Stuffed mushrooms

 Based on https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/15184/mouth-watering-stuffed-mushrooms/

24 oz mushrooms

1 tbsp oil

1 tbsp minced garlic (from a fridge jar)

1 package cream cheese (8 oz), softened

1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese (maybe also a bit of the powdery Parmesan cheese for texture)

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp onion powder

Scant 1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper

Maybe add 1/4 cup bread crumbs next time

3 tbsp butter (optional)

Clean mushrooms; separate steps and caps, lay caps out to dry, mince/chop stems. Sauté oil, minced stems, and garlic until stems stop releasing liquid and start to brown. Put into a small bowl to cool. Put butter into still-warm pan to melt. Mash everything else together (cream cheese through cayenne/bread crumbs). Once mushroom stems have cooked, mix them in as well. Spray baking sheet, lay out mushroom caps, fill with filling. Optionally sprinkle with more bread crumbs. Brush mushrooms with melted butter to keep from drying out (optional — it does help, but they’re still good without it). Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, until mushrooms are tender and tops are golden.

Broccoli bites

Based on this recipe: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/broccoli-cheddar-tassies/

They’re like homemade freezer snacks. And it says you can freeze them and reheat.

Crust:

- 1 cup butter, softened

- 6 ounces cream cheese, softened

- 2 cups flour

Filling:

- 16 oz frozen broccoli

- 1 egg

- 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

- 1/4 cup milk

- 1/4 cup mayonnaise

- 1/2 cup any shredded cheese

Combine the butter and cream cheese. Then add flour. This dough can be refrigerated for two days before use; if you do, you’ll have to let it warm up enough to be workable.

Put 1 inch balls of dough into a sprayed mini muffin pan. Press into a crust, normal pie crust thickness.

Cook broccoli according to bag (4-6 minutes, covered, with less water than broccoli). Drain and let cool. Combine everything else. If the broccolis are big, break them up so they will fit in the crusts. Mix broccoli with everything else. Scoop into crusts.

Bake at 350 for 22 minutes, until golden brown at the edges and no longer soupy.

This made 24 bites plus a small Pyrex container. The Pyrex container took a lot longer to bake.

Quick vegetable curry

Based on https://www.budgetbytes.com/15-minute-vegetable-curry/ with the curry powder from https://minimalistbaker.com/diy-curry-powder/

Curry

- 16 oz frozen veggies (I used “California style”)

- 1 cup veggie broth

- 1/2 can coconut milk

- 1/2 tbsp curry powder (I’d double this next time)

- 1 tsp garam masala (may not be necessary with the extra curry powder)

- salt to taste

Curry powder (makes way more than you need for this recipe)

- 1 tbsp ground coriander

- 1 tbsp ground cumin

- scant tbsp ground turmeric

- 1 tsp ground ginger

- 1/2 tsp dry mustard

- 1/4 tsp black pepper

- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

- 1/4 tsp cardamom

- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Put frozen veggies and broth into a pot over high heat. While it heats up, mix up the curry powder, and if you’re making microwave rice, start that too. Once it’s boiling, let it go for a minute or two, then add all the other ingredients over low-medium heat. Simmer until the veggies are cooked and the flavors are melded.

For the curry powder, just mix it all together and store the extra for another recipe.

Bran muffins

Bran muffins that aren’t good for you but are delicious. Crispy top, very moist center.  Like the ones I used to eat almost daily.

Based on this recipe; site has ~no ads, definitely worth browsing more.

• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup sour cream (use less of this or less butter next time, maybe sub in some apple sauce or mashed banana?  moisture was perfect but muffins were too oily/heavy/rich.)
• 1/4 cup molasses (use less next time)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon (use more next time)
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup bran
• 1/2 cup raisins (or any other mix-ins, this could support 1/2 cup each of 2 mix-ins I think)

Mix together the wet ingredients. Add all the dry ingredients.  Add the raisins.

Bake at 400 for 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.  Makes 12 normal-sized muffins.

Apple Pie Bars

I liked these!  They took a medium-long time to make, but that's nice on a weekend afternoon.  They were also very decadent -- I've made some suggestions in the recipe on how I think I'd change them for next time.

Based on this recipe.

Crust:

• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/4 flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Oil if needed

Filling

• 3 apples
• 1 scant tbsp lemon juice
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt

Crumble

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup chopped (not ground) pecans -- I'd increase this to 3/4 or 1 cup next time
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 tbsp butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350.  Line a 9x9 pan with parchment paper.  Mix together the butter & sugars, then everything else.  If it's too crumbly, add a bit of oil until it comes together.  Press into pan.  Bake 20 minutes or until just barely golden.

While it's baking, peel, core, and slice the apples (I used roughly 1/4 inch slices).  Mix them with the other filling ingredients.

I put the butter for the crumble topping in an oven-safe bowl & stuck it in the oven while it was preheating/baking to melt, then mixed together all the crumble ingredients.

When the crust comes out of the oven, pour the apples over it evenly.  Then put the crumble over that evenly.  Then bake for 45 minutes, or until the crumble looks done & the apples are soft (poke one with a knife through a gap in the crumble).

Let cool for at least 10 minutes, cut, and enjoy!

BBQ Tofu

Derived from this recipe.

1 package tofu
1 3/4 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Press tofu to dry.  While it's pressing, preheat the oven to 425.  Mix together all the spices in a big mixing bowl.  Add oil & mix into a paste.  Tear tofu into bite-sized pieces, add to spice paste.  Stir until all the tofu has seasoning on it.  Spray a baking sheet with oil, dump tofu onto it, bake for 25 minutes or until you like the texture, stirring every 10 minutes or less.  Dip in BBQ sauce, or toss with sauce.

The spice paste is really tasty & could probably be used for other stuff too (veggies, etc.).

Vegetarian Chili

Here's a rough guess at the chili I made today.  It turned out delicious & exactly how chili is supposed to taste!  Based on some combination of this, this, and whatever I had around the kitchen.

• 1 can diced tomatoes, not drained
• 1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can great northerrn beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can Trader Joe's cajun style black beans, drained but not rinsed
• 2 stalks celery, chopped into bean-sized pieces
• 1 bell pepper (I used half an orange bell pepper and half a red bell pepper)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp vegetarian worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1.5 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp dried basil
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• a few shakes of onion powder
• a little black pepper

Throw everything in the slow cooker & mix it together.  Cook on high for about 2 hours, then leave it on low until you're ready to eat it -- I left it for about an hour.  Stir occasionally.  After the first hour, taste a few beans and add seasonings as needed.

Milk Bread

I keep making bread, and I keep getting better at it.  This one is a little odd, but it's delicious!  Not too sweet, but definitely sweeter than your average bread.  Not as fluffy as the bread in the asian bakeries, but definitely fluffier than most of my breads.

Based off of this recipe.  Note that it tells you to throw away half the starter or double the dough.  I'd recommend doubling the dough and using half of it for a bread loaf, the other half for rolls, and freezing whatever you don't want right away.

FOR THE STARTER
1/3 cup bread flour
1/2 cup milk (I actually used dairy milk this time around, but I suspect other milks would be fine)
1/2 cup water

FOR THE DOUGH
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup warm milk, plus extra for brushing
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for buttering bowls and pan

Mix the starter ingredients together in a small pot.  Cook over medium-low heat until thickened to be just a little thicker than gravy.  Make sure to continuously pull the bottom upwards -- it gets thick at the bottom & leaves the liquid on the top.  Put in a bowl, put plastic wrap touching the top, and set aside to cool.

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Add 1/2 cup of the starter, the egg, and the milk.  Knead for 5 minutes.  Add the butter and knead for 10 more minutes.  I did this by spreading it over the top of the dough (with the spatula from mixing the starter), then folding the dough inwards (to store the butter inside), then repeating.  Your hands will be super gross; flouring them is helpful for the first round of kneading, but when the butter hits, it'll just grease your hands instead, which works great.  The dough will be not-at-all sticky by the time you're done.

Butter a bowl, butter the dough ball, cover with a damp cloth, and let rise until doubled, about an hour.  Punch down, reshape into a ball-ish shape, let rise another 15 minutes.  Generously butter your loaf pan -- I just buttered it normally, and the loaf stuck a bit & ended up tearing the bottom off.

Roll the dough out somewhat.  I did this by flattening it in the bowl it was rising it.  If making a single loaf, roll the dough up like you would for cinnamon rolls, fold the spiral ends underneath, and set in the pan seam-side down.  If making buns, either put a single ball in each cupcake cup, or make four small balls & set them in the cup together.  Cover with the cloth again & let rise until it's peeking over the pan, another 30-40 minutes.

Take all but the bottom-most rack out of your oven & preheat it to 350.  Putting it in the middle or bottom is important, or the top will cook too quickly.  Brush the top with milk.  Bake for 35-40 minutes or until it's slightly more golden brown than you'd expect, and you can knock on the top & hear it be somewhat hollow.  Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then let cool on a rack until you're ready to eat it.

Too excited to try it to take a picture before cutting it!

New Year's Pretzel

Happy new year!  We've always had new years pretzels at home, but they don't seem to have spread beyond Germany/Pittsburgh, so I had to make my own this year.  I mostly followed this recipe, but have some tweaks I'd make for next year.  In particular, this recipe makes two reasonably sized pretzels, or one comedically large one -- if you only want one reasonable pretzel, halve this recipe.

Pretzel:
1 1/2 cups milk (the recipe calls for scalding -- as far as I could tell from online, scalding does nothing to non-dairy milks, so I just microwaved my almond milk until it was pretty hot)
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup warm water (yeast-rising warm -- you should be able to stick your finger in & hold it, but only barely)
1 tablespoon yeast
6 to 7 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon salt
2 eggs
vegetable oil
3ish tbsp cinnamon sugar

Toppings:
about 3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
water
chopped/ground walnuts
maraschino cherries

Put yeast, warm water, and a dash of sugar into a bowl; set aside for five minutes to get frothy.  In a separate bowl, combine milk, sugar, and butter.  Once the yeast is frothy, mix the milk mixture, 5 cups flour, and the yeast mixture together.  Keep adding flour 1/4-1/2 cup at a time until the dough holds together -- it shouldn't be as thick as bread dough, but it should be close.  Knead just a little to make sure it's well combined (1 minute maybe).  Put it in an oiled bowl, cover with oil, cover with a damp towel, and let rise until doubled, about an hour.

Punch down dough, then roll out into a long rope.  I made one gigantic pretzel this year; it would be able to serve 10-20 people, depending on the people.  Alternatively, you could split this into two.  Either way, roll it into a long rope, and see if you can make a pretzel shape.  There should be large gaps in the pretzel, since the dough is going to double in size again.  If you can't make a gappy enough pretzel, roll the rope longer.  Once it's the right length, lay it flat (not in pretzel shape yet!) and make a deep ravine (almost all the way through) down the whole length.  Fill with cinnamon sugar -- it should be deep enough that some of it is still dry & not touching the dough.  Now, roll the rope around the long axis to swirl the cinnamon sugar through & lock most of it in (so it looks like a real rope, with the twisty spiral around it).  Take your twisty rope & make a pretzel shape on the silpat-lined tray you're going to bake it on.  Cover with the damp cloth & let it double again, another hour or so.

Remove cloth & bake at 375 for about 20 minutes.  If you stick your finger into the pretzel, it should still feel moist but not sticky/doughy.  Let cool on a wire rack.

Take about a dozen maraschino cherries out of the jar and let them dry off a bit.  A paper towel under them for about 5 minutes should do it.  I'm not crazy about this glaze -- it tastes too sugary for me -- so consider adding some extra extract or lemon zest or something to make it less like sugar.  I also added too much water, so I added ~2 tsp corn starch to try to fix it -- I'm not convinced they did anything, so I've excluded them here.  In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar, extracts, and just enough water to make it into a glaze.  It should be thick enough that it holds onto a spoon for a few seconds, but thin enough that it still drips off.  Drizzle all over the pretzel.  It'll keep flowing a little bit after you finish, so try to keep most of it on the top -- the pretty drip marks will appear on their own.  Place the cherries along the top, then sprinkle with walnuts.  Let dry a bit, then mostly cover until New Years Day.  Don't completely cover, or the glaze will get too moist and flow off; don't leave totally uncovered for more than ~12 hours, or the pretzel will get stale.

This is my comedically large pretzel.  It was delicious, though!

Banana Cookies

I had some bananas that were getting too ripe.  I didn't want banana bread.  Behold, cookies!  They're the fluffy kind, like pumpkin cookies.

Based on this recipe.  Makes about 18 cookies, maybe 20 if you don't eat any dough.

1.5 cups flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
scant 1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened but not melted, and whipped
1.5 eggs (I used 1 egg and a half egg's worth of egg replacer)
2 bananas (mine were small)
3/4 tsp vanilla

Mix together the dry ingredients.   Add the butter.  Add everything else.  Put them on cookie sheets -- they'll roughly double in size.  Bake at 400 for 5-8 minutes.

I frosted half of them and left the other half plain.  I haven't tried the frosted ones yet because I'm waiting for them to dry.  For the frosting, I used 2 tbsp butter, 1/2 tbsp half-and-half, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and powdered sugar until it came together.  It covered 8 cookies.

They're very basic when they're plain, but I like them.  You could add raisins, pineapple, nuts, cherries, peanut butter frosting...

Frosted above, unfrosted below.

Monkey Bread

I was looking for a breakfast recipe before, and while I've never had monkey bread it looked delicious, and it turned out better than I expected!  The dough was perfect, but the goo between the dough balls needs some work -- I have ideas.  I based it on this recipe, but only made 1/4 of the original recipe, which was perfect for two people.

If I were making it again, I would:
- Use butter instead of margarine in the goo
- Add more flavor to the goo -- cinnamon & other spices, or nearly-applesauce apples
- Maybe follow some of the comments on the recipe, particularly rolling the balls in just butter, then brown sugar, so they get more on them

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon white sugar

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons margarine, softened

3 tbsp margarine
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp raisins

Heat up the water in the microwave -- warm enough to stick a finger in it & feel it's warm, cool enough to keep the finger there.  Mix in the sugar in, then the yeast.  Let it sit for 5-10 minutes until there's some amount of froth (I didn't get much froth -- I think the water was slightly too cool -- but it worked out anyways).

Mix flour, cinnamon, and salt together.  Add liquids and margarine.  Knead it just enough to mix everything together.  Cover with a damp cloth & let rise until roughly doubled, about 45 minutes.

Melt the remaining margarine in the microwave.  Mix in the brown sugar & raisins.

Squish the dough back down.  Tear off chunks & roll into 1 inch balls.  Roll those balls in the brown sugar goo.  Set them into a greased pan on top of each other -- I used pyrex & it turned out well.  Let rise for another 15-20 minutes.

Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes, or until it's golden brown.  Flip pan over onto a plate & eat.

We ate this too fast for me to take pictures of it.  It didn't stay together, because it stuck to the pan & didn't have enough goo between the doughy bits, but it was very tasty.

Notes from making it a second time:
- The rise depends a LOT on temperature.  I left the dough out on the (cool) counter for 45 minutes, and it didn't rise at all.  I then moved it into the oven (slightly warmed then turned off), and it doubled in about 10 minutes.
- This time, I changed the goo.  First I peeled, halved, and boiled half of a small apple (the kind you get in the big bags) for 20 minutes until it was very soft.  Then I heated the butter, brown sugar, raisins (only 2 tbsp), and mashed up apple in a saucepan until it got slightly caramel-like.  This seemed to stay between the dough bits better.  I'd also recommend tending towards smaller dough bits -- the bigger ones were multiple bites, which isn't what I was going for.

Oatmeal raisin cookies

Everybody makes oatmeal raisin cookies.  But I want to make good oatmeal raisin cookies.  So here's an attempt at that.  Based on this recipe.

1/2 cup (8 tbsp) butter, softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cup oats
2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
2/3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 cup raisins
1 shot spiced rum
2 shots water

Mix raisins, rum, and water in a pot.  Put on medium low heat so it steams & smells delicious.  If I were doing this again, I'd only use 1 shot of water so more of the rum goes in the raisins, or I'd plan ahead enough to just soak the raisins in pure rum without heat.  Meanwhile, mix together butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a small bowl.  Mix together flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon in a big bowl.  Once the raisins have absorbed most of the liquid, drain them and mix everything together in the big bowl.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes or so, just until the bottoms start to brown a little.  Use a silpat so they don't stick and an airbake pan so they don't get crunchy.  They don't really change shape in the oven, so squish them into cookie-like shapes before baking.

Edit:
Another attempt, this one turned out great.  Based roughly on this and this.

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/8 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tbsp vanilla

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg
a pinch of ginger
scant 1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups oats
2/3 cup raisins, soaked in hot apple juice

Microwave some apple juice in a bowl until it's steaming.  Put in all the raisins (they should be covered) and set aside for a while.  In a smallish bowl, cream together butter & sugars.  Mix in egg & vanilla until well combined.  In the big mixing bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients except the oats & raisins.  Barely combine the dry ingredients and the butter mixture; add oats, strain raisins (discard liquid) and add raisins.  Mix together & stick in the fridge for 15+ minutes.  Then form into balls and bake at 350 for about 6 minutes.  These ones also don't reshape much in the oven, so shape them accordingly before baking.

Cherry Almond Muffins

I wanted to make muffins this morning and hand to work with what was around the house.  This is what came out.  If I were doing it again, I'd want them to be slightly more moist (they were about the consistency of a cornmeal muffin -- slightly crusty outside, which was good, but also a slightly dry & crumbly inside once they cooled, which was less good), but otherwise they were very tasty.  The comments on the site suggested using sour cream or applesauce to make them more moist, so maybe I'll try those.  Based on this bread recipe.

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup dried tart cherries -- I used 1/4 cup whole and 1/4 cup chopped, and I liked the whole better
• 3/8 cup milk
• 1 eggs
• 3 Tbs. butter, melted
• 1 Tbs. oil (this was an attempt to make them moister, use all butter if you want)
• 1 tsp. almond extract 

Mix the four dry ingredients together.  Add the cherries & mix to cover them.  In a separate bowl, mix the 5 wet ingredients.  Pour them into the dry mixture and mix until just combined (mine had streaks of egg still in it and it was fine; next time I'll try mixing it even less, still trying to get the hang of the muffin mixing method).  Butter six muffin cups & split batter between them; if you want muffins with tops, butter only five muffin cups -- these don't rise very much, so you can fill the cups basically to the top.  Bake at 350 until a knife comes out clean from the middle (or just before that would happen) -- I don't remember how long this took, but it was somewhere between 20-40 minutes. 

Cranberry Cornmeal Cookies

I checked a gluten-free Christmas cookie cookbook out of the library.  Most of the recipes had ingredients I didn't have (particular flours) and/or were just normal cookie types, gluten freed.  These ones caught my eye though -- they weren't like cookies I'd seen recipes for before.  They're delicious.  Like little bites of cornbread, with a crispy outside & a fluffy inside.  I tweaked the recipe to work with what I had around.

3/4 cups dried cranberries
1/4 cup Southern Comfort
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1 1/2 cups corn starch
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter
2 eggs (or egg substitutes)
4 tbsp milk (I used almond milk)
1 tbsp orange zest
1/2 tsp vanilla

Put cranberries & SoCo in a bowl together so the cranberries can soak it up.  When I did this, I accidentally put in a half cup of SoCo -- when it came time to add the cranberries to everything else, I fished them out with a fork & left behind some cranberry infused SoCo (which you could use for mixed drinks).  I think this resulted in the cookies having slightly more than a quarter cup of SoCo.

Put the dry ingredients (cornmeal through salt) into a food processor; process until they're mixed & the cornmeal's as finely or coarsely ground as you want in the final product.  I didn't have a big enough food processor, so I put in everything except the corn starch & mixed in the corn starch afterwards.

Add the chopped up butter to the food processor; pulse a couple times to chop it in.  Again, I have a small food processor, so I did this by halves.  Pour into a bowl.  Add wet ingredients (eggs through vanilla); mix until it makes a nice dough.  The recipe as written above is what I made; it includes 2 more tablespoons of milk than the original recipe, because my dough didn't come together well with just 2 tablespoons.  I also didn't realize how much moisture the cranberries would add -- if I were making them again, I might just do 3 tablespoons at this point & only add the 4th if there was still dry mix after adding the cranberries.

Add in the cranberries & mix to combine.  If you only used 1/4 cup SoCo, add any remaining liquid in the bowl to the cookies as well.

Form cookies on a silpat lined cookie sheet.  These cookies don't really grow much, so you can put them pretty close together; they also don't change shape much, so if you put them in with little spiky bits of dough sticking off, the spikes will still be there when they get out.  Bake for 20 minutes or so at 350 until they get a little golden brown around the edges.  Best as dough (note: boozy dough) or when fresh & warm out of the oven.

The original recipe calls for rum rather than SoCo, but I was lacking in the rum department, so I ate a couple cranberries and sniffed different liquors while I was chewing them so I could imagine what the final result would taste like (rejected possibilities: Fireball whiskey & cinnamon spice Kahlua, because I felt both would overpower the other flavors).

This was also my first use of fresh orange zest -- I happened to have an orange around, so I zested it then ate the rest.  I ended up with slightly less than a full tablespoon, but I feel like the cookies had enough orangeiness to them with just that.  And it made the kitchen smell very fresh.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

This is the second batch -- the first batch had those little spiky bits I mentioned.

Adzuki Buns

You know what's really exciting?  Asian bakeries.  They're always full of delicious snacks, and I'm usually not entirely certain what I'm ordering, unless I'm ordering an Adzuki Bun.  These appear in most Asian bakeries.  They're slightly sweet buns with a glossy outside & a sweet red bean paste in the middle.  And they're amazing.

So, after a long weekend of sampling various cultural foods around the city with a friend who was visiting from out of town, I decided it was finally time to try my hand at making these delicious buns.  And while mine didn't turn out exactly like the bakery buns, they were about as close as I could hope for on a first try.  I used roughly this bean paste recipe & this bun recipe, and I ended up with 27 buns.

Bean Paste
1 cup dry adzuki beans (available at your local Asian grocery story)
1 heaping cup sugar (I used a mix of about 2/3 white & 1/3 brown, and it turned out well)

Rinse & sort beans.  Put in a pot with water; bring to a boil; boil for about 5 minutes.  Strain & rinse beans, replace water, simmer for about 1.5-2 hours, or until the beans are squishy.  Strain beans again, put 2/3-3/4 of the beans into a food processor & pulse a few times, return all beans to the pot & add sugar.  Stir regularly over heat until almost all of the water evaporates.  Let cool & put into a container (if making beforehand) or set aside (if making buns right now).

This made a bit more paste than I actually needed; it'd probably be enough to use 3/4 cup beans & about 1 cup sugar.  It doesn't taste terribly good on its own -- it tastes a bit like dirt, with a slightly grainy texture -- but it gets a bit better once it's in the buns.

Buns
3 3/4 cups bread flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 tbsp yeast
1/3 cup butter
2 eggs (I used egg substitute with no ill effects)
2/3 cup milk (I used almond milk)
2/3 cup water

Something to brush over the buns -- eggs or egg yolks will give you that bakery sheen, but if you don't have them around, you can use some milk + honey
Sesame seeds (if you have them around)

Combine dry ingredients.  In a microwave safe bowl, combine butter, milk, & water.  Microwave, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is warm & the butter is soft (it needs to be warm for the yeast).  Add add liquids, including eggs, to the dry ingredients; knead until thoroughly combined, then knead some more.  Set aside for at least 45 minutes (I left mine for almost 2 hours with no ill effects).  Punch down the dough.  Split into 2 inch balls.  Let rest for 15 minutes; while it's resting, make small balls of the bean paste, a little less than an inch in diameter.  On a floured surface, flatten out the dough balls one at a time, put a bean paste ball in the middle, then roll up like a burrito, making sure the bean paste is totally enclosed.  Place seam-side down on your silpat-lined baking sheet -- I didn't have enough mats or sheets to put them all on at once, and they were a little hard to move later, but any flat surface should be okay.  Let rest for 15 minutes; it took me about 15 minutes to get through all of them, so once I was done balling I was ready for the next step.  Make a thumbprint in the top of the buns & brush with egg or milk.  Cover with plastic wrap & let rest for 45 minutes or so.  Remove plastic wrap, preheat oven to 375, brush with more egg/milk, sprinkle with sesame seeds if you want to be fancy, and bake for 12-25 minutes or until golden brown on top & bottom.

You could probably just make these buns on their own, or fill them with something else (jam? raisins? chocolate? almonds?).  They're very tasty.

The finished buns are about 3-4 inches in diameter -- smaller than the bakery version, but still tasty.  Because I didn't use an egg wash, they aren't glossy.

Filled with delicious beans!

Fruity Thumbprint Cookies

I have too many kinds of jelly in my fridge, so I decided to make these thumbprint cookies.  I only made a half batch, which made exactly 23 cookies -- considering I ate some of the dough, that's just about right.  I made some tweaks to make these easier & use the ingredients I had.  The cookie part ended up tasting basically like a butter cookie -- I suspect that if I'd let them sit for a day or two, the citrus flavor would've opened up, but I don't have that kind of patience.

1/4 cup jam or jelly (I didn't measure this, just used the spoon to scoop it directly from jar to cookie)
1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 egg's worth of egg substitute
1 1/2 tsp dried orange zest
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Mix butter & sugar together until it's a little light & fluffy.  Mix in egg substitute, orange zest, lemon juice, and vanilla; mix until it's combined & fluffier.  Mix together dry ingredients, add to the wet mixture.  Put a silicone mat on a baking sheet.  Make 1 inch balls of dough, put them on the sheet -- they'll only expand a little bit, so leave a little space but you probably only need about an inch between cookies.  If you have a round 1/2 tsp measuring spoon, it works really well for making the "thumbprints" -- otherwise, just use your thumb!

I stuck the whole first tray in the freezer for about 10 minutes once I'd assembled it, and that worked wonderfully.  The second batch didn't work out as well. I just made balls of dough & put them back in the bowl in the fridge until the pan was free again.  What I didn't realize is that this dough gets really solid when it's chilled, so I couldn't shape it until I'd let it warm up a bit on the pan.  Even then, the cookies cracked, which led to the jelly spilling out of some of them while baking.  Maybe use two pans & stick one in the freezer while the other is baking?  Or find another way to shape the cookies before you chill them?

Bake for 6 minutes at 350, then take out & add your jam/jelly to fill the divots (if you used the measuring spoon, now's the time to use it again -- 1/2 tsp is the perfect amount of filling for these cookies).  Bake for another 10 minutes or so, until the bottoms just barely start to brown.

Cool on racks & enjoy!

First batch turned out beautifully

Second batch was less beautiful but still good

A variety of frosting tweaks

I bought some storebought cake mix & frosting to make birthday cupcakes for a friend, but I decided that it wasn't enough to just bake them & frost them.  Instead, I tweaked the frosting into four different types, and they all turned out awesome.

1. Vanilla - Straight out of the tub.
2. Chocolate - Mixed about 2 spoonfuls of frosting with about 1 spoonful of cocoa powder.  Melted about 1/2 a shot glass worth of chocolate chips & mixed them in.  Added hemp milk until it was the right consistency again.  It's still got little chunks in it -- I think from the chocolate, and they only appeared after adding the milk -- but it's delicious.
3. Chocolate chip cookie - A friend (in fact, the one whose birthday it is) left a little less than half of a container of store-bought mini almond chocolate chip cookies here last time he was over.  I tossed four of them into the food processor, turned them into powder, mixed them in with the frosting, and added milk until it returned to the correct consistency.
4. Peanut butter - Two parts frosting, one part peanut butter.  Goes super well with the chocolate cupcakes.

Dried Cherry Coffee Cake

I bought some unsweetened dried bing cherries at Trader Joe's this weekend, and I learned that there's a reason they usually sweeten them -- they aren't particularly tasty on their own.  So I started searching for recipes to use them in, and this one came up.  It's very sweet and very tasty.  I'd disagree with the comments -- it didn't turn out light for me, but that may be because I tinkered with the ingredients a bit.  It's still super moist & delicious.  The cherries & almond extract smelled awesome while they were soaking.  And the sugar on top gave it a nice sweet crustiness.

Original recipe here.

1/2 cup unsweetened dried cherries
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 (5.4 oz) container vanilla greek yogurt
A splash of milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1 tbsp white sugar

Chop the cherries into raisin-sized pieces (or slightly smaller than whatever size you're comfortable with finding in the middle of a coffee cake).  Mix with the hot water & almond extract; let sit for 20 minutes (maybe poking/shaking occasionally).  Mix together the dry ingredients (except for extra sugar & almonds), then add wet ingredients, then drain cherries & add them (I used the cherry soaking water to mix with my egg replacer).  Grease & flour an 8x8 pan (or two loaf pans).  Pour in batter.  Mix together almonds & extra sugar; sprinkle on top.  Bake at 350 for 35 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Peanut Butter Granola

I wanted enough granola for the weekend, but not any leftovers.  This recipe scales up & down well and is super easy.

Original recipe.

2 tbsp peanut butter
2 tbsp honey
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup rolled oats

Microwave the peanut butter & honey for about 30 seconds so they're melty.  Stir together, then add vanilla & cinnamon.  Add oats & mix well.  Squish into a granola-cluster-thickness layer on a baking sheet (silicone baking mats are nice here).  If you keep it all as one pancake, you'll be able to have bigger clusters; this will fall apart a little bit when you pick it up, but if it's all one big piece then that's okay.  Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.  It'll still be soft when it comes out.  Let it cool.  It's much better -- crunchier & more flavorful -- once it's cooled off.  If you're making it in the morning for breakfast, put as much as you want to eat that day into a bowl & stick it in the freezer for a bit.

I had already eaten half of it before I thought to take a picture.  Also, mine's slightly burnt around the edges; still tasty.

Lentil Loaf

I was reminded this weekend that lentils exist.  So I browsed a bunch of lentil recipes & found one that looked interesting.  I've made a lot of pseudo-meat loaf in the past, but I'd always used frozen veggie meat crumbles.  This turned out pretty well.  It was a bit too salty/savory for me, and I'd already cut the broth back from the suggested amount.  I'll probably cut it out completely next time -- the BBQ sauce already adds enough saltiness.  I'll probably also take a suggestion from the comments & use this recipe to make veggie burgers rather than a loaf.  It had that trademark bean-based squishiness that a lot of homemade veggie burgers have.  I couldn't get it out of the pan without it turning into just a pile of lentil stuff, but it was still good.  I think you could also make this in different flavors by replacing the onions/garlic/BBQ sauce with other stuff -- chopped + pureed pineapple is what came to mind first for me, to make funky burgers that you could put grilled onions, peach salsa, and guacamole on.

Original recipe here.

• 1 1/2 cups dry lentils
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cups pre-cooked mixed wild rice (I cooked this with half broth, half water)
• 1/4 cup barbecue sauce
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning

Cook rice if you haven't already.  Mix lentils, broth, and water together, and cook until lentils are well done (squishy), about 30 minutes.  Chop up the onion (a food processor works great) & the garlic.  Sautee onion & garlic until they're softened.  Once the rice & lentils are done, mix everything together.  Oil the sides & bottom of a loaf pan -- this will fill the loaf pan all the way to the top, and maybe beyond that if you have a stumpy pan.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour.