Tannenbaum & Poinsettia

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bread, Christmas, coffee cakes, food photography, poinsettia coffee cakes, recipes, tannenbaum coffee cakes

These were all baked yesterday, and were served nicely on the big Christmas cookie platter. Maybe that was what threw everybody off. The platter usually makes it out of the cabinet only once a year, just for offering cookies to Santa. I saw this morning that nobody had touched any of the coffee cakes. I asked why.

Hubby: “The kids were asking to have some, but I said wait and ask Mom. I thought you were saving them for Christmas or something.”

Me: “Don’t be silly! You don’t wait til Christmas to start enjoying all the Christmas songs and lights, do you?”

Hubby looked at me with that you-know-what-I-mean look. I looked at him with that right-back-at-ya look. We know each other so well, we need only looks to communicate.

He meant well, my hubby. Around this time, there are usually parties to go to, gifts to exchange, Christmas treats to send to the neighbors, etc. So, it was only natural that he assumed the tannenbaum and poinsettia coffee cakes were made for one of those occasions. But my poor kids, denied of their daily bread!

Tannenbaum Coffee Cakes

• Difficulty: Moderate
• Print

The dough
5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2 pkg active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs

The filling for the Tannenbaum
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 tbsp cinnamon

1. In a large bowl, combine 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar, salt and yeast; blend well.
2. In medium saucepan, heat 1 1/2 cups milk and 1/2 cup butter until very warm (120 to 130° F).
3. Add warm liquid and eggs to flour mixture. Blend at low-speed, with a hand-held mixer, until moistened; beat 3 minutes at medium speed.
4. By hand, stir in an additional 2 to 2 1/2 cups flour to form a stiff dough.
5. On floured surface, knead in 1 to 1 1/2 cups flour until dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Alternately, use a stand mixer to knead the dough, adding 1 cup of flour at a time, until dough cleans sides of bowl.

6. Place dough in greased bowl; cover loosely with plastic wrap and cloth towel. Let rise in warm place (80 to 85° F) until light and doubles in size, about 1 to 1 1/4 hours.
7. Generously grease 2 15x10x1 inch baking pans. Punch down dough several times to remove all air bubbles. Divide dough into 2 parts.
8. On lightly floured surface, roll one part into a triangle with two 15-inch sides and a 12-inch base. Brush with 1 tbsp of the melted butter. Or make smaller tannenbaums.
9. In a small bowl, combine 2 tbsp melted butter, 1 cup sugar, nuts and cinnamon; mix well. Sprinkle 1/2 of filling evenly over dough.
10. To shape tree, starting at top point of dough triangle, fold 15-inch sides to meet in center, pressing all seams to seal. Invert, seam side down onto greased pan. With scissors or sharp knife, make 12 slits about 1 inch apart along each long outside edge of tree, cutting to within 1/2 inch of center of dough. Starting at bottom of tree, twist each strip so cut side is up to show filling. Cover, let rise in warm place until light and doubled in size, about 30-40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.

11. Heat oven to 350° F. Uncover dough. Bake 20-30 minutes or until golden brown, for 15×12 inch cakes. Adjust time accordingly if you make smaller cakes. (15 minutes for these 7×3 cakes).
12. Cool 5 minutes; remove from pans. Cool on wire racks. In small bowl, blend powdered sugar and enough milk for desired drizzling consistency. Drizzle over coffee cakes. Garnish with red & green holiday chocolate morsels.

Poinsettia Coffee Cakes

• Difficulty: Moderate
• Print

The dough
Follow the recipe from the Tannebaum cakes.

Cranberry sauce filling
1 cup fresh cranberries
Zest from 1 tangerine (or orange, about 2 tsp)
Juice from 1 tangerine (or orange, about 1/4 cup)
3 tbsp agave nectar or sugar (This produces a tart sauce. You can add more sugar, if you prefer.)

1. Bring cranberries, tangerine/orange juice, 1 tsp of zest, sugar to a boil, until cranberries start to pop.
2. Smash some of the cranberries with the back of the spoon.
3. Let sauce cool completely before using.

To make the poinsettias
1. Flatten and roll dough into a rectangle, spread filling over it, then roll up dough, Swiss-roll cake fashion.
2. Cut into 10-12 slices. It’s just like making cinnamon rolls. Arrange 5 to 6 slices in a circle. The centers were filled with scraps of dough rolled into small balls.

3. Bake as the Tannenbaums. Once they are cool, decorate with sugar glaze and more tangerine/orange zest.

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Pumpkin, or is it Pumpcan?

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chia seeds, food photography, food styling, muffins, pull-apart bread, pumpkin, pumpkin recipes

Poor pumpkins! They’re completely ignored in this house, rarely making it into the kitchen, let alone be turned into nourishing meals. They decorate the front stoop, get turned into jack-o’-lanterns, propped on a table in a centerpiece, then left alone to rot and thrown in the compost bin. And to think they’re a superfood!

Their days of being insignificant are over from now on, starting from today. I’m set for a cooking marathon, with pumpkins as the star ingredient. I have my comfy fluffy slippers on, and I’m not afraid to take a stand (Sorry Eminem, couldn’t resist). I can stay all day on my feet, cooking. And the family had better eat what I cook.

Or at least, eat half of it. A couple of friends have invited me over for dinner/sleepover to celebrate my birthday (it’s already past). It’ll be a potluck for everyone else, except the birthday girl. The instruction was explicit. I was to bring nothing. But did I listen? Of course not. I never go to a potluck empty-handed, and I’m not about to start now. Some of these goodies are just too yummy not to share, anyway. Who hoards yummy food to themselves? Certainly not me. I’m a sharer, not a hoarder. 🙂

Well, first let me tell you what happened. I roasted a whole fresh pumpkin, the kind sold as pie pumpkin, not the kind you use as decorations. I’m assuming there’s a difference, since the pie pumpkin kind costs more.

I was going to use fresh pumpkins in my recipes, but when I tasted the roasted pumpkin, I thought it was…uh…horrible! Not sweet at all, and slightly bitter. Apparently, I can’t pick the right pumpkin, just like I can’t pick a watermelon. I should stick to canned pumpkin and cut-up watermelon. So, the following 2 recipes use canned pumpkin, instead.

Pumpkin & Chia Seeds Muffins
I read this recipe on Oprah.com, and thought it sounded healthful and easy. I’ve been trying to incorporate chia seeds into my diet. Except it was odd that it also listed “salt & pepper to taste”. And 2 cups (16 oz) of pumpkin for 1 1/2 cups of flour? Does that sound right to you? Looks to me someone didn’t edit the recipe. Should I trust it? I decided I couldn’t, so I tweaked it and came up with a recipe of my own. But the inspiration did come from Oprah.

1 1/2 cups flour (all-purpose, whole wheat, or a mix of both)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 tbsp hemp hearts
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg (I mean it; it’s very strong!)
Pinch of salt
1 cup (8 oz) can pumpkin
2 eggs
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 water
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup mini chocolate morsels, plus 2 tbsp for sprinkling

1. Pre-heat oven to 350° F.
2. Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix all wet ingredients.
3. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, fold in chocolate morsels as well.
4. Spoon into oven-safe paper baking pans or paper-lined muffin tins. Sprinkle more chocolate morsels.
5. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean. You can drizzle chocolate ganache on top of muffins, if you like.

When you eat one of these, remember all the healthful ingredients that went into it and the unhealthful ones that didn’t. You’ll be surprised how good it really is!

Pumpkin Pull-Apart Bread
Gerard from Tortillas and Bread always comes up with bread recipes that sound too good not to try. Well, Gerard, I finally made one your breads. I just shaped it differently, that’s all. And I drizzled caramel sauce on it instead of piloncillo sauce.

The recipe for the bread is here, and the caramel sauce here.

Here’s how I shaped my pull-apart bread:

First, I rolled the dough into a rectangle, brushed on the melted butter, sprinkled the cinnamon sugar mix, then cut the rectangle into several strips.

Then, I stacked up the strips, and cut the stack into squares. The whole thing was then stacked again into a tower, and the tower was then placed sideways in a loaf bread pan.

The recipe makes 2 loaves, by the way. And don’t forget to check on the bread after it’s been in the oven for 20 minutes. If the top was turning too brown too soon, cover it loosely with aluminum foil.

Pumpkin Pull-Apart Bread

What happened to the roasted fresh pumpkin, you ask? It’s been turned into this.

Recipe will have to wait. I have a potluck dinner to go to, right now. But I do have something pretty for you to look at.

Fall Centerpiece, using pumpkins

Clever Chicks Blog Hop #60
Saturday Sparks Link Party 37

A Pomegranate Tree Inside of Me

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food photography, pomegranate, pomegranates, recipe, roasted cornish hens

When I was a child, I had a nanny who told me that if I ever swallowed fruit seeds, I would sprout trees out of my belly button. She showed me proof. She had a huge scar on her belly button, she said was from the surgery to uproot her tree.

This was a scary thought for a little girl, of course. But even as I was entering adulthood, I always made sure I never accidentally swallowed any seed of any kind. Not because I still believed in my nanny’s tall tale, but because I didn’t want to have a surgery. Needles scared me to death.

So, I never swallowed pomegranate seeds. I always sucked on the arils and spat out the seeds. Which made the eating of fresh pomegranates a chore. Which resulted in the annual piling up of dried-up pomegranates in the fruit bowl, because invariably I got tired of the sucking and the spitting. But I could never resist buying these pomegranates every time I saw them.

Like today at the market. I went there to get other things, but who can pass piles of pomegranates without a second look, and without picking them up? These are the fruits of the ancient gods and goddesses, after all. Why, Persephone survived just by eating several pomegranate seeds while being captive in the underworld.

The question now is what to do with them? I can always suck and spit, as usual. But I should do better than that. These pomegranates deserve a significant spot on the dinner table. They’ve earned it, having been around since ancient times.

Did you know they’re mentioned in the Bible, the Qur’an, and the Talmud? The ancient civilizations of China and Egypt revered them. I’m finally catching on. Here’s dinner tonight; it’s all about pomegranates.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry…

Roasted Cornish Hens in Pomegranate Sauce
2 Cornish Hens
Pomegranate Sauce (Recipe follows)
Pomegranate seeds (arils) for garnish

For the marinade:
3 tbsp pomegranate juice
2 tbsp olive oil
Zest of 1 lemon, grated finely (a microplane is the best tool for this)
Juice of 1/2 lemon (about 2 tbsp.)
Salt & pepper

1. Mix all the marinade ingredients in a large ziploc bag, and marinate hens in it for at least 2 hours.
2. Drain hens, discard marinade.
3. In a large skillet, brown hens with a little bit of olive oil. Transfer to a roasting pan.
4. Roast in a 350° F oven, for about 45-60 minutes, depending on the size of the hens. Mine were small; they needed only 45 minutes.
5. Baste with Pomegranate Sauce that has been mixed with olive oil, during the last 15 minutes of roasting time.
6. Drizzle sauce over hens before serving. Sprinkle pomegranate seeds for garnish.

Pomegranate Sauce
1 cup pomegranate juice (fresh is best, otherwise use unsweetened bottled juice)
Juice from half a lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 cardamom pods, smashed
1 cinnamon stick or 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp sugar

1. Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil until completely soft.
2. Add cardamom and cinnamon, stir to distribute.
3. Add lemon juice, pomegranate juice, and sugar. Bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat to simmer, and cook until sauce is thickened and is reduced to about 1/2 cup.  

– Use about 1 tbsp of this sauce, mixed with 1 tbsp of olive oil, to baste Cornish hens during the last 15 minutes of roasting.

– Save 2 tbsp of this sauce for the salad.

– To the rest of the sauce, add 1/2 cup of pomegranate seeds. Add 1 or 2 tbsp of pan drippings to this, mix, heat briefly, then drizzle over hens before serving.

Pomegranate Tomato Salad

2 cups of a mix of red & yellow cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1/2 red onion, diced
1 small bell/sweet pepper, diced
1 small cucumber, diced
Some parsley & mint, finely chopped

For the dressing:
2 tbsp pomegranate sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground cumin
Salt & pepper

Toss everything together.

Pomegranate Carrot Rice
I followed Fae’s recipe for Carrot Rice to make this. The only thing I did differently was to add toasted pistachios and pomegranate seeds. I also used pomegranate juice-infused dried cranberries.

There is not going to be any sucking and spitting at the dinner table tonight. These pomegranate seeds are meant to be crunched and eaten entire.

This will be the first time I’ll swallow a pomegranate seed. Hard to tell if I will ever sprout a tree. I’m a gardener, so I know generally how long these seeds take to germinate. A pomegranate seed can very well start sprouting in my tummy right after dinner tonight. Check up on me in a week or two, to see if it’ll make its way into my belly button.

***

First Breath

“Get rid of it!” He said gruffly, looking at her growing waistline. He meant the baby, he didn’t want it. He already had 5 children, from 2 previous marriages. Ni was half his age when she married him, barely out of her teenage years. Her father had arranged the marriage before he died, a common practice in the village she came from. Atim had worked with her father as farm hands.

“He is a good man, Ni,” her father had told her. “Just unlucky, both wives died so young. He’ll treat you well. I’ve seen him around his mother; he treats her with respect. That’s how a man should regard his mother.”

She had nothing to say. It wasn’t her place to disobey. Besides, Atim had paid for her hand. There was a sum of money and a heifer that a mutual friend had delivered to her parents’ home. The groom-to-be should never have to do the delivery on his own, if he were to follow proper etiquette. Her father was pleased. Her mother had looked at her with tears in her eyes. Ni knew it wasn’t out of happiness, but of sorrow. Her only daughter was going to be a stepmother to 5 children.

The baby was going to be a strong boy, Ni could feel in her heart. How she longed to have someone she could love as her own, someone who would love her back unconditionally. The baby was going to be that someone. The baby who was now lost, because Atim had not wanted to have him. He had gone to the village medicine woman and came back with a bottle of rejuvenating water.

Ni woke up in the small village hospital thinking she was in her principal’s office. Then he saw Atim’s face. He looked concerned, but she wasn’t moved. Her heart had turned cold, forever. No man would ever touch it again. She refused to look at her tummy and apply the ointment the nurse had told her to do twice a day to reduce swelling and possible scarring.

Then one day, on the way to the market to buy the family’s daily food, Ni’s feet decided to keep going, past the market, past the old temple, and into the main street. She stopped only once, right in front of the post office, to catch her breath.

She settled down briefly on an iron bench, and with her mouth open, inhaled the air deeply. I can breathe, she thought, I can breathe. For the first time in 4 years, I can breathe!

She arrived at the big house where her cousin was employed as a domestic helper looking quite radiant. She simply told her cousin she needed employment to help out with the family’s financial situation. No question was asked; everybody knew life in the village was hard and often daughters and wives looked for employment away from home. She was allowed to stay for a few days, until the lady of the house asked if she would take a job in the big city.

“My sister just had a baby. She has her hands full, she could use your help.” The farther, the better, Ni thought. She was driven to the train station. A letter was written on her behalf. 5 hours later, she arrived at the yellow house with the maroon door, in the big city.

A beautiful lady peered through the window, then smiled and let her in. She read the letter while patting her baby to sleep, and started explaining what Ni’s duties were. Ni only listened partially and refused the offer for a glass of water. She couldn’t take her eyes off the baby, a boy the age of her own had he survived the rejuvenating water.

A shy little girl came and sat next to the pretty lady, and another girl, not as shy, started asking Ni to play with her. Ni had found her home. She was meant to be with these children, she was meant to care for this baby. She breathed again, this time not as deep as her first in front of that post office, this time she breathed like any normal person, like any living person. Ni started to live again.

Is the above the true story of how my nanny got her belly button scar? Of course not. It’s totally fictional, completely out of my imagination. My nanny probably did have some kind of surgery, most likely not from a tree removal.

Surprise Garden Bounty, Late

Tags

burrito bowl, food, food photography, garden, tofu, vegetarian

I finally ventured out into the garden, and was promptly rewarded with all of this.

It was quite shocking to see there were things to harvest. I didn’t think the garden was still alive. The mosquitoes, too, were still clearly very much alive. I have my legs to prove it. What’s not clear if it’s still alive is Mr. Groundhog. Why else would he leave me with these beauties untouched?

It was even more shocking to discover mache (corn salad) growing. I never knew they come back in Autumn.

There’s so much to learn from the garden. Who would have thought I would be serving summer fare this late in the year, with plenty of fresh tomatoes and corns! I’ll be digging through this bounty for the next few days. A few of these vegetables are a little bit overgrown, like the beans and the cucumbers. But they’re homegrown and have never been touched by any nasty chemical, so they will be eaten. Don’t worry I’ll be able to make them taste better than edible.

In the meantime, here’s dinner tonight. Much, much better than just edible.

Burrito Bowl Dinner

The Chicken/Tofu
2 boneless chicken breasts
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp chili powder (the kind you use to make chili con carne)
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper

1. Mix all seasonings and marinade chicken in it for at least half an hour. By the way, I like to flatten my chicken with a mallet first before marinating and grilling, but it’s optional.
2. Grill chicken on medium-high fire, for just a few minutes on each side (3-5 minutes) or until cooked through.
3. Let chicken rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Tofu may be substituted for the chicken for a vegetarian option.

The Tomato Salsa & The Corn Salsa
For the fresh tomato salsa (pico de gallo), mix diced seeded tomato, diced onion, minced jalapeno, chopped cilantro, lime juice, salt & pepper, and a pinch of sugar (optional).

For the corn salsa, it’s pretty much the same as the tomato salsa. You can use canned or fresh corns on the cob. I used fresh and grill them before cutting the kernels off the cobs. Then mix corns with the same ingredients as the tomato salsa. Obviously, since corns are already sweet, you don’t need sugar.

Assembling the bowl
Layer all the bowl components, starting with cooked rice, or in my case, quinoa, then the meat/tofu, then the salsa, and finally put a dollop of sour cream (a must, according to the husband) and sprinkle with cheese (if you like). You can add beans and lettuce, too, if you like. I like to sprinkle my bowl with more chili powder and lime juice before serving.