never enough pretzels

Awhile ago I made pretzels. Then...I made them again.





And don't forget the soundtrack:

All Tied Up in Knots

What's cool about cooking is that you can make-up entire recipes on a whim just because you feel like eating all of your favorite ingredients in one dish. Or -- as is the case with stuffed pretzels -- in one bite. In no small part inspired by the opening of the East Village pretzel shop Sigmund (apparently, not worth it, though, thanks for the forewarning Alex), these tiny pretzel bites are great because the recipe warns you "cheese may ooze" during the baking process. Uhhh.... yes please.



Cheddar and Green Apple Pretzel Bites (adapted from Gourmet)

You Will Need:

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon packed light brown sugar, divided
1/4 cup warm water (110–115ºF)
1 cup warm milk (110–115ºF)
2 1/2 to 3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup finely chopped Granny Smith green apple, divided
1/3 cup finely chopped sharp Cheddar, divided
6 cups water
4 teaspoons baking soda

To Make:

Stir together yeast, 1 tsp brown sugar, and warm water in a large bowl and let stand until foamy, 5 to 8 minutes. (If mixture doesn’t foam, start over with new yeast.) In a separate bowl, stir remaining 2 Tbsp brown sugar into warm milk until dissolved.
Add 2 1/2 cups flour and milk mixture to yeast mixture and stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until a soft dough forms, adding up to 1/2 cup additional flour, a little at a time, if necessary. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead a few times to form a smooth ball. Transfer to a clean bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled and bubbles appear on surface, about 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400ºF with rack in upper and lower thirds. Line two 4-sided sheet pans with parchment paper.
Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and cut into 4 equal pieces. Lightly dust your hands with flour, then gently roll and stretch 1 piece of dough to form a 12-inch-long rope. Flatten dough and arrange so a long side is nearest you, then roll out to a roughly 12- by 4-inch rectangle with a lightly floured rolling pin. Gently press one fourth of apples and cheese into lower third of rectangle, leaving a 1/2-inch border along bottom edge. Stretch bottom edge of dough up over filling and press tightly to seal, then roll up as tightly as possible to form a rope. Cut rope into 12 pieces and transfer to a sheet pan. Make 3 more ropes with remaining dough, ham, and cheese and cut into pieces, transferring to sheet pans. Let rest at room temperature, uncovered, 30 minutes (dough will rise slightly).

Bring water (6 cups) to a boil in a 4- to 5-qt saucepan. Reduce heat and stir in baking soda. Cook pretzel bites in batches in gently simmering water, turning once, until slightly puffed, about 20 seconds. Transfer with a slotted spoon to sheet pans.
Bake until puffed and golden-brown, about 15 minutes (cheese may ooze slightly).

Brush warm pretzel bites with butter and sprinkle with pretzel salt. Serve warm or at room temperature with jalapeño mustard for dipping.

absolute favorites: 1:41 pm Thursday afternoon edition

The new Milk Made flavor: Double Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookie. Described as "fair trade dark chocolate ice cream with chocolate shavings and underbaked peanut butter cookie." Use of the phrase "underbaked" in this context makes my knees tremble.



Vegan chili with grilled tofu hunks from Brooklyn Label. I could care less about my meat and dairy content, but this is a.) served in a huge coffee mug (I've previously discussed my love for this) and b.) totally effin' delicious.

Sigh! Fall....

boozie pie, or: Siri gets us drunk on Ben's Chest

"You have pie on your face," Siri says when I tell her that I Iove her pie. Of course I have pie on my face. I'm drunk. The pie is full of bourbon. But you'd be a fool to turn down a piece of pie from Siri. Even one booby-trapped with hard liquor, three eggs, and a bath of heavy cream. Siri makes the best pie I've ever had in the history of the world. Not just because she a.) serves it immediately following an impeccably prepared dinner of goat-cheese-squash-lasagna with salad b.) makes the crust from scratch and c.) whips the cream while the pie is still cooling, but because she somehow infuses everything she makes with that special feeling of "home-ness" which makes home-cooking so ... well ... exactly what it sounds like.

FYI, Epicurious has provided me with the following pertinent information on this particular recipe: "Pumpkin pies have long been favored in New England; there is a recipe for a "pompkin" pie in Amelia Simmons's 1796 American Cookery. New England colonists, in spite of their puritanical reputation, were known to enjoy a tot of rum now and then. And if the liquor was hidden in a pie, even the ladies were able to indulge."

1796, eh? Old chum! Here's one for the ladies. And Happy Halloween!


(Dinner, pre-pie)

Siri's Pompkin Boozie-Pie c/o Epicurious

Crust
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 tablespoons chilled vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 to 4 tablespoons ice water

Filling
1 16-ounce can solid pack pumpkin
1/2 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground mace
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3 large eggs
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup dark rum
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
print a shopping list for this recipe



To Make:

Crust:
Mix flour and salt in processor. Add butter and shortening; process until mixture resembles coarse meal. With machine running, add ice water 1 tablespoonful at a time and process until moist clumps form. Gather into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap in plastic; chill 30 minutes. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.)





Roll out pastry on lightly floured surface to 13-inch round. Transfer pastry to 10-inch-diameter glass pie dish. Fold edge under and crimp. Pierce pastry all over with fork. Freeze pastry 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450°F. Bake crust until pale golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F.


Filling:

Whisk first 10 ingredients in large bowl until smooth. Whisk in all remaining ingredients. Pour filling into crust.

Bake pie 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325°F. Bake until filling no longer moves in center when dish is shaken, about 30 minutes longer. Transfer pie to rack and cool completely. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Bring to room temperature before serving.)

wish-list things

NPR's All Cakes Considered: A Year's Worth of Weekly Recipes Tasted, Tested, and Approved by the Staff of All Things Considered, by Melissa Gray.




"I love watching our staff — all of these incredibly competent, brilliant people — taken back to being like 8 years old, and having that little joy: 'Oh, there's cake!' " Gray says. 'I love that because it makes you remember that people at their core are still human beings.'"

My favorite part is when she describes staff preferences. It seems so strangely intimate; all these radio personalities that I've been pleasantly estranged from as physical beings my entire life...suddenly laid bare by the revelation of their favorite sweets. What a thing!

"'Michele Norris is very easy to please,' Gray says, 'but she does not eat coconut. Robert Siegel claims he does not eat cake, Gray says, but she says she has seen him take cookies. Melissa Block likes fried pie, brown sugar pound cake and bittersweet chocolate frosted layer cake. Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep is a butterscotch guy. Film critic Bob Mondello loves coconut cake, and news analyst Dan Schorr is partial to frosting.'"

and then, the best part:

"'He likes cake as a delivery system for frosting,' Gray says."

This is exactly how I feel about peanut butter. As far as I'm concerned, essentially anything will serve as a plausible vehicle for peanut butter.

Missy G's Sweet Potato Poundcake recipe here.

the sweetest thing

"On the bus radio, 'Fifty ways to leave your lover alone'/I laughed at the irony/But life is stupid, the irony all lost on me/It got lost on me."

I don't know why hand-crafting snack foods is so endlessly amusing to me. At the end of the world you will find me in the kitchen, humming quietly to myself while I fold sheets of yeasty dough into pretzel nuggets and mold shimmering streams of molten chocolate into perfectly coiffed cups of peanut butter.



Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

You Will Need:

1 brick of chocolate (dark or milk - your choice)
1 jar of peanut butter (i prefer crunchy)
Powdered sugar
Various muffin cups

To Make:

1. Dump the peanut butter jar into a large mixing bowl and whip with powdered sugar until it lightens in color and becomes sweet to the taste.
2. Separate and set out muffin cups on a plate
3. Slow melt chocolate by setting a large mixing bowl on a pot with an inch or two of boiling water at the bottom. Stir frequently until consistency is smooth and creamy.
4. Using a spoon, dollop chocolate into the bottom of each muffin cup and spread it - creating a base. Chill for 15-20 minutes until this base is firm.
5. Spoon peanut butter onto chocolate base and spread. Pour molten chocolate over the top of the peanut butter until it is fully encased.
6. Let chill in refrigerator.
















*final product shots thanks to friend Ringo.

headlines

San Francisco's food-recycling law is now official. Read here, listen here. Recycled output from home and businesses has already jumped to 500 tons.

Pretty great!