Okay, I have to admit, I’m a sucker for Monkey Bread!!! Yes, I know, it probably can’t be considered the height of the culinary arts, but damn it’s good. What’s not to like; rich caramel, buttery goodness, a crisp crust and gooey interior. It’s got everything you need to start the day off right!! Add a cup or 2 of coffee and you can start your day in high gear.

There are a number of recipes out there for Monkey Bread. Some use store bought biscuit dough, others use store bought bread dough, and yet others have you make everything from scratch. While “made from scratch” is often my favorite way to go, I have to admit that, in this case, I am partial to the recipes using store bought biscuits. Not only do I like the soft texture of the Monkey Bread made this way, but it cuts down on a lot of prep work, which makes it a great breakfast for when you have overnight guests. Get a couple of the kids involved, they love to help shake the dough in the sugar, and you can have this on the breakfast table in no time.

Money Bread

3 cans (12oz each) biscuit dough
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1 cup, packed brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350° F. Grease a large bundt or tube pan. Meanwhile mix the granulated sugar and cinnamon and either leave in a large bowl or place in a large ziplock bag. Cut the biscuits into quarters and toss them in the sugar-cinnamon mix until well coated. Arrange the pieces in your prepared pan sprinkling with the optional pecans and/or raisins as you build up the layers. In a saucepan mix the butter and brown sugar over medium high heat. Bring to a boil and cook for 1 minute. Pour over the biscuit pieces and immediately put into the oven to bake. Bake for approximately 35-40 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 8-10 minutes, then turn out onto a plate. Don’t allow to cool longer or the Monkey Bread might stick to your pan as the sugars cool.

Anyone watching the Olympics this year? I don’t know what it is, but for some reason I just can’t get into them much this year, which is strange for me as I am usually glued to the TV for the Winter Olympics. I did catch the opening ceremonies, which I thought were outstanding and I’ve caught a bit of the skiing events but not as much as I normally do. I’ve always been a big fan of the downhill events, especially the Super G and Downhill. I also love all the slalom events. I guess I’m kind of “old school” that way, though I don’t mind the newer “freestyle” events and snowboarding. I’ll watch the hockey events, but I have to admit, I’m bored mindless by all the other skating events. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they shouldn’t be included, I just don’t personally find them all that captivating, though I know many people do. So are you watching them this year? What are your favorite events?

In my last post I made chicken breasts wrapped in puff pastry. Since I had bought the pastry and used only 1 sheet of the dough I had another one left (they come 2 to a package) and thought I would create this simple dessert. The filling for this galette is frangipane, an almond filling made with ground almonds, sugar, eggs and a few other ingredients. I didn’t have almonds but had a block of marzipan around so based this frangipane off of that.

It’s hard to beat this combination of flavors. Chocolate complements both the almond and the banana flavors well and helps bring the galette together. Serve slightly warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or cold the following morning as an excellent breakfast pastry.

Banana Almond Galette with Chocolate

5 oz. marzipan
2 Tbsp. heavy cream
1 egg
2 Tbsp. sugar + more for sprinkling on top
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 bananas, peeled and sliced 1/4″ thick
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

Pre heat oven to 400F. Break up the marzipan and mix with the cream and egg until smooth. Lay out puff pastry sheet on a lightly greased baking tray. Spread marzipan mixture over pastry leaving a 1 1/2″ border.

Sprinkle with the chocolate chips.

Finally arrange the banana slices over top, in a decorative fashion. I just created overlapping rows.

Sprinkle granulated sugar over top of the bananas and bake for 17-20 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden brown and the almond filling has puffed slightly. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before cutting and serving.

For added texture you could skip the step of sprinkling the sugar over the bananas before baking. Instead wait until the pastry has come out of the oven and cooled slightly. Sprinkle with sugar and use a blow torch to caramelize the sugar over top.

Now that my daughter is getting a little older (almost 3 1/2) she likes to spend time in the kitchen and “help” Mommy and Daddy. And by “help” I usually mean “hinder.” Not that she doesn’t have the best intentions, but, well…. she’s 3. She is a really good stirrer though so we often task her with that job, even if there is no stirring required for what we are making (a note to all parents out there who haven’t discovered it yet, but a bowl of flour and spoon will keep your kid occupied for quite awhile, though keep a close eye out or you will end up being occupied for quite some time cleaning up the flour!).

This past weekend Genevieve got to help Mom make one of her favorite things: Banana Snack Cake. The recipe comes from my mother (not sure where she got it) and was one of my favorites, growing up. Since we often have bananas around (Genevieve’s favorite fruit) this cake gets made a lot, and Genevieve is quite fond of it. She was very excited to get a chance to help make it this time.

Banana Snack Cake

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk*
1 cup (2 medium) bananas, mashed
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup quick oats
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
6 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional) (we like ours without)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 9×13″ pan. In a mixer, beat the butter until fluffy then add the sugar.

Add eggs, one at a time, then the buttermilk, vanilla, and mashed bananas, mixing well. Stir in the flour, oats, salt and baking soda. Mix well and gently add the chocolate chips. Spread batter into prepared baking pan.

And don’t forget to give the mixer’s beaters to your kid!!!!

Not doing so can lead to some serious consequences, including major temper tantrums! Sprinkle the top with nuts (if using) and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.

*If you don’t have buttermilk you can substitute with 1/2 cup regular milk mixed with 1/2 Tbsp. of white vinegar.

This past weekend I celebrated my 40th birthday. I wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be. Sure, I’ve come to the realization that I’m not as young as I used to be, but I also came to the realization that you are only as old as you feel. I certainly don’t act and feel like I thought 40 year olds act and felt, when I was a teenager.

The weekend was rather low key. No major party, just good times with family. My parents made the trip up from Indiana and my brother and his wife came up from Madison, WI to help me celebrate, and to have our family “Christmas.” Hey, better late than never. We filled the weekend with good food, plenty of games, and lots of laughter….and the occasional Hurricane.

We also filled with weekend with plenty of good food. For my birthday dinner, I chose hamburgers, done on the grill. Yes, I know, it’s not fancy, and surely doesn’t do justice to a chef’s birthday dinner, but I love burgers and besides, we had a big day of eating ahead of us the following day. The following morning started with coffee and Eggs Benedict, using another batch of homemade English Muffins. Eggs Benedict are another one of those dishes that I never tire of, and if I wasn’t afraid of what it would do to my arteries, I’d probably eat it a couple times a week!

Our main meal of the weekend was a full blown holiday feast with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, in other words, the whole works. Over the last few years I have forsaken roasting the turkey and, instead, grilled the turkey in my Weber grill, flavoring it with hickory smoke. As usual, everyone ate too much, especially my brother who refuses to listen to both his body and our warnings about his past years’ gluttony.

Sunday lunch, leftovers, was saved by my brother and his wife, who had brought along a bunch of home canned pickles and relishes, including their fabulous Dilly Beans.

Overall, the weekend was a wonderful success and there were plenty of food highlights, as there always is when my family gets together. One of the standouts was this wonderful pie my wife created. She conceived of the idea a week or so ago while eating a snack of banana and peanut butter pretzels. While, at first, it might seem a little strange, the flavors work quite well together. The pie is ready a few hours after being made, but I found that allowing the pie to sit overnight allows the flavors to meld a little more. The best part is that the pretzel crust was still crunchy 3 days later, though I doubt the pie will last that long.

Peanut Butter Pie with Preztel Crust

FOR CRUST:
2 1/2 cups pretzels, crushed
3 Tbspl brown sugar
3/4 cup butter melted

FOR FILLING:
3/4 cup peanut butter, creamy
1 package (3oz) cream cheese, room temp.
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 container (12oz) whipped topping, thawed
3 bananas, peeled and sliced 1/4″ thick

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine all the ingredients for the crust and mix well. Save 1/4 cup of pretzel mixture and spread the rest into a 10″ pie tin,working all the way up the sides and making sure that the crust is even. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool completely before filling. Sprinkle remaining pretzel mixture on s cookie and bake 10-12 minutes. Cool

In a large bowl, combine the peanut butter and cream cheese. Add 1/3 of the whipped topping and the sugar and beat until smooth and no lumps remain. Add remaining whipped topping and gently fold in until well combined. Fill crust with 1/2 of the filling then top with sliced bananas. Top with remaining peanut butter mousse. Garnish with remaining crushed pretzels and chill for 3 hours or overnight before serving.

Okay, it finally happened. I succumbed to the holiday cookie mania sweeping blogs and the web this time of year. I feel guilty… and kind of dirty, like when you fall prey to one of those forbidden pleasures, but these cookies are so good I have to share them with everyone. Rich, chewy, decadently fudgy, with a crisp exterior and a soft, moist crumb, what’s not to love? Just writing about them makes me feel a little sinful.

Seriously, these are great, little cookies, eaten as is or sandwiched together with a little raspberry jam, these little morsels are usually on of the first things to disappear off of any cookie platter. The key to them is to not over bake them. Pull the cookies from the oven when they still look slightly underdone. This way you will end up with that crisp exterior, and fudgy, brownie like interior.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

2 cups sugar, granulated
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 squares (1 oz each) unsweetened chocolate,melted and cooled slightly
4 each eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 pinches salt
1 cup confectionery sugar

Combine the sugar, oil and vanilla in a stand mixer. Add the chocolate and mix to fully incorporate. Add flour, salt, and baking powder and just mix to combine. Don’t worry, the mixture will be more like a thick brownie batter than a cookie dough.

Chill batter for, at least, 3 hours or overnight. When ready to bake preheat the oven to 350. Scoop approximately 1-1 1/2 tablespoons of batter into a ball. Roll in the confectionery sugar and place on a cookie tray.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until almost no indent remains when touched. Allow to cool on pans for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. Serve as is or sandwich the cookies with raspberry jam for an extra special treat.

Yesterday we got as far as cutting and baking the gingerbread pieces. Today it is time to assemble and decorate. But before we can do that we need to make some Royal Icing to use as our glue.

Royal Icing
1 each egg white
1 tsp. cream of tartar
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Beat egg white just until it loosens up. Add cream of tartar and powdered sugar. Stir until fully incorporated. You may need to add more sugar, to get a thick, frosting like consistency. Using just enough icing to adhere the pieces, build the base of your house, like in the picture below, using heavy cans of food to hold the pieces together as the icing hardens. This probably won’t be enough but I prefer to work with smaller batches and make it more often.

Use only enough icing to hold the pieces together, initially. This helps the icing dry more quickly than when it it loaded on. After it dries and the pieces are somewhat secure, you can then go back and reinforce the joints with more icing. Only after you have a solid base, with joints that have dried, can you then add the roof. The same rule applies here; add only enough icing to cement the pieces together to speed the drying process, then go back and reinforce. As you can see from the picture below, I have found it easiest to place the roof flat on the counter top and prop up the house. This works for small houses, but not large structures.

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One of my favorite pastimes during this season is making Gingerbread houses.  I have made all kinds of Gingerbread houses from the very large and ornate to the small and simple; I love making them all.  I have created a number of large “centerpiece” houses for various functions and benefits, my favorite being the large church I created as the centerpiece for the gift table at my own wedding.  It was over 2 feet long and the steeple stood almost that high.  With large, candy “stained glass windows, Golden Grahams as roofing shingles and a full array of bells in the steeple the project took weeks to complete, but I enjoyed almost every minute of it.  Then there was the time, as chef of a country club, when I had to make 30 mini Gingerbread houses for kids to decorate.  I didn’t take the simple way out and make them out of graham crackers but cut out and “glued” together 30 of the little things.

Look for Part II where we put the house together and let my daughter have her way with it.

It’s been a few years since I last made a Gingerbread house, but this year my daughter is 3 and I figured it would be a good time to restart the tradition. Of course she is still too young to help Daddy build a Gingerbread house, but she would be more than capable of decorating one, so I set out to build a couple of houses, one for her and one for the neighbor boy who I thought would also like to decorate a house.

The making of Gingerbread houses is not a single day task, unless you want to drive yourself insane. I find that I like to spread it out over 3-4 days, if making an average sized house, many more if making a large or elaborate structure. Day 1 – make and chill the dough. Day 2 – roll out, cut and bake the dough. Day 3 – assemble the house. Day 4 – decorate the house. Of course some of these steps can be combined into single days, but as a working stiff, I find that breaking it up this way makes each step easy to accomplish while still allowing me time to do other things after work.

Gingerbread Dough

2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup molasses
5 1/4 cups Flour, all purpose
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground clove
2 pinches salt
3/4 cup water

Cream together the butter and the brown sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add the molasses and mix well. Sift together the flour and baking soda and add, along with the spices and salt. Once well mixed add the water and mix to incorporate. Chill dough at least 3 hours, or better yet, over night. Meanwhile draw out your template for your house. For a basic Gingerbread house you will need 2 sides, a front and back and 2 roof pieces for a total of 6 pieces or 3 template pieces.

To make a house with the same dimesions as I have pictured your side template should be 3″ tall x 4″ long, the template for the front and back (same template for both, just no door or window cut out for the back) is 5″ wide, a side height of 3″, and a roof slope of 5″. The roof template will then need to be 5 1/2″ tall (the extra 1/2″ for overhang) by 5 to 5 1/2″ wide (again to provide some overhang in the front and back and taking into account the width of the gingerbread pieces on the front and back).

After you have let the dough chill for the appropriate amount of time you then need to roll the dough out. Use plenty of flour to dust the dough with, to prevent sticking and roll it out on parchment paper cut to fit your cookie trays. The reason for this is once you cut the pieces it is easier to move the whole parchment paper so that you don’t accidentally stretch the dough out of shape. For a smaller house like this, roll the dough out to about 1/4″ thick, for larger structures you will want the stability of dough rolled out to 1/2″ thick. Place your templates on the dough and cut out the pieces cutting about 1/8″ larger than the templates. Bake in a 350F oven for 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool, for 5 minutes on trays before transferring to a cooling rack. While still slightly warm shave the pieces down, using a serrated knife, to the exact size needed.

If you want to created glass windows or stained glass windows, use a hammer to crush up hard candies such as Jolly Ranchers. When the dough has 5 minutes more to bake, fill window with crushed candy, mounding it up in the center. Return to oven and finish baking.

A quick word about edibility. This recipe makes a great dough that provides both a good flavor and good stability. If you are not so concerned about edibility then there are few things I would recommend doing. First off, I would double all the spices. Doesn’t make for great eating but all those added spices helps keep the Gingerbread house fragrant for quite a long time. Also I would lower the heat to 325F and bake the dough for about 35-40 minutes. This will dry out the dough even more making it more stable, but also much tougher on the teeth.

My last post was about snow days and Hot Chocolate. One very important component to Hot Chocolate, that I didn’t mention, is the marshmallows. Sure some people like to top their cocoa with whipped cream, but for pure comfort factor you can beat marshmallows!

Homemade marshmallows are a thing of beauty. They taste so much better than the store bought ones, can easily be customizable, and aren’t overly difficult to to make. While vanilla is the standard flavoring for marshmallows I also like to make them flavored with almond extract or peppermint extract. If you try this start with half the amount of vanilla and keep adding until you get the flavor you like. Also, once set, you can simply cut them into squares or use mini cookie cutters to cut out different shapes. Personally, I like snowflake shaped marshmallows.

Homemade Marshmallows

2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or flavor of your choice)

Coat a 12×17 rimmed baking sheet with pan spray, line with parchment and spray again. Pour 1/3 cup cold water into the bowl of an electric mixer and sprinkle with gelatin. Allow to soften for 5 minutes. Meanwhile place sugar, corn syrup, salt, and 1/3 cup water in a medium saucepan. Cover and bring to a boil. Remove lid and cook until syrup reaches 238 (soft ball) on a thermometer. With mixer on low, whisk gelatin and slowly pour in the sugar mixture. Raise the speed and whip until mixture is thick, white and has almost tripled in volume (about 12 minutes).

Add vanilla and beat 30 more seconds Pour into prepared pan. To smooth out the top coat the back of a spatula with pan spray before smoothing it out or the marshmallow mixture will stick to it. This stuff wants to stick to everything! Allow to cool, uncovered, at room temp. at least 3 hours or overnight. Coat cookie cutters with pan spray and cut into desired shapes. Dust lightly with a mixture of cornstarch and powdered sugar (1:1 ratio) and allow to air dry for 12 more hours. Store in an airtight container.

It’s December 1st, and that means only 24 days left until Christmas, my favorite holiday of the year. Not only is it Christmas, but my wife and I celebrate our anniversary right around that time (Dec. 30th) along with my parents and grandparents. So, as you can see the holiday is a very special time for me.

I figured I would start the Christmas season off with a simple pie recipe. While it may be simple, it packs quite a punch in the flavor department. I tend to not drink a lot of eggnog. I’m not a big fan of it though I do like Tom & Jerry’s, which at their most basic are a frothy, warmed up version of eggnog. I also tend to use eggnog as a flavoring agent in many recipes this time of year, but I just can’t bring myself to drink more than a glass or 2 during the holiday season, and then only if spiked with copious amounts of bourbon.

My wife on the other hand loves eggnog and will drink a considerable amount over the next few weeks. Because of her love for eggnog I dedicate this recipe to her.

Eggnog Pie

1 each Pie crust for a 9″ deep dish pie
1/2 cup Sugar, granulated
1 pinch Salt
2 cups Eggnog (store bought)
4 each Eggs, large
Nutmeg, freshly ground

Preheat oven to 425F. Par bake pie crust for 7 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool while making filling. Reduce oven heat to 350F. In a large bowl beat eggs. Add sugar and salt and stir until mostly dissolved. Add eggnog and continue to stir until all sugar is dissolved. Try not to beat too much air into filling. Pour into pie shell, coming just below the edge of the crust. You might have a little extra filling. Don’t over fill the crust. Sprinkle with fresh ground nutmeg and place in oven, on a cookie sheet in case it overflows. Bake for 40-50 minutes. To check a custard for doneness, jiggle the pie. The custard should still wiggle like softly set jello. Don’t overcook the pie or it will lose its smooth, satiny texture and become grainy. Allow to cool on tray for 20 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before cutting. I even prefer to refrigerate it for a couple of hours to make sure it has set completely before cutting.

When we lived in Vermont my family used to often take Sunday drives. It seems that the art of the Sunday drive has been lost. Who can blame people, seeing what the price of gas is nowadays, but I can’t help but feel saddened. People don’t know what they are missing. I loved those Sunday drives, at least in hindsight. I’m not so sure that I particularly enjoyed them at the time, but now I look back on them with fondness. Sunday drives are about the trip and not the destination. Sometimes my parents had destinations in mind and at other times we’d just drive, look at the scenery, and if we happened upon something cool or a neat little store then it was a bonus. Most times I think my dad just pointed the car in a direction and just drove randomly, though I bet he’d never admit it.

I was always thrilled when our trips wound their way down to Waterbury Center, because I knew a stop at Cold Hollow Cider Mill was imminent. It might be a tourist trap, but I loved and still love that place. As a kid, I was fascinated by watching the giant cider press turn out gallons and gallons of cider from the apple pulp they’d load in to it. I could have sat there for hours watching them press that apple pulp into one of life’s greatest treasures-cider.

The other reason I looked forward to the trip was the hot cider donuts. Crisp on the outside, soft and moist on the inside. Colored a deep brown, these donuts were packed with the flavors of autumn, from the variety of warm, sweet spices they used to the rich cider reduction used to moisten the dry ingredients. With a bribe of a few hot donuts and a couple glasses of cider my parents were assured of a little piece and quite from my brother’s and my endless verbal barrage, and I believe they took full advantage. (continue reading…)