crispy peanut butter squares with chocolate chips

I've made this easy recipe from The Kind Diet a few times now, but this time was the first try that I actually had all of the ingredients in the correct quantities. The first time I didn't buy enough brown rice syrup, so I substituted in some agave nectar, maple syrup and honey to make up the difference. It turned out well, but more crumbly than it should have been. The second time I hardly had any syrup at all so tried to just use more peanut butter. I also melted in the chocolate chips instead of keeping them separate. The result was basically just a chocolate peanut butter cereal. It didn't stay together at all. We actually just poured milk over it and ate it as cereal. But this time. This time I followed the directions, adding just a little bit more peanut butter than was called for, and they were delicious.  Chris packed a few for his flight to Palm Springs, CA and I've been bringing one to work for an afternoon snack every day this week. Oh and yes, it's sunny and hot hot hot in Palm Springs but they are forecasting SNOW here today.  The injustice!

Crispy Peanut Butter Squares with Chocolate Chips
(adapted from The Kind Diet)
Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup brown rice syrup
• 1 cup peanut butter
• pinch of sea salt
• 1 box crispy brown rice cereal*
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions

1. Heat the brown rice syrup with a pinch of salt in a saucepan over low heat until liquefied. Add the peanut butter and stir until combined.
2. Combine the syrup mixture and rice cereal in a large bowl and mix well until cereal is completely coated.
3. Once thoroughly mixed and cooled to room temperature, stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Spread the mixture into a 9 x 13" baking dish and refrigerate for an hour. Slice into squares and enjoy!

*I was hemming and hawing over going with my normal brand, Erewhon Brown Rice Cereal, and trying a slightly cheaper brown puffed rice by Arrowhead Mills. As I checked out at the co-op with the cheaper one, my cashier was like, "Yeah, this cereal is not good for rice crispy treats. It's not crispy enough." And I was like, "Wait really? That's what I'm making." She apologized and I was all, "No, oh my goodness thank you for saving me from disaster!" and then we commiserated about proper crispy rice treats. A pleasant, helpful encounter that saved me from having to make a FOURTH batch of these to perfect them.

My mom used to make chocolate-y pb rice crispy bars when we were younger and I am happy to report that these are a nice stand-in. Apparently brown rice sugar has a low glycemic index so you don't get the sugar highs and crashes that you do with refined sweeteners. I don't have a footnote for that, but I'm sure you Google something and either verify or disclaim that. Regardless, these are an easy, no-bake treat- convenient enough to throw a few in your bag for a midday energy boost or travel snack.

what we build

When you have a moment, watch this video. It's a bit long at 9 minutes but it's worth every second to learn about Habitat for Humanity, the work they do and the families they serve. Habitat debuted this video at the National Affiliate's Conference in Atlanta last week and I was completely blown away. I love its international focus, because so often we get caught up with only what is going on in our own communities and in our own lives. We forget about the need on the other side of town, on across the country and around the globe. Often, it takes a natural disaster to remind us about our global neighbors.

Seriously, if you can't watch it now then bookmark it and come back when you are brushing your teeth tonight, waiting for water to boil or sorting through your junk mail. And then you can find your local Habitat and get involved? Maybe? Or you can at least watch an incredible well-made, well-designed video and learn a bit more about Habitat. It can't hurt.

Habitat has helped places like the Gulf Coast, Haiti and Chile recover from natural disaster. Japan's government has urged NGOs to wait until search and rescue operation are finished before beginning rebuilding and clean-up efforts. Once that happens, Habitat is committed to helping rebuild in the areas hit hardest by the earthquake and tsunami. You can donate towards long-term recovery efforts here.

toast house & home

I'm back from HOTLANTA and full of new ideas and inspiration from the Habitat conference. But I'm also immediately missing the gorgeous Georgia weather, so let's pretend that springtime has extended its reach to this little corner of New York State, even though it's barely above freezing right now. Why don't we just look at some pretty pictures from Toast's new House & Home catalog? Ah, much better.

I want to live in these pages.  Funny though that they charge so much for pieces that look like you found them on the curbside.  It's like buying clothes with holes in them, which I now understand was a really stupid thing to do back in high school. Sidenote, do you remember the episode of Friends where Rachel has a table from Pottery Barn but tells Phoebe it was thrifted because Phoebe hates mass-produced products? And Phoebe totally buys into it because things from Pottery Barn do just look like really nice versions of thrifted, quirky antiques?

(Photos from Toast's Spring/Summer 2011 House & Home collection.)

a haircut & a trip to atlanta

Right now, I'm on my way down to sunny Atlanta, Georgia! I've been asked to speak on a panel at the Habitat for Humanity National Affiliate Conference this week and am wildly excited for a mini-escape from the muddy New York weather. I'm also excited about having cable television in my hotel room, but let's pretend I didn't just say that and instead told you about some hip new martini lounge I'm hoping to check out. Really though, on the off-chance that I have a few moments to explore, do you have any must-sees for me? Tiny hole-in-the-wall delicious eateries? Let me know in the comments, ASAP.

Oh yeah, and I chopped my hair off this weekend. Snip snip! I can't wait to sculpt myself a little faux hawk, just for fun. Maybe while I'm cruising the streets (aka the conference hotel halls) of Atlanta.

Rock and roll. See you kiddos when I get back from Hotlanta.

PS- Have you all read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? Because I'm reading it now and I've been told to hang in there for another hundred pages or so because it eventually gets exciting. True?

pain au chocolat

Continuing my timid and noncommittal dip into French cooking, I made pain au chocolat this weekend for Sunday brunch. The recipe is from Made From Scratch, a collection of recipes by Betsy Bott from the old Daily Bread Bakery and Cafe in Richmond, VT. From the back cover:

This is the feel good, taste good story of how rural common sense, farmstead ingenuity, hippie can-do optimism and a bunch of creative good neighbors cooked up real community at the end of the last century in Richmond, Vermont, 16 miles east of Burlington.

It has about 200 recipes for bread, baked goods and cafe creations that are mostly vegetarian, often whole grain and without refined sugars and completely hippie dippie. The book interweaves the story of the now closed Daily Bread Bakery and Cafe and the cast of characters that made these recipes legendary.  It also thoroughly explains the ingredients; why they are used, what role they play and how it all works together. Very helpful.

I happened to have a Hershey's Extra Dark Chocolate bar with cranberries, blueberries and almond pieces in it, so that's what I used. It was a standard 3.5 ounce candy bar, and though the recipe called for an 8 ounce piece of chocolate, this was just fine. You make a classic Brioche dough, and then fold in chocolate pieces into each roll.

Pain au Chocolat
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 2 tsp yeast
• 3 tbsp honey (we ran out of honey, so I used a heaping teaspoon of sugar instead)
• 1 egg yolk plus 2 whole eggs
• 6 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 cups unbleached bread flour
• 1 egg plus a tbsp of water, for glaze
• 1 standard size chocolate bar

Directions

1. Add yeast and honey (or sugar) to warm water and stir. Wait about ten minutes, until thick and foamy.
2. Add in the eggs, extra yolk, salt and melted butter. Then add the flour in a little bit at a time and knead to combine. Make sure not to add too much flour; the dough should be greasy to the touch. Place in a greased bowl and cover with a towel. Let rise until doubled, about an hour.
3. Turn dough on floured surface and divide into six equal pieces. Knead each piece into a little round. Cover with dish towel and let rise again, about another hour, until doubled.
4. Grease and flour muffin tin. Press each round into a 4 inch circle and place 1/6 of chocolate bar in the middle. Bring outside of round up around the chocolate and pinch to close. Place pinched side down in muffin tin and repeat for remaining rounds.
5. Last rise! Cover, again, and let rise until doubled and bursting from muffin tin. Combine egg yolk and water and brush onto each round. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes and enjoy them right out of the oven with a mug of coffee.

The result is a rich, buttery croissant-like pastry filled with a tiny bit of melted, gooey chocolate. The recipe calls for three risings, each of which will take around an hour, so make sure you plan ahead for this. I started the dough on Saturday night; after the second rising, I covered the filled muffin tins and put them in the fridge overnight for the final rise. Then the next morning, I brought them back to room temperature, brushed them with an egg glaze and baked them. We are plotting more Brioche fillings: jam, peanut butter, nutella, parmesan, the list goes on... The butter and eggs make them quite decadent though, so I should try not to make these an every-weekend occurrence :)

home dairy!

I won a giveaway! For a copy of Ashley English's Home Dairy book, one of the newest titles from her Homemade Living Series! I'll admit to trolling the internet and entering several giveaways for this book, because I really like Ashley's blog and really want to make my own cheese. I likely would have bought it soon enough anyway, but the genius of the giveaway is that now I'm hooked and definitely going to buy the rest of the series. And I'm not sure I've ever won a giveaway before, maybe because I rarely enter them, or maybe because I don't have that kind of luck. So imagine my surprise when Grace from Design*Sponge emailed me for my shipping address. Pure joy. I'm flipping through it as I drink my berry smoothie right now.

This is all to say that you can expect to see some more cheese, butter and yogurt up in this place. My first attempts at buttermaking and yogurt cheesemaking were nothing compared to the dairy-filled glory that is to come. Sorry vegans, this must be upsetting. I told Chris that I was either giving up dairy products or learning to make my own. You can see which road I took.  I did just make a batch of vegan chocolate chip cookies this week, and they were surprisingly delicious, so don't consider me a true enemy yet.

Oh and speaking of cheese, and actually also speaking of freebies enticing me to buy more, here's a little cheese treat idea I completely ripped off from my co-op. They always sample these incredible cheeses and I usually end up buying them. This time I bought every ingredient they were sampling. A delectable Hudson Valley Camembert on a teeny-tiny 1" mini toast with raspberry chutney. They would make the cutest hors d'oeuvres, no?

One time we were watching a show about making mozzarella and the first instruction was to buy some mozzarella and then you did various things to it to produce more. Disappointing, right? Ashley's recipe for mozzarella does not include having to buy the damn cheese yourself, so in my opinion she is off to a good start. Check out her other titles on Canning & Preserving , Keeping Chickens and Keeping Bees. They are like hip, updated versions of Reader's Digest Back to Basics. And no, the giveaway did not require me to gush about the book or even mention it publicly, I'm just that excited.

ales, lagers & cinnamon

Beer drinkers, listen up. I've been meaning to tell you about this for awhile now, ever since my cousins got us these crazy beer treats for Christmas.  The purists of you out there may scoff, but check it: beer rim spices. Like salt and margaritas... only it's for your brewsky. Insane! You've got your pumpkin pie spice, your chili lime spice and, my personal favorite, the cinnamon sugar spice.  They come with suggestions for beer pairings and I'll tell ya, it's a pleasant surprise to get a bit of cinnamon and sugar with your ale. Per the product description, "Pumpkin is suggested for darker beers like stouts; chili lime for lighter-boded beers like pilsners, and cinnamon for ambers and ales."

The beauty is that you could clearly concoct various beer spices to suit your every mood and whimsy. It's the wave of the beer future, my friends. Hop on board.  As I write this, I'm getting the crazy idea that you could actually do this to any drink.  Iced tea? Throw a little sugar on that glass.  Iced coffee? Sounds like you need a sprinkle of cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar. Watered-down green beer for Saint Patrick's Day? Why, I'm sure you could figure out something festive for that.

Cheers. Here's wishing everyone a fantastic week and a tasty beer. Or iced tea.

this week on tumblr (also, tell me about pinterest)

I've just been sticking these tidbits over on my tumblr page, but now the world is officially obsessed with Pinterest. Could some online, tech-savvy people please tell me what the difference is between tumblr and pinterest? It seems like they are both good for quickly saving and cataloguing pretty things you find throughout the internet. Pinterest maybe has a better visual layout for inspiration boards. But other than that, it feels redundant to use them both. I am compulsive about creating and maintaining organizational systems, and have been known to break out in hives when I can't settle on the right binder categorizing system or online bookmarking program. Seriously, it stresses me out like whoa. Which is funny, because I'm actually kind of a slob.

Photo by Ralph Crane, 1962 for Life Magazine

via Tomboy Style: ICON | Joan Baez

I broke the needle to our record player awhile ago and haven't taken the time to fix it, but now I really want to so I can listen to my mom's old Joan Baez records. Love this picture.

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Antique Floral Duvet Cover via Urban Outfitters

It's not actually antique, obviously, but it is pretty. Maybe too girly for my co-habitating lifestyle, but cute nonetheless, right? 

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Cookie-Stuffed Cookies via Serious Eats
via The Kitchn
 

That's right, you are looking at an Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookie. Did your mind just explode? Do you secretly want to eat one of these when no one is looking? Me too.

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Photos by Irina Werning
via A Cup of Jo

This has been making its rounds on the blogs for weeks now, and I just had to share it. Photographer Irina Werning has people re-enact their childhood photos. Hilarious! Click over to her site to see even more.

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  Mireya Labradorite Necklace by Simon & Ruby
via papernstitch
 

Gorgeous, earthy jewelry. And the photography is incredible too. Come on, springtime.

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Pancake recipe poster by Toast & Sip

via The Kitchn

You can even order custom posters based on your favorite recipes!

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Sea Otter print 8x10 by berkleyillustration

Tell me this dapper Sea Otter didn't make your Friday afternoon a billion times better. I mean, c'mon. I found this awhile ago for a round-up I did over at Whole Living, but felt morally obligated to spread the cheer here too. You can also buy portraits of a well-dressed squirrel, horned owl, hedgehog, cardinal and a cheetah wearing an eye patch. I'm going to buy one of each and then hang them all over the apartment. 

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I know that most of us are tuning in today to far bigger crises around the world. Online photo organization systems are the least of our worries, as our global neighbors face earthquakes and tsunamis, protest oppression and government-sponsored massacres, and suffer the inequities of hunger and extreme poverty. But today, I wanted to show you a picture of a snazzy Sea Otter and a cookie-stuffed cookie, because those have to help, at least a little bit.

frilly aprons & policy briefs

Lately I've been going through old posts, editing them a little for clarity and accuracy when needed. It's unreal to think that I've been blogging here for over three years. I started this project back when I was a wee lass making my way through my graduate program in public policy. All of that number-crunching and the business suits and research made me realize that I needed a little bit of old-fashioned, hands-on activity to balance it all out.  I started sewing, crocheting and baking in between turning in papers and making presentations. After graduation, I delved deeper in cooking and added in a bit of knitting to the mix. For me, it's a good reminder that you can write a kick-ass policy brief and then go home, tie a frilly apron around your waist and bake a kick-ass quiche. Or if it's more your thing, go home and wail out a power ballad, or grow your own food, or head out on a chilly night and run ten miles. That's what makes a person three-dimensional and whole. It's what makes real people more interesting than a sitcom character or stereotype. Right?

I found this one post, where I say that I don't cook a lot. Ha, if only my 2007 self could imagine how much time my 2011 self would spend in the kitchen. Yeesh.  

I'd love to hear back from all of you on this. Are your day jobs and your hobbies one in the same? Complementary? On completely opposite ends of the spectrum? How do you reconcile them? Any secret passions you'd like to unveil?

(Photos: Taken back in 2008. 1) Cookies with a Masters thesis; and 2) Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars with a textbook. Pretty much sums it all up even in present time.)

for ms. julia child, a soufflé and beignets

There's a virtual book club meet-up happening over at Jana Laurene's blog later today and everyone's invited. I'll admit that I've barely made a dent in the assigned book, My Life in France by Julia Child, but I did complete a bit of extra credit on the food assignment. Jana posts a recipe for everyone to make before the book club, so we can pretend that we're together in someone's living room with the same snacks and the same book. I'm glad I recently heard about this from Marta because this month's treats are French beignets (pronounced ben-yays).

I used this Buttermilk Beignet recipe from Epicurious, but halved it. Even so, I ended up with about 30 small beignets, enough to absolutely satisfy 8 or so people. While the dough was rising, I started on a Classic Cheese Soufflé, adapted by the lovely Molly Wizenberg from Julia Child's The Way to Cook.  Neither of these recipes are for the faint of heart, or those short on time or patience. If you click over to the original recipes, you'll note that the beignets require a lot of mixing, kneading, rising, rolling out, deep frying and then sugaring. But they are so very worth it. And, a tip, you can make the dough in your bread machine and avoid the kneading. Just be sure to add all of the liquid ingredients first, then the dry ingredients and then the yeast. The dough was very soupy, so I added another 1/2 cup of flour (probably will need an extra cup if you make the whole batch). My machine has a dough cycle that I let go for about 10-15 minutes and then manually shut it off so it could rise for an hour before I took it out and shaped it.

I'd never had a beignet before so I had no idea how incredible they would turn out to be. They are these little fried dough, chewy, sugary doughnut-like pastries. And they are irresistible. I've probably eaten about six or seven so far and there's no end in sight.

The soufflé was a totally new experience for me. I'm not used to following recipes exactly, or worrying too much about process and technique. But I had a feeling that a dish like this demanded attention to detail. You put milk on the stove and while its steaming, you whisk together butter and flour in a separate pan over medium heat until thickened. You stir in the steamed milk and egg yolks and then you start beating a bunch of egg whites senseless for what seems like eternity. Combine it all together with a bit of Swiss cheese and bake for 25 minutes-- no peeking in the oven! We served it with a quick sauté of veggies in balsamic vinaigrette.

And that was our French evening, in honor of Ms. Julia Child's memoir of her time in France. Which, I best get to reading, STAT. Stop by Jana's blog later today to join in her book club and get a taste of France, wherever you are. Have you read this book? Don't worry if you haven't or if, like me, you are a bit behind. You can stop by the virtual club and join in whenever you get around to it :) I'm a little bit late on the Julia Child bandwagon, but now that I'm here I'm in love. Though I certainly won't be tackling her Mastering the art of French Cooking anytime soon.

braised brussels sprouts

Yup, more brussels sprouts. Awhile ago I tweeted some quote I found about brussels sprouts being so very hip right now. Also turnips/parsnips--I always get them mixed up-- and, I believe, beets. Suspicious veggies are all the rage.  I also found an article that asked, "Is 2011 the year of the vegetable?" I don't understand the question.

In the time since my first brussels sprouts adventure as an adult, we've made both a brussels sprouts gratin and this dish. The gratin was obviously delicious, because everything was covered with cheese. I was nervous about this one because it doesn't mask their flavor or texture at all. It celebrates those strange miniature cabbages in all of their hipster glory.  I found this recipe in a favorite stand-by, Molly Katzen's The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without. The first time through we followed it exactly, making an awesome maple mustard sauce to pour over top. Last night, though, we substituted raw honey for the maple syrup and it came out just as delicious.

Braised Brussels Sprouts in a Sweet Mustard Sauce
Ingredients

• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 onion, chopped
  
• 4 cups (1 lb) brussels sprouts, halved
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 to 6 tbsp water
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp real maple syrup (or honey!)
  
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Heat olive oil over medium heat and swirl to coat the pan.  Saute the onion for 3 to 5 minutes or until softened, then add brussels sprouts and salt and saute for another 5 minutes.
2. Sprinkle in 4 tbsp of water and cover. Cook over medium heat for 5 to 8 minutes, until the sprouts are bright green and fork-tender. I love watching them turn bright green, they look so much more appealing when they are cooked. You might need to add another tbsp or two in to prevent sticking, but I don't think I had to. Just keep an eye on it.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together mustard and maple syrup (or honey) until smooth. Add to pan and cook for another minute or two. Serve hot, warm or at room temp with some black pepper.

This makes about four side dish servings. We paired it with a completely made-up casserole of butternut squash, spinach, spelt bread, eggs & cheddar .  Besides being an alleged hot trend right now, brussels sprouts are packed with all sorts of nutrients, just  like most of the weird vegetables I used to refuse to eat. They contain lots of fiber (so, ya know, easy does it), detoxifying agents, folate, and vitamins A and C. Apparently they boost the immune system, help your heart, fight cancer and give you awesome skin. And most importantly, they'll make you hipper than a skinny teenager in jeggings, a plaid shirt and thick-framed glasses on a fixed-gear bike.

a furry coat (plus, my 'about me' page)

Remember that red plaid dress I made way back when? If I had just thought to pair it with a big furry coat and jaunty-angled hat I could have made it on The Sartorialist.  Next time...

(Photo by The Sartorialist)

 (Photo by me, February 2009)

Meanwhile, what is it with me and plaid dresses? I can't get enough of them.  I just picked up a few new sewing patterns, and while I've already designated one to be made from a hilarious nautical print I have in my stash, it's increasingly looking like the other pattern will become... another plaid dress.

You may have noticed that posting has been a little light lately, but that's only because I've got lots going on at work and haven't had my usual energy to finish my posts in the early mornings. What's that, you thought I just sat around and looked up pretty pictures and tried out tasty recipes all day? I understand how you got that impression :) Click over to my About Me page to get the facts. It's been up there on the top of the page for about a month now. It's a work-in-progress, but I hope it shines a little light on my life beyond staging photo shoots with my dinner and knitting hats for everyone I know.  Though, of course, photographing my food is still a top priority...