Whole Wheat Muffins

This recipe by Mark Bittman is pretty good, and it uses all whole wheat flour (most recipes call for half and half.) However, he recommended pastry flour, and that’s what I used; I’m not sure it would work as well with regular whole wheat flour. For my muffins, I used two bananas, one very ripe, so ¾ cup of sugar was more than enough. I added about ½ cup of chopped walnuts, but you could use dried fruit or a combination of fruit and nuts; Mark suggests about ½ cup altogether.

½ cup melted unsalted butter, more for greasing tins
2½ cups whole wheat flour, preferably pastry flour
¾ to 1 cup sugar, depending on sweetness of fruit
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed or puréed banana, sweet potato, apple, zucchini, cooked or canned pumpkin, or other fruits or vegetables
1 egg, beaten
½ cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease two 6-cup muffin tins or fill with liners. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the melted butter, banana, egg and buttermilk. Fold wet mixture into dry mixture and stir until just combined.
2. Fill muffin tins or liners; bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until muffins are puffed and turning golden brown on top. Serve warm if possible. Yield: 12 muffins.

Hot Cross Buns

Every year around this time, I make Hot Cross Buns. We had them every year when I was growing up, and when I first moved to New York, I looked everywhere for authentic ones. I never found any I liked, so eventually I started making my own. I’ve never figured out to make the custard-like crosses I remember from my youth, but I keep on looking. This year I substituted about 1½ cups of whole wheat pastry flour for some of the flour, and it worked out fine. This is the best recipe I’ve found, so I've been using it for 20 years. It makes about 20 buns.

Combine:
3/8 cup sugar and 2 eggs and mix until frothy.
Add ¼ cup melted butter and 1+1/8 cup lukewarm milk—then sprinkle 1 Tb. Yeast over mixture.
Sift together:
2 cups flour (+2 additional cups, added later)
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cloves
½ tsp. salt
Add flour mixture to egg mixture. Stir in ½ to ¾ cups candied fruit and ½ cup currants.

Add enough additional sifted flour ½ cup at a time (up to 2 cups) to make a manageable dough. Kneed in bowl for 2—3 minutes and if dough seems sticking kneed briefly on floured board.
Cover and let rise until doubled—about 2-3 hours.

Roll dough to ½ inch and cut with 2 ½ inch cookie cutter. Form balls and brush with 1—2 Tb. Melted butter. Let rise about an hour (more if room is cool). Brush with egg glaze made with 1 egg yolk and 1-2 Tb. Half & half. (Make a cross on top with a sharp knife or razor blade; save the egg white for egg-white frosting below.) Bake 25-30 minutes at 375¡. (Try 350¡, and check after 15 minutes—switch shelves half way through.)

When cool, frost crosses with a sugar glaze frosting (powdered sugar, cream and vanilla or lemon juice), or try an egg-white frosting, with an egg white (or part of one), powdered sugar and 1 tsp. lemon juice or vanilla. You will need a pastry bag for the crosses.

Broccoli

Some of the broccoli in our garden is almost ready to eat, maybe even this weekend, when we are celebrating Cousin Peggy's birthday and eating the last of our pig. Our fennel is also looking pretty good, so maybe we'll have some of that soon too.

Closet Project

The guest rooms in our small ranch-style house are REALLY small, though each has a fair-sized closet. Unfortunately, the closet doors are mirrored sliders, not a look we care for, so when Laura visited at Christmas, I prevailed upon her to undertake a small closet “makeover” in our primary guest room (the smallest bedroom in the house). I had been thinking about this project since we moved in: removing the sliding doors and their hardware and replacing them with curtains. Of course the shelves in the closet also had to be rearranged if the curtains were to remain open.

A quick trip to Ikea on Christmas Eve (a terrific time to go—no shoppers!) got us everything we needed except for some baskets for the shelf: a long cotton tab curtain, curtain rod and some hooks. Taking off the doors made it possible to open the drawers of the chest already in the closet, and we gained a couple of feet of air space in the room itself. Half of the closet is still available for hanging clothes and bedlinens for the room. And the overall cost, including some baskets purchase later at Target, was less than $40. Next time Laura is here, we may tackle the second guest room. Her carpentry skills are much better than mine!

Here's what it looked like before the makeover: kind of scary, with those doors practically right next to your face!

Venison Stew

I’m cleaning out my freezer, so I can order my next pig, so I finally got around to making venison stew from the venison I helped cousin Don cut up last fall. The resulting dish turned out to be pretty similar to my oxtail stew recipe, with a few differences.

1. I had about two pounds of venison, since it was boneless.
2. I used a cup of red wine (instead of white) to marinate the venison overnight, along with one sliced onion, a couple of bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, crushed garlic, a bit of olive oil, and lots of ground pepper.
3. After browning the meat, I deglazed the pan with the red wine marinade and tossed out the vegetables. Then I browned an onion, two carrots and celery in about 2 Tb of olive oil.
4. I used red wine vinegar, eliminated the orange peel and brown sugar, and added about 2 Tb of tomato paste.
5. In addition to the marinade wine, I added about 1½ cups of venison stock, another ½ cup of red wine and the mushroom soaking liquid to cook the stew. It took about two hours.

I served the venison stew with a mixture of mashed potato and mashed celery root—I cooked them together, which worked out fine (though others suggested different pots), and Tim mashed them with butter and half and half, but olive oil would work too. I thought about adding some more mushrooms and will probably do so when we eat the leftovers. It would also be great with polenta or wide egg noodles.

Oxtail Stew

It’s been raining for weeks, so what better time for oxtail stew? I found a recipe for oxtails in Paula Wolfert’s The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen, but it was too slow even for me, since I wanted to eat the oxtails the same day I cooked them. So I took most of her ingredients and adapted the recipe for same-day eating. It turned out pretty good, but I think I may use red wine next time, for a deeper color, and maybe a bit more sugar or even molasses.

Ingredients:
3-4 lbs of oxtails
Freshly ground pepper
Salt
1 tsp. dried oregano
1½ tsp. thyme
1 tsp. crushed fennel seeds
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup dried porcini mushrooms
1 Tb. brown sugar
2 carrots, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1½ cups white (or red!) wine
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 bay leaf
1 3-inch piece of orange peel
2 Tb. Sherry wine vinegar

Garnish: 2-3 Tb. chopped parsley

Rub the oxtails with the oregano, fennel, thyme, ground pepper and salt, and let stand for 30 minutes (or more, if time). Soak the dried mushrooms in 2 cups of very hot water for at least 30 minutes. Then rinse them thoroughly and chop coarsely; strain the mushroom liquid through a coffee filter or paper towel and reserve.

Next brown the oxtails over high heat in 2 Tb. of the olive oil (or a bit more, if needed). This should take about 15 minutes or more. Remove the oxtails to a side dish. Deglaze the pan the oxtails cooked in with ½ cup of the white wine, and then add to the oxtails.

Brown the vegetables in the remaining olive oil over moderately high heat until they are lightly browned. Add the brown sugar to the pan and continue stirring until the vegetables are lightly caramelized. Stir in the vinegar, dried mushrooms, and mushroom liquid, then add mixture to the oxtails, along with the remaining wine and a bay leaf. It’s best to cook the oxtails in a heavy casserole, such as Le Creuset. Cook the oxtails covered on the top of the stove over low heat for about 3 hours—Wolfert suggest putting a crumpled sheet of wet parchment paper over the oxtails while cooking, and that worked well. After two hours of cooking, I strained the liquid, leaving about half of the vegetables with the meat and pressing as much as I could through a coarse strainer; I think you could eliminate this step. Thicken with arrowroot, cornstarch or a beurre manie, if needed. Garnish with parsley and serve with mashed potatoes.

(Wolfert’s recipe calls for chilling the oxtails overnight to be able to remove the fat easily, and she also adds about a pound sautéed oyster mushrooms to finished dish, which she reheats in the oven in a shallow covered baking dish at 350 for 45 minutes or until heated through.)

Cranberry Cookies (from Betty Crocker)

Laura put this recipe in her blog before I got a chance to, but I decided I should add it anyway. These cookies are good year-round, though you'll have to freeze the cranberries or buy them frozen after the holidays. And do not omit the glaze!

Laura says, “My favorite Christmas cookie? It’s not what you’d think. My mother makes these cranberry cookies every holiday season. They’re an unusual cookie: They’re not too sweet and have a consistency almost like a small cake, rather than a cookie. I made them myself last week for a cookie swap with my fellow ShelterPop bloggers, and, if I do say so myself, they came out perfectly. Personally, I like one with my second cup of coffee mid-morning. Don’t skip the brown-butter glaze--it makes the cookie!”

Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
½ cup butter, softened (margarine may be used)
¼ cup milk
2 Tb orange juice (or use all orange juice, to avoid dairy products)
(optional: 1 Tb. grated orange peel)
1 egg
3 cups all-purpose flour (up to half may be whole wheat—try to fine “white” whole wheat)
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. baking soda
2-2½ cups coarsely chopped cranberries (frozen ok—chop while frozen)
1 cup chopped walnuts (or other nuts)

Heat oven to 375o. Mix sugars and butter, then stir in milk, orange juice, egg (and orange peel). Stir in remaining ingredients and drop by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto greased baking sheet. Bake until light brown, about 10-15 minutes. Cool slightly and then spread with glaze.

Browned butter glaze
Heat 1/3 cup of butter over low heat until golden brown; cool slightly. Stir in 2 cups of powdered sugar and 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla. Beat in 2 to 4 tablespoons of hot water until smooth and of desired consistency. (Works also when milk solids are removed, to avoid dairy problems) You may also make a sugar glaze, using 2 cups powdered sugar, ½ tsp. vanilla and 3-4 Tb orange juice (or half & half)—add gradually until well combined and of spreading consistency.