Black Pepper, Lemon, and Walnut Biscotti, and, AWARDS!!

What a week it's been! I have been hard at work at my Royal Foodie Joust entry for March. I'm not quite finished with my whole recipe for the Joust, but thought I would unveil part of it. AND I am so thrilled, I received 2 more awards for my blog, from the ever-gracious Gloria Chadwick at Cookbook Cuisine, which I will tell you about below.

The ingredients for this month's Joust are oranges, edible flowers, and shallots. This has been a challenging combination to work with! I developed these Black Pepper, Lemon, and Walnut Biscotti to go with the Main Event, which I will post about either on Friday or Saturday.

People's reactions to biscotti remind me of a conversation I had once with my college roommate, who, like me, hailed not only from South of the Mason-Dixon, but from Appalachia (Chris was from Bluefield, W VA, while I grew up in Asheville, NC). There we were, in our tiny little snow-covered studio apartment in the middle of the frigid NH winter, eating what was for us a novelty food: bagels. (This was the 80's, and not a lot of people back home were accustomed to eating those bad boys.)

I loved the bagels, and even went so far as to attempt making my own. But Chris was never that fond of them. Her comment was, "If I wanted to eat a hard donut, I'd get a hard donut." And I know the texture of biscotti is off-putting for some. They are intended for dunking, usually in espresso, which is why they are so crunchy. In fact, biscotti means "cooked twice." As you will see, these are indeed baked twice.

I've had so much fun making my biscotti! If you've never tried making them, they are pretty easy to do. My Black Pepper Lemon and Walnut Biscotti are bit different because they are intended to be a mostly savory accompaniment to my (secret) dish. I know that not everyone enjoys biscotti, but I think these would be perfect with a glass of wine. (Couldn't you just about enjoy anything with a glass of wine? "Would you like some cardboard with that Albarino, madam?")

I wanted to give my biscotti some punch and so I added black pepper as well as a generous amount of lemon zest. I think I succeeded: you may wish to add less black pepper to taste to yours :D ! I also tossed in some yellow cornmeal to give them a nice, sandy bite. My guys loved them, and I hope you will enjoy them, too!

So here's what you will need to make my

Karen's Black Pepper, Lemon and Walnut Biscotti

2 t. whole black peppercorns
1 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2. t. salt
1/2 t. baking powder
2 T grated lemon zest (from 2 large lemons)
2 t. chopped fresh thyme
1/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. shredded Robusto cheese (you can substitute parmesan)
1/3 c. yellow cornmeal
3 T chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
1/2 c. whole milk
1 egg, preferably extra large
1 T walnut oil (or extra virgin olive oil)
Egg wash: 1 egg, beaten

First, preheat your oven to 350F. Then spread the walnuts out on a baking sheet and toast for 10 minutes. Set them aside to cool. Put the peppercorns in a spice grinder and process until coarsely ground.


Mix the dry ingredients, flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder, 1 1/2 t. black pepper, lemon zest, shredded cheese, and thyme. Blend well.



Next, add the butter and cut it into the mixture with a pastry blender, 2 knives, or your fingertips, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the walnuts.


Mix the wet ingredients together in a small glass measure. Beat the milk and egg together, then add the walnut oil.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix to form a soft dough.


Turn it out onto a floured surface and shape into a flattened log about 14 in. long x 2 in. wide by 3/4 in. high. Place the log on a baking sheet lined with parchment.

Brush with the egg wash and sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 t. coarse ground pepper, 1/4 t. coarse salt and 1/4 t. sugar. (I was thinking, if only I had some coarse crystal sugar, that would be really neat!)


Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until pale golden and firm. Remove from the oven. Reduce the oven heat to 300F.Cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes, until warm.


Carefully place on a cutting board and with a sharp, serrated knife slice the log diagonally into 1/2 in. slices.
Place the slices cut side down back on the baking sheet and bake at 300 for 35-40 min., or until crisp and golden. Turn slices over after 2o min.


Remove from the oven and cool completely in the pan on a rack before storing.

I'm hoping these will be just the thing to complement my new dish!

>
Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of recognizing Gloria Chadwick's contributions to our little corner of the blogosphere by giving her the Sisterhood Award for her blog Cookbook Cuisine. This award is for those bloggers who show gratitude or great attitude-- and by sharing the secrets to her success as a successful cookbook writer, Gloria certainly fits the bill!

She turned the tables and recognized all the members of our cookbook writing class (sisters in crime :) ) with the Sisterhood Award. So it boomeranged right back to me!! Thank you, Gloria!!

Gloria also passed along the Lemonade Stand award to me! I am so humbled and honored by this kind and thoughtful gesture! Thank you so very much, Gloria!

This award is for those whose blog is refreshing, like lemonade on a hot summer day.
I would like to pass the Lemonade Stand award along to:

Donna of My Tasty Treasures, because she is too fun, her irreverent posts ALWAYS make me laugh and also because her food is gorgeous, and her musical taste (had a Bad Day, anyone?) is impeccable :)

Grace of A Southern Grace, for her wonderful sense of whimsy (you gotta love anyone who calls her blog comments "noogies"!), her cinnamon obsession, and her willingness to admit she can't stand curry. :)

Elle of Elle's New England Kitchen, because she is celebrating her 1 Year Blog-i-versary! Congratulations, Elle! You're an inspiration! :)

PsychGrad and Giz at Equal Opportunity Kitchen, because not only is their blog Tried, Tested and True, they give back by participating in the Adopt a Blogger program.

Tiersa at ChefBliss for baking 6+ of the most inventive birthday cakes you've ever seen in the past 2 weeks, for supporting the Oregon FoodBank through her blog, and for extending a friendly hand to all us newbies!

Kat at A Good Appetite for her lovely, original, and inspiring cupcakes, and for introducing me to the idea of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), which I am looking forward to trying this year! Kat and Matt's inventive use of fresh, seasonal and local food in their weekly menu is an inspiration! :)

Nuria at Spanish Recipes for her joie-de-vivre, for helping us to celebrate the distinctive flavors of Catalan cooking, and for giving us a whole new look at, er, organically-produced poultry!

Congratulations, ladies! Thanks for the kind words, encouragement, and laughter. :)

Elle's Mexican Hot Chocolate Muffins

The stuff that makes chocolate sing: clockwise, from top: chipotle chile powder, cayenne, cocoa powder, ancho chile powder, cinnamon, brown sugar, and Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder.

This is another WONDERFUL recipe from Grace's roundup for her Cinnamon Celebration. All the recipes are so irresistible, I've tried several.

I made Elle's fantastic Mexican Hot Chocolate Muffins over the weekend for DS to take to his band (Public Broadcast) rehearsal on Saturday, and they were a HUGE hit! The band was graciously hosted by Barbara, drummer Noah's mom, who loved the muffins and asked for the recipe. So I wanted to be sure to share it!

Oh, I almost forgot! I went to see Drew the Hair God at AlterEgo on Saturday afternoon and, since our birthdays are just 2 days apart, I of course had to bring him some muffins. (True, our birthdays are in June, but you can never celebrate too much!) Actually, I just wanted to bring him some muffins because he's an all around good guy. Drew also LOVED the muffins! Plus he gave me a discount on my hair. Coincidence?? I think not. These muffins were made for bribin'... or something like that :). But seriously, if you live in the Raleigh area, and are looking for a new Hair God, Drew is fabulous!

I've been greatly enjoying Elle's blog, Elle's New England Kitchen. (Having lived in New England for 71/2 years, it's especially fun for me!) Elle has such a wonderful collection of recipes. If you haven't had a chance to visit, you really should stop by!

OK, Barbara, and Drew: this is for you!

Since trying Kat's (A Good Appetite) amazing Dark Chocolate Azteca Cupcakes, I've been unable to resist playing with the chocolate-chile-yowza!-hot-ooooh!-sweet! combination.
So I made some adjustments to Elle's original recipe, which is genius in and of itself, plus easy to make.

First, get your dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Flour, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cocoa, and cinnamon.

I added extra cinnamon, using 2 t. instead of the 1 1/2 t. in Elle's recipe, plus a few other little goodies: 1/2 t. ancho chile powder, and 1/4 t. cayenne. (Wish I'd added more cayenne!) I also found it would have been an excellent idea to sift the brown sugar before adding it to the dry mixture, or alternatively, to give it a few whirls in the food processor first. It lumped on me, and I ended up sifting everything.

Then, mix together the wet ingredients, butter, canola oil, eggs, vanilla and milk. (I used 3/4 buttermilk instead, and dissolved 1/4 t. baking soda in it.)


Mix it all up (but not too much, we don't want tough muffins!) and add your chocolate chips (sadly, I had only 1 c. left in my bag, rather than the 1 1/4 c. called for. But it still came out delicious! Doesn't it look like it's going to be delicious?)


Next, mix up your streusel ingredients in a bowl: sugar, flour, cocoa, cinnamon (again, I used 2 t. instead of 1 1/2 t.)

and then add the melted butter to make it all nice and crumbly. I forgot to take a picture of that :(

Then fill your muffin tins. I must have done something different here, because this recipe is supposed to make 1 dozen muffins. I lined the tin with paper muffin cups, and filled them 2/3 full-- and I had to get out a second tin! I ended up with 2 dozen muffins. Which was great, since there were more to share, but I'm not sure why I had twice as many muffins as I should have!

Then top the batter with the streusel mixture. If you ask me, the streusel is what makes these muffins so wonderful! DS disagrees, he says, no, chocolate chips. Well, they're good too!

And bake. Elle says 17 minutes and 350F, which was exactly perfect.
Here are the streusel-topped muffins going into the oven:


And here they are, all done!! :)

Hmmm.... they kinda look the same, before and after, don't they? I promise these are baked! I guess the streusel makes them look very similar.

Elle's muffins came out much prettier (See below).

Next time, I think I would just use foil muffin cups on a baking sheet and dispense with the muffin tins altogether. Why? Because then I can make sure every crumb of streusel stays put on its appointed muffin, since I won't be levering the muffins out of the tin with the handle of a teaspoon and scattering streusel everywhere. SO sad. Some of the streusel fell on the counter, so of course, I had to eat it. That's a rule, you know. ;)

I was thinking about adapting these into some kind of spicy streusel brownie, but haven't got very far with that. Cupcakes and muffins are really so much fun to make and to eat!

Elle's Mexican Hot Chocolate Muffins are one terrific recipe: don't miss it!

Menu Plan Monday

Once again, hectic weekend. Once again, tardy on the meal planning. I've already done a lot of shopping, so I've got to be creative and feed everyone what's in the house. We didn't end up eating some of the stuff planned for last week, so there may be reruns! I haven't planned dessert yet, but we have stuff we need to eat up from last week anyway.

OK, here is my stab at menu planning for the week with Orgjunkie.com:

Monday:
Cheesy Ham Casserole, broccoflower with lemon, garlic and tamari, homemade rolls from the freezer


Tuesday:
Danish open-face chicken burgers, oven-baked sweet potato fries with cajun spices, cabbage salad with orange custard dressing



Wednesday:
Nathan's Picadillo, yellow rice, yuca with mojo de ajo, orange cauliflower with lemonaise

Does this not look delicious?? From Nathan's blog


Thursday:
Macarronada Ranchera (Mexican-style Mac & Cheese), spinach salad with hard-cooked egg, bacon and red onion, warm applesauce and vanilla ice cream



Friday: Date night, woo-hoo!

Saturday:
Nathan's Cuban pork chops, moros y cristianos (cuban-style black beans and rice), habichuelas en escabeche (steamed green beans in vinaigrette)

Sunday:
Donna's pasta e fagioli soup, toasted rosemary demi-baguette with parmigiano reggiano

Apple Pancake Smackdown!

I just love Sunday brunch, don't you? Brunch is such a wonderful concept.... sleep until noon, then get up and eat a large and leisurely breakfast.

I treated us to some new table linens and a few new serving pieces and juice glasses, from my beloved Crate and Barrel. (Besides, I needed some new stuff to take pretty pictures for y'all, didn't I??? :D )

LOL, for the first time in a couple of years, I actually have a tablecloth that fits my table! I used to have a rectangular kitchen table and also an oblong dining room table, but when I was getting ready to move into my tiny apt. in Chicago (with no eat-in kitchen and a dining room I needed for office space), I got rid of both of them. I decided there was no reason I couldn't use my smaller round patio table as my "dining" table: Exhibit A:


However, I was unable to find any round table cloths, so I was using one of my old ones kind of folded over. Yesterday I hit it lucky at Bed Bath and Beyond: 2 round tablecloths for $9.99 each. It is surprising how much nicer the table looks with a cloth that actually fits!

One of DC's favorite feel-good breakfasts is Lemon Pancakes. It's basically a giant popover in pancake form, served piping hot with a liberal dusting of powdered sugar and a generous squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Hoping to build on this success, I wanted to find the perfect German Apple Pancake recipe. One of my all-time favorite breakfast restaurants, The Original Pancake House, makes a fabulous apple pancake that looks dee-licious. (I've never tried it.) Knowing DC's exceeding fondness for apples, I figured if I could replicate it at home, it would be a surefire hit.

Being the librarianly type, of course I did a little background research and decided to try 2 of the recipes I found. One was from one of my favorite celeb chefs, Paula Deen. Paula's pancake featured lemon zest, sour cream, and oh, joy of joys: canned apple pie filling! As is typical of Paula's recipes, I hoped it would be simple, quick and delicious. The other was from one of my not-so-favorite chefs, Emeril, (whose personality tends to grate) but whose food is reliably tasty. Emeril's pancake is made with fresh apples and pecans.

How would Paula's quick and easy pancake stack up (sorry, couldn't resist!) against Emeril's "gourmet" version?

It was time for an APPLE PANCAKE SMACKDOWN!

And it ended up being

PAULA
VS.

EMERIL
VS.

uh, ME (a very serious chef)

I planned last weekend for the Apple Pancake Smackdown, not realizing I would be one of the contestants. So we had to continue it this weekend. We started off the contest with Paula's pancake for Saturday breakfast, served with some good old Morningstar Farms soysage. (I love that stuff, all the great taste of sausage, none of the grease and heartburn!)

APPLE PANCAKE SMACKDOWN, PART 1
Paula Deen's Dutch Apple Pancakes

Expecting something with the approximate taste and texture of wallpaper paste, I was pleasantly surprised by both the flavor and texture of the apple pie filling. It went into a pan along with some butter and cinnamon.



After warming up the apples, it was time to mix up the pancake batter. Eggs, milk, flour, and lemon zest went into the batter along with some sour cream.




Then the batter is poured over the apples and the whole thing, including the skillet, goes into the oven.


And here it is, ready to eat!



Up close and personal, DC's plate


Ok, here's the scorecard on Paula's recipe:

• Ease of preparation: Gold medal! This gets onto the table with a minimum of time and effort.

• Taste: FILLING: 2 Stars: Pleasant, but nothing special. Although the absolute uniformity of size, texture and flavor of the apples was an interesting gustatory experience, the convenience of using prepared apples was sadly overshadowed by the complete mediocrity of the dish overall.
• PANCAKE: 2 Stars: bland, but innocuous.

• Texture: FILLING: No thumbs. It was just blah. Not unpleasant, but blah. A little weird in its uniformity, and kind of dry.
  
• PANCAKE: 2 thumbs down. I fear I must echo the following sentiments of Danielle, reviewer on the FoodNetwork site: "I too was expecting more of a pancake on top of my apples, but it was like a rubber egg disk floating on top of the apples."

• OVERALL SCORE: 2 STARS! Edible, not horrible, not great. Completely mediocre.
  

Perhaps it was unfair of me to have visions of the gorgeous, puffy, golden apple pancake from the OPH floating in my head, but Paula's pancake was definitely not what I was expecting. In its way, it was not UNpleasant, but I didn't think it was anything to write home about, sadly, not one of Paula's best.

APPLE PANCAKE SMACKDOWN, PART 2
Emeril's Giant Apple Pecan Pancake

On to Part 2 of the Apple Pancake Smackdown: Sunday brunch, Emeril's Giant Apple Pecan Pancake. We went into round 2 with high hopes. This recipe was similar in technique to Paula's but with some key differences. First, Emeril's recipe contained more flour, milk, and eggs than Paula's (4 eggs rather than 3, 1 c. of milk and flour vs. 1/2 c.). Emeril's recipe also contained leavening (baking powder), which I hoped would make it lighter and less rubbery than Paula's version.

Basically, we follow the same procedure as used by Paula, except of course the apples were fresh and had to be cooked, in butter with cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar, plus the pecans.




Next, the batter is prepared. Eggs, milk, flour, and baking powder are combined.


Finally, the batter is poured on top of the apples and pecans and again the whole skillet is baked in the oven. Another difference to note: Emeril instructs us to bake the pancake at 400 F, rather than 350 in Paula's version.


All done!


Up close and personal, here is DC's plate:




Here is the scorecard on Emeril's Apple Pancake:

• Ease of preparation: Silver Medal! This is fairly easy to prepare, though of course the apples need to be peeled, cored and sliced, so it takes a bit more time and effort than Paula's version.

• Taste: FILLING: 3 STARS: Quite pleasant. The apples were really delicious, and the pecans added a very nice touch. (Who doesn't love pecans, butter and brown sugar?) The taste and texture of the fresh apples was significantly better than the pie filling, so it was definitley worth the extra effort to prep the fresh fruit.
• PANCAKE: 1.5 STARS. Again, a disappointment. Forgettable. Library paste.

• Texture: FILLING: 3 STARS. The fresh apples were tender but still firm, and juicy.
  
• PANCAKE: 2 thumbs and 1 toe down. Yet again, the pancake was rubbery, and despite the leavening and rubberiness, somewhat leaden and cement-like.
  
• OVERALL SCORE: 2.5 STARS The pancake part was worse than Paulas, but the filling was much, much tastier. Again, yes, it's edible, but does it make us happy? No.
  

Well, the fabulous apple pancake experience I was hoping to bring to the table just didn't happen with either of these recipes, leaving me frustrated. (Though of course DC ate everything up and acted pleased, like the trouper he is.)

Clearly, it was time to try my hand at creating my OWN version, for Sunday brunch this weekend.

APPLE PANCAKE SMACKDOWN PART 3
Karen's Mile-High Apple Pancake

I used my successful lemon pancake recipe as a blueprint for the batter, but doubled the volume of ingredients overall. I decided to go for a different approach from Paula and Emeril by baking the pancake separately, to see if I could achieve the desired impressive puff. I suspect part of the problem is also inadequate oven temperature, because this batter is similar to popover batter, and popovers need a very hot oven to "pop" properly.

First of all, preheat the oven to 475 F (yes, we need some heat!). Then, place a large ovenproof skillet with high sides to heat in the oven for at least 10 minutes before adding the batter.

Let's get our apples started. They need to be washed, peeled, cored, and sliced, not too thin, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 in.


We also need to toast our pecans. Put them on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 4 minutes. Watch 'em carefully, or at that oven temp, they will burn slap up.

I saw a hilarious trick on Sara's Secrets to help you remember that you have nuts roasting in the oven. A guest cook from Hawaii was there roasting macadamia nuts, and you know how expensive they are! Burning them would be a real tragedy. The Hawaiian guest took her big ol' peppermill and held it in place between her neck and her shoulder (you know how you used to do with the phone earpiece for hands-free talking before cell phones and bluetooth?) the entire time the nuts were in the oven. I promise, there's no way to forget, as uncomfortable as that is!

Take the pecans out of the oven set aside to cool.


In a 12-in skillet, preferably non-stick, heat 2 T. of unsalted butter over medium heat. Add the apples, brown sugar, lemon zest, freshly grated nutmeg, cinnamon (Grace, just for you, I was gonna use 2 t. of cinnamon, but I have used so much cinnamon trying stuff from your Cinnamon Celebration that I ran out after 1 1/2 t.!) , and mace, and sautee until tender but not mushy, 6-8 minutes.




While the apples are cooking, prepare the batter. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat 4 eggs with a pinch of salt on medium speed until they are nice and frothy. Then add a cup of whole milk. Beat in a cup of flour, mixing just until blended, but not lumpy. Set the batter aside for a moment.


VERY CAREFULLY, using oven mitts or a potholder, remove the hot skillet from the oven. Spray it with non-stick spray. REMEMBER, THE HANDLE IS HOT! Then add the rest of your stick of butter (6 T) and swirl the pan to melt it, so it doesn't burn.

Now quickly add the batter to the hot skillet (THE HANDLE IS STILL HOT! Use your potholder!)


Put the skillet in the oven and bake the pancake for 12 minutes.

Meanwhile, add the pecans to the cooked apples, stir to combine, remove the apples from the heat and keep them warm.

After 12 minutes: Check the pancake: it should be puffy and golden brown. If the center isn't starting to brown yet, give it 1-2 more minutes. It should look like THIS:

Now THAT is what I'm talking 'bout: a big ol' puffy German pancake, perfect for filling with all kinds of delectable goodies. It will deflate some as it cools. (Rats!)

When the pancake is done, take it out of the oven. (AGAIN, HOT HANDLE, people! This advice comes to you from someone who is lucky not to have the impression of a skillet handle burned permanently into the palm of her hand, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style) Pour the juice of a fresh lemon into the center of the pancake and tilt gently so it can spread all over the bottom.

Now, you can either fill the pancake with apples, dust with powdered sugar and take the skillet to the table to serve,
OR,
you can cut the pancake into individual portions with a sharp, serrated knife and put the apples on each individual portion, dusting each with powdered sugar. Since my table is kinda small, that's what I did.

OOOOOOH! PRETTY!! DC's plate

Here is the scorecard on KAREN'S MILE HIGH APPLE PANCAKE

• Ease of preparation: Bronze Medal. Still easy enough for a beginning cook to prepare, but you do have to fuss with the apples and cook the pancake separately. In my unbiased ;) opinion, the results are worth the extra trouble.

• Taste: FILLING: 5 Stars! FANTASTIC! We loved the zippiness of the extra cinnamon, the lemon zest, the nutmeg and the mace in the apple filling, as well as the luxurious taste of the pecans.
• PANCAKE: 5 STARS! Exactly what I was hoping for: light yet buttery-rich. The extra butter really adds a whole new dimension to the flavor. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to achieve this great taste without a generous amount of butter. (But thank goodness, this is brunch food, not something we eat everyday.)

• Texture: FILLING: 2 thumbs up. I was thrilled, again, exactly what I was hoping for: tender but firm, juicy apples, crunchy pecans, in a silky, buttery sauce.
• PANCAKE: 2 thumbs up: PERFECT! light, puffy, crispy around the edges and a little custardy in the middle.

• OVERALL SCORE: 5 STARS! We loved it!

I AM THE APPLE PANCAKE QUEEN!!


And here's DS, enjoying some soysage along with his Mile-High Pancake