Jezebel Bites

Tonight I tinkered around with a couple of recipes that I have been holding on to. This is an adaptation of a couple of Cooking Light recipes. It's something that I wanted to use as an appetizer. I liked the way that it turned out and plan on making it again. I would post pictures but they didn't turn out very photogenic so I'll have to make them again sometime.

Jezebel Bites

1 Tbs. butter or margarine
1 shallot, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely minced
1/2 c. boiling water
1/4 c. dried apricots, chopped
2/3 c. pineapple preserves
1/3 c. red pepper jelly
1 Tbs. Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. prepared horseradish
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 tsp. hot sauce of your choice (I like Texas Pete)
1/2 tsp. crushed chile pepper

Phyllo Dough, thawed
Olive Oil Cooking Spray

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Bring water to a boil and pour over apricots, set aside for 10 minutes. Heat a small saucepan or skillet over medium heat. Add shallots and garlic, and saute for 5 minutes or so, until garlic begins to brown but is not burned. Drain apricots and put in a medium sized bowl. Add shallot mixture and remaining ingredients except for Phyllo and cooking spray. Stir well until combined.

At this point it would be fine to serve with cooked meat if you indulge in it, especially ham.

If you want to try the Jezebel Bites, taked thawed phyllo sheets and cut them in half. Lay out a sheet, spray it with olive oil for three layers. Place a spoonful of the sauce in it and roll it up like a flag. Sorry, that's the best instructions that I can come up with, I'm not that creative tonight. ;)

Place on a cookie sheet and spray tops with cooking spray. Bake in a 400 degree oven for around 11 minutes or until browned and crunchy.

Gnat

I have developed the attention span of a gnat. I keep so busy with work that I drift from one thing to another when I get home because I'm mentally worn out. I'm hoping that when spring comes and I can start working on my garden that it'll get me settled in again, but I'm not so sure it will work. One of my main pleasures in life before was reading. I could sit and read a book for long periods of time over the course of weeks. Now I start the first few chapters and then don't pick it up for a month or two. So I've discovered something that I previously was not so fond of - short stories and essays. I'm currently reading two collections - "Cornbread Nation I" and "A Naturalist Buys An Old Farm". Cornbread Nation is a collection of essays on southern cooking written by various people. A Naturalist Buys An Old Farm is a collection of the writings of Edwin Way Teale about a farm that he bought with his wife in Connecticut. I like it because I can just dip into them now and then depending on my mood and I don't feel like I've missed anything or forgotten anything. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to settle down into a good book, but for now I have something to keep my attention.

Havoc

Hockey has always been my favorite sport to watch (probably because I hate most other sports). Having lived in the frozen north for quite a few years, I developed an appreciation for the game. Hockey fans living in the South were out of luck until the spread that's happened lately. And now I'm living in a town that has its own team, yay! :) My company helped sponser Military Appreciation Night, and tonight was the game. I got free tickets so we went. It was a great time, I really enjoyed it. Even the husband enjoyed the game. I definately plan on attending some more of them. We are going to get a hotel downtown next time so that we don't have to drive home afterwords. Should be an enjoyable evening. :)

Hedgehog Principle

I don't know if any of you have read the book "Good to Great", but it's a business book that discusses how being good makes some companies not strive to be great. What the author believes seperates the good from the great is that the great ones have a Hedgehog Principle, or a core business that they stick to and do well at. Okay, that's really paraphrasing it down but that's what stuck with me and I forgot everything else. The reason for this rambling is to illustrate that cookies are my Hedgehog Principle. I used to suck at making them, but since I got my new oven and baking sheets I can't get enough of baking them. So after my recent yeast defeat I decided to go back to my strong ability to redeem myself.

Cookies had fallen out of my favor because all of my co-workers seem to have gone on diets. I usually pawn off...er.. share cookies with co-workers because with just two of us at home we don't need to eat whole batches. But now I have a new victim..er.. friend to share with. So I decided to do some baking tonight. One of my recent sources for inspiration is the Baking Sheet blog - http://www.bakingsheet.blogspot.com/. There was a cookie recipe that interested me there, but seemed to need tweaking - http://bakingsheet.blogspot.com/2005/12/maple-pecan-oatmeal-cookies.html. So here is my tweaked version. They came out really good. They weren't overly sweet or spiced and I liked them. We'll see how they go over tomorrow. :)

Here are the changes I made: added 1/4 tsp. cloves because to me oatmeal cookies HAVE to have cloves in them, 1 tsp. maple extract (the more mapley the better), 1/2 tsp. vanilla, I used half maple syrup and half brown rice syrup for the 1/3 c. maple syrup because I ran out of maple (brown rice syrup has a neat caramely flavor), and used pecan meal because I don't like nuts in cookies.

Maple Pecan Oatmeal Cookies
1 c. all-purpose flour
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
½ c. butter, softened
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. maple syrup
1 egg or egg replacer
1 tsp. maple extract
½ tsp. vanilla
1 c. rolled oats
½ c. pecan meal

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Cream butter and brown sugar together in a large bowl. Beat in maple syrup, egg replacer, maple extract and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture and oats, adding pecan meal at the last minute. Stir only until just combined. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto parchment lined baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 9-12 minutes, until set and golden brown around the edges.

Yeast Bread 1, Home Team 0

I have gotten to the point where almost everything that I cook turns out good. I can't remember the last time that I made something that was totally inedible. One of the challenges that I have always had is that I have never been able to make any yeast-raised baked goods. I've decided that I'm going to change this tradition, and this weekend was to be the beginning of it.

The first recipe that I aimed to try was this: http://www.gumbopages.com/food/dessert/king-cake.html. I have read about King Cakes before and really wanted to try one. So I found the recipe and bought the things I needed. With a confident air after my baking successes with cookies at Christmas, I set forth to do battle with yeast breads. Needless to say that it turned out to be a complete and utter failure. :( I think I may have lost track counting cups of flour, because the dough turned out REALLY dry. I mean really dry. I made a valiant effort to save it, but it came out dense and heavy and ended up in the garbage can. I still had a bowl of cream cheese filling, and decided that I'd try to salvage it by making it into frosting for a carrot cake.

I've never actually made a carrot cake before, but I have recipes and some old carrots that needed to be used. I got it mixed up and put in the oven to bake. I shouldn't have been very surprised to see that the carrot cake was also a flop. Didn't rise and was really oily. At this point I gave up and left the kitchen. Sometimes it's better to quit while you're ahead and try again another day.

You may have won this battle Yeast Bread, but I'll win the campaign.

Sn0000000w!

We finally got our first snow of the winter yesterday. It's a scary proposition driving in winter conditions in the South. Not because I don't know how to drive in it (I lived in Minnesota), but because the rest of the people around here don't. Thankfully I made it safely back and forth to work for yesterday and today though it got hairy a few times. I'm definately ready for spring, and thanks to the groundhog it'll be coming soon. :)