to the pan, and add the meatballs. Press down on them gently to flatten a little bit. That's so they cook more evenly and don't stick.

Cook for 3 minutes on each side, long enough to brown. Then, move to the oven and cook for 5 minutes or until done. Serve with Sriracha (chile paste with garlic).

Changes I made, and why:
1. MEAT: Recipe calls for grinding chicken breast in the food processor, and I was like WHAAA? No way! So I used ground turkey, but I think ground beef or pork would also be very good, and more authentic, too.

2. Sugar and molasses: You could also use 3 tbsp brown sugar, but I prefer to use raw sugar and then added the molasses for moisture and flavor. It's just a personal preference.

3. Garlic powder: Recipe called for tons of chopped garlic. I dislike chopping garlic, and anyway the garlic wouldn't have integrated very well into the meat, so I chose to use garlic powder for its smooth, fine texture and ease of use.

4. Tamari: Recipe called for salt + low-sodium soy sauce. That's just silly. Tamari has a better flavor than soy sauce, so if we're going to be adding salt anyway, we might as well use the better-tasting Tamari. It's a good idea to keep low-sodium soy sauce on hand anyway, though, because when making sauces that recipe volume, it's better to use the low-sodium sauce instead or it will become too salty.

5. Flattening the meatballs: Rolling meatballs around to brown them always causes them to fall apart, at least for me. Flattening them means they can be cooked like mini hamburger patties. they hold their shape, are easy to flip, and don't stick. The only sacrifice is an oblong meatball instead of a spherical one, which doesn't bother me.

Enjoy!

Bouillon is Better than Broth

Because frankly, I have better things to do with my time than boil soup stock, and better things to do with my money than buy canned broth. Not to mention the fact that homemade broth ruins all those vegetables, and you have to throw them away. That, plus the short shelf life, is a recipe (heh heh) for waste.

I hate waste. Can you tell? Wasted time, wasted money, wasted ingredients. Hate, hate, hate.

A good quality bouillon tastes as good as canned broth (to me), at a fraction of the price AND a fraction of the pantry space. When your kitchen is as small as mine (remember your college dorm room? About 1/4 that size), pantry space is at a premium.

Also, and people don't often realize this, bouillon can be mixed mixed to any strength. Ordinary recipes call for broth to be boiled down to make it stronger (a waste of time!), but with bouillon, you can skip that step and just mix the broth the strength you want it! Example: Recipe calls for 2 cups of broth to be boiled down to 1 cup. Instead, add 1 cup water and 2 cups' worth of bouillon.

Furthermore, bouillon can be mixed with anything, not just water. When a recipe calls for, say, a cup of half-and-half (for creaminess) and a cup of broth (for flavor), you can instead mix the bouillon into TWO cups of 2% milk, and the result is not only better-tasting, but healthier, too. (I don't like wasting calories, either. If I'm going to have cream, it's going to be ICE cream, not chowder.)

I use this brand, which is ironically named Better Than Bouillon.

Here is a recipe to get you started thinking creatively about bouillon.

Swedish-Style Gravy - Great on IKEA's Swedish meatballs and way less fatty than their own gravy!

2 cups milk
1/4 cup flour
2 tsp Better than Bouillon beef flavor
1 tbsp butter

Whisk the flour into cold milk. Then heat over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. When it's warm, add the bouillon. When it bubbles, cook and stir for another 20 seconds, then remove from heat and drop in the butter. Whisk vigorously until the butter melts.

Incidentally: Adding cold butter to finished sauces is called "mounting" the sauce, which I think is hilarious. I do this instead of making a roux because it imparts the buttery flavor with less butter. A roux would have required at least twice as much butter, maybe more. Authentic French cooking uses this method to add MORE butter, essentially over-saturating the sauce with butter to make it hold more than it could have otherwise by emulsifying it. Oh, those crazy French!

Enjoy!

Red Wine Turkey Stew and Dumplings

This recipe is slightly adapted from "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes For Two," by Beth Hensperger. The cookbook was given to me by my very kind grandmother; unfortunately, I never cook for two - I cook for four, and use the leftovers as lunch the next day. I also don't like to have half a thing of whatever ingredient sitting around going bad, and I always like to put more veggies into my stews so I don't have to prepare a separate vegetable dish.

So, I am always having to upsize the recipes in this book, and also my slow cooker is annoying and I often prefer to use the stove. Here is the stovetop made-for-awesome-leftovers version of this delicious and economical stew.

Ingredients:

1 package turkey tenderloin (2 tenderloins), cut into bite size chunks
Oil for the pan
2 regular yellow onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 carrots, chopped
6 parsnips, chopped
1 russet potato, peeled and cubed
1 1/2 cups red wine (since the wine makes up most of the broth, use a bottled wine from the liquor store, not salted cooking wine)
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme and 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (easy if you make herb ice cubes!)
1 package white mushrooms, quartered
Water
Beef bouillon

Heat a dutch oven or stew pot over medium-high heat and sear the turkey in it. Remove the turkey to a plate and saute the onions and garlic until the garlic begins to soften, about 4 minutes. Add the wine, scraping to loosen browned bits. Add the remaining vegetables (except the mushrooms) and bring to a boil.

Add enough water to bring the water level up to about 1 inch from the tops of the food - this means that there is still lots of veggies sticking up like icebergs out of the stew. That's okay. Now stir in enough bouillon to make the broth - for me, that's usually 1 tsp. Reduce heat and simmer about 1 1/2 hours.

Technically, you could actually skip the simmering stage, since turkey tenderloin is, well, tender. But simmering makes a better broth.

After the simmering is over, prepare the dumplings. You can make a half-batch of your favorite dumpling recipe, or you can use mine:

1/3 cup cake flour (if you don't have cake flour, use 1/4 cup white flour and 2 tablespoons cornstarch)
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour (if you don't have it, use regular white flour)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda (important!)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar (less important)
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter
1/3 cup milk or buttermilk

Mix the dry ingredients together with a whisk, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or butter knife until the pieces are like grains of rice. Then add the milk, stirring until just blended - don't stir too much.

Turn the stew to HIGH and, as soon as it's bubbling, drop the dumpling batter onto the surface, trying to make them land on solids instead of sitting in the broth. This should make 6 dumplings.

Cover and steam for 10 minutes. Then serve the stew right away, while the dumplings are fresh!

Chicken Pot Pie, better than store-bought

I have been on a quest for chicken pot pie for as long as I've been cooking, and it's always elusive. Until now. A big part of the secret is the little white onions, so be sure not to substitute them!

Filling:

1 cup frozen peas
4 carrots or about enough to make 3/4 cup when chopped
1 cup little white boiling onions, about 6 - golf-ball-sized ones are okay - cut in half, no need to peel
1/2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1/4 tsp chopped fresh sage
1 cup milk
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp chicken bouillon (enough to make 1 cup of broth)
Ground pepper to taste
Breast meat from 1 rotisserie chicken, chopped

Topping:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cups cornstarch (that combo means the health of the whole wheat plus the lightness of the cornstarch)
1 stick butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cream or tartar
1/2 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup milk

Prep:

Oven to 450. Place 2 cups of water in a small pot to boil. Drop in the onions.

Make the topping first. Combine the dry ingredients and then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or two butter knives, whichever you have, until it's crumbles with a few bits the size of peas (it's all about peas tonight, folks). Then add the milk, stir just until a dough forms. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead 10 times.

Roll out into the right shape to fit your casserole or pie plate that you plan to use. Turn the dish upside-down on top of it and trim it to fit - you want it pretty exact. Then put the crust on a cookie sheet, and put the cookie sheet in the oven to bake. Set the timer for 14 minutes.

By now the water is boiling, so put the peas in while you chop the carrots - try to get the pieces not much bigger than the peas. After four minutes, scoop the peas and onions out with a slotted spoon and drop in the carrots. Put the peas into the casserole dish.

While the carrots cook (set a timer for 8 minutes), peel and chop the onions. They don't need to be chopped very small. The reason you cook them first is because otherwise the peels are annoying to remove. Also chop the chicken and put it in the casserole dish.

Put the chopped onions into a skillet with the milk, bouillon, and flour. Whisk the flour until smooth and turn on the heat. Whisk constantly while it warms up.

By now the crust is probably ready to check and the carrots are probably ready, too. If the crust is golden, remove it and set it aside; otherwise, give it another 2 minutes. Put the carrots into the casserole dish, and add 2/3 cup of the cooking water (which is now a tasty broth) to the milk mixture in the skillet.

When the milk mixture thickens and bubbles, remove it from the heat and pour it into the casserole dish. Add the herbs. By now, all the filling ingredients should be in the casserole dish. Just mix them together.

Gently remove the crust from the baking sheet and place on top of the pie.

You're done!

Here's the "why" for some of the weird things I did in this recipe:

Why the annoying little onions? No idea, but their flavor is necessary. Yellow or large white onions just don't cut it. Sorry! Boiling them first makes it easier, and they don't sting your eyes either.

Why bake the crust separately? Maybe this is just me, but I can't ever keep the filling from bubbling over the crust and making it soggy if I bake the crust on top of the pie. Also, this way shaves a good 15 minutes off the prep time.

Why THIS crust and not a pie crust? It's healthier this way. Less butter, but still homey. It's a biscuit recipe. You could use Bisquick or even refrigerated biscuit dough if you like.

Why bouillon and not broth? Because this way you can use milk as some of the liquid, lending creaminess and richness to the gravy without all the added fat that would come from the butter and/or cream one would normally have to use to get that same effect.

Why all the micro-managing? I don't need you to tell me how to chop my own dam carrots! Because if you do it just like I say, you can have homemade chicken pot pie on the table in half an hour. That's a pretty impressive achievement. But by all means, feel free to prepare it in whatever order you prefer.

Why rotisserie chicken? Because it is delicious.

Like I said, this is the result of a lot of trial and error. To my taste it is a damned near perfect (pardon my French) combination of authentic and delicious homestyle flavor together with modern healthful cooking. The only problem is the butter. You could use vegetable shortening, but you'd have to add more salt. You can also cut the biscuit recipe in half and have a thinner crust.