Puppy Chow

A friend of my mom's introduced my family to this treat when I was about 6 or 7 years old by having us help her make it. It gets its name from looking sort of like dog kibble. You may know it by another name, such as People Chow or Muddy Buddies. This is another thing that you only ever used to be able to get by making it yourself, but I have seen it fully prepared and for sale in some grocery stores. I have very recently found friends who also know what this is from their childhood and absolutely love it. If you love the combination of chocolate and peanut butter and you also like sweets, you'll probably love it too.

If you want to be extra (gross), you can put it in a bowl, pour milk over it and eat it like cereal, like I did very occasionally when I was a kid. Yikes! Seriously, it tastes better all by itself.

Notes:

• Instead of shaking it in a bag to coat it with powdered sugar, my mom used to leave the cereal in the bowl, sift the powdered sugar over the chocolate coated cereal, and mix until it was coated. This way tends to coat the pieces less evenly but might potentially be less messy and involve fewer containers.

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RECIPE:

Puppy Chow
Makes about 8 cups, serves 8-12 as a snack

6 cups Crispix cereal (about 1 12 oz box)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup (4 oz, 1 stick) butter
2 cups powdered sugar

Place cereal in large mixing bowl and set aside. Melt together chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter on stove or in the microwave on high power in 30 second increments, and mix until fully combined. Pour chocolate mixture over cereal and stir gently until coated. Place 1 cup powdered sugar in a large, clean paper or plastic bag; add half of the cereal, close the bag and shake until coated. Repeat with second cup of powdered sugar and other half of cereal mixture. Store in an airtight container.

Turtle Cheesecake

My family was asked to make two desserts for my brother's wedding, and my new sister-in-law requested a turtle cheesecake. Neither my mom nor I had made a cheesecake before and we settled on this recipe because it looked relatively simple compared to others we found.

NOTES

• We used regular vanilla extract instead of clear imitation vanilla. (The clear stuff is only for looks, so that your cream cheese filling stays as white as possible.)
• Be sure your cookie crumbs are ground very finely and evenly. It will help the crust stay together. Definitely use a blender or food processor, and not just a rolling pin.
• We skipped the hot fudge sauce and used chocolate pieces to decorate the top instead.
• Our cake got a big crack in the top but we just filled it with caramel sauce since we were flooding the top of the cake.
• I think a from-scratch caramel sauce would really bring this to another level for just a small bit of extra effort. If you've never made your own, there is something incredible about how much flavor can result from something as simple as browning sugar. You could make it while the cheesecake bakes. I recommend this one, with or without the bourbon!

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RECIPE: Turtle Cheesecake

Pistachio Dessert

My family has always touted this as a very special treat fit for the likes of winter holidays. I think it's because of the bright green pistachio pudding layer and lots of nuts. Pistachio pudding was one of my favorite desserts growing up so I always enjoyed eating this very fancy version when it appeared in our house.

For my brother's wedding today, he requested that we make this and bring it to the dinner celebration, a perfectly reasonable feat given that the entire party was less than 20 people. I learned later that his wife's family also made this very same pistachio dessert for holidays growing up (a huge surprise to me since I had never met anyone else before who knew of it), so it was an especially fitting dessert to celebrate their marriage.

Notes:

• My mom prefers to make this with walnuts but you can also use pecans or even pistachios. Toast the nuts before using them if you can to deepen their flavor.
• If you are skeeved out by Cool Whip and want a more natural alternative, you would likely be able to use an equivalent volume of sweetened stabilized whipped cream (about 6 cups whipped, from 3 cups liquid heavy cream) instead. Most stabilized whipped cream recipes seem to involve gelatin but you can also use cornstarch or cream of tartar. Please note that I have not yet personally tried this substitution so I am not sure how well it will work.
• My mom most recently made this with 3 packages of pudding mix and 3 3/4 cups milk and she liked the larger volume of pudding in the dessert.
• Do not use non-dairy milk; the pudding will not set.
• You can also make this in individual servings in plastic wine cups as we did for the wedding, or glasses or jars (for "jarfaits" as a friend termed them once) if you want the containers to be reusable. My mom was making them big enough to fill the cups to the top so we ended up with 13, but I feel like that serving size was just a little too large. I would aim for 16 servings. If serving them in 8 oz/1 cup jars you could probably make 18-20. Bake the crust in the pan and then break it into crumbles after it has cooled, then layer the ingredients in the smaller containers as described.

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RECIPE:

Pistachio Dessert
Makes 1 9x13 pan; serves 16-20

4 oz (1/2 cup, 1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tbsp granulated sugar
3/4 cup finely ground walnuts or pistachios
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2/3 cup powdered sugar
16 oz (1 large package) Cool Whip, divided
2 small packages (3.4 oz each) instant pistachio pudding mix
2 1/2 cups milk
1/4 to 1/3 cup chopped walnuts or pistachios

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl combine butter, flour, granulated sugar, and 3/4 cup ground nuts until well blended. Press evenly into the bottom of a 9 x 13 x 2 in rectangular pan and bake for 10 minutes or until fragrant. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar together until well blended, then incorporate half of the Cool Whip in several additions until creamy. Spread over the cooled crust and place in the refrigerator to stay chilled. In a third medium bowl, beat the dry pudding mix and milk on low speed or stir with a whisk until thickened and well blended, about 3-5 minutes. Spread the pudding mixture evenly over the cream cheese layer in the pan. Spread the remaining Cool Whip evenly over the pistachio pudding layer and garnish with 1/4 cup chopped nuts. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours until all layers are well chilled, then it is ready to serve. Store leftovers in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Basil Vinaigrette

I first had basil vinaigrette at a college dining hall, of all places. I couldn't quite figure out why I liked the dressing on their green salad so much but I was so impressed with it I had to ask the staff what it was because the menu didn't say. Basil vinaigrette, they told me. I should have known. I love basil.

I immediately went looking for a recipe and found this one. I don't normally have this much basil on hand, but went to the farmer's market to get some. The other time I unexpectedly had a lot left in my garden box at the end of the summer and picked it all to make this.

Notes:

• I like putting this on spring mix + cherry tomatoes + small fresh mozzarella balls for a caprese-inspired type of salad but it's great on just greens, too.
• Make sure to pick as much of the stem off the leaves as possible because it can give the dressing an unpleasantly bitter flavor.
• I have made this twice now and have used a slightly smaller amount of red onion instead of shallot in a pinch.
• It starts to oxidize after a bit so make sure to eat it within 3-5 days before it turns brown and gross.

Verdict: This turned out a bit thicker and more tart than the basil vinaigrette I was trying to recreate but it's still quite good. Debating adding more olive oil to it to make it a little looser, maybe decreasing the vinegar a little too.

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RECIPE: Basil Vinaigrette

Spiced Poached Plums

 

Pumpkin spice who? It's all about spiced plums for me this fall.

I was looking for a quick way to use up some prune plums to clean out the refrigerator, and while this recipe calls for the more readily available red or black plums, it looked like it would work with smaller fruit so I gave it a try. Despite the fact that the recipe calls them "stewed" you don't really have to cook them long at all, maybe 10 minutes at most (even less for prune plums since they are smaller) because you want them to stay mostly whole rather than turn into a mush. It's warm and comforting like applesauce but much easier because you don't have to peel or chop the fruit.

I ate them with sweetened whipped cream with just a bit of almond extract mixed in since almond and stone fruit tend to pair nicely. I also ate them with plain Greek yogurt for breakfast. Both were lovely. I loved their delicious sweet-tart flavor and definitely want to make this again as we head into fall and the temperatures start to dip.

Notes:

• I love these with a minimum of sugar, lemon, and cinnamon so as to let the fruit's flavor shine. The levels in the recipe were quite good but next time I may try just a tiny bit less sugar and lemon than it calls for. Edit: a tiny bit less sugar is fine but I'd definitely stick to the amount in the recipe for the best flavor.
• Because it's such a simple recipe, fresh squeezed lemon juice really elevates this. Definitely go to the trouble of getting a fresh lemon.
• If you don't have a cinnamon stick, about 1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon should be enough. You don't want to put in too much because its flavor gets slightly stronger as it stands.

UPDATE 10/8/19: About a week ago I had something like this served in a glass at a hotel in Germany with freshly whipped cream and raspberry sauce on top. I am not entirely sure what the plums were flavored with, but it was SO GOOD. My guess is nutmeg, and I plan to put nutmeg in my next batch to see if it comes anywhere close to the German plum dessert I had.

UPDATE 10/15/19:  Since coming home from Europe I have made two more batches of this (hi yes I am obsessed) with President plums, which look like prune plums but are bigger (still smaller than the standard black and red plums in US grocery stores though) because it seems prune plum season is done here. I tried them both halved and in quarters and found the quarters easier to eat, though for really small ones halves are fine. The President plums tasted good but I think the prune plums tasted better. I tried one batch with just nutmeg and while it tasted fine and I do like the combination of plums and nutmeg, I decided I greatly prefer it with at least some cinnamon. I wonder if the dessert I had in Germany might have contained a different type of cinnamon than I usually use. Maybe I'll try cardamom next? Or just leave well enough alone since I'd need to taste the German dessert again to know for sure what I was missing.

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RECIPE: Stewed Plums

White Bean and Chicken Chili

My mom started making this after I left for college, but it reminds me strongly of her. I had it once during a visit home and couldn't get enough of it so I had to get her recipe.

Notes:

• The original recipe called for 1 tsp ground white pepper but I found that a little too much for my tastes. 1/2 tsp is good for my mild-end-of-medium preference.
• If you can find canned Hatch chiles, they are particularly good in this! I accidentally bought the spicy/hot ones rather than mild ones but found that they're not terribly spicy and I was able to handle them.

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RECIPE:

White Bean and Chicken Chili
Adapted slightly from the recipe from the Appleton Post-Crescent, early 2000s
Serves 4

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast halves (2-3 breast halves)
1 tsp olive oil
1 large onion
1 tbsp bottled minced garlic
15 oz Great Northern white beans
19 oz cannellini beans
4.5 oz chopped green chilies
1 ½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp pepper, preferably white (use less)
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
14.5 oz chicken broth
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp water
Shredded Monterey Jack cheese (optional, for topping)
Sour cream (optional, for topping)

Partially defrost chicken. Meanwhile, heat olive oil over medium heat. Peel and coarsely chop onion, adding to the pot as you chop. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking. Cut the chicken into bite-size chunks, add to the pot and stir occasionally. Add garlic and continue to cook. While the chicken cooks, rinse and drain both types of beans and drain the chilies. Add the chilies to the pot along with the cumin, white pepper and cayenne pepper. Raise the heat to high and add the broth and drained beans. Cover the pot and bring the chili to a boil. Meanwhile, combine the cornstarch and water in a small container that has a lid. Shake well to remove any lumps. When the chili boils, the chicken should be cooked through. Add the cornstarch mixture a little at a time, stirring constantly. Continue to boil until the chili reaches the desired thickness. Remove from heat and serve. Garnish with cheese and sour cream, if desired.

Cream Cheese Frosting

I am unsure of the provenance of this recipe, but thank Sarah forever for bringing it into my life. We have frosted our holiday gingerbread cookies with it for a good long time and I have also used it to frost cakes. It has a nice tang to it that makes it taste a little less sugary sweet than regular buttercream.

Notes

• As listed, the recipe is enough to frost and pipe decorations onto a large batch of the gingerbread cookies with some left over depending on how you decorate, and I believe enough to frost an 8 or 9 inch round cake. Halve the recipe if you are making a 6 inch round cake.
• Update 9/22/22: Half a recipe will generously frost a 6 inch cake with 2 layers, and would probably be a perfect amount for a 3 or even 4 layer cake. However, it's pretty rich in large quantities so it may be too heavy if the cake is also quite sweet. Structure wise it is really nice and sets up firm in the fridge (probably thanks to all the butter).
  
• This pipes well but gets pretty loose when it's warm; if it gets too soft and won't hold its shape, place the bag in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to firm up.

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RECIPE:

Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes about 5 cups

8 oz (1 cup, 2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
16 oz (2 bricks) cream cheese, at room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 lb powdered sugar (about 1 bag)
Milk, to thin if needed
Food coloring (optional, to tint the frosting)
Sprinkles (optional, to put on top of the frosting)

Cream butter and cream cheese together in the bowl of a stand mixer or with a hand mixer. Add vanilla and beat until incorporated. Mix in powdered sugar in several additions, mixing well after each one, until completely combined.

Persian Love Cake

 

After hearing about and seeing the combination of rose + pistachio + cardamom several times (hi Great British Baking Show!) I decided I really wanted to try it for myself, and settled on this cake while looking for recipes because it seemed relatively simple to make. I already know I like cardamom and I'm still trying to figure out how to use rose flavor in cooking and baking, and I thought this would be a low-risk way to try it out.

I am so pleased with how it turned out. The almond flour gives it this lovely plush texture. The contrast of sweet glaze + salted pistachios was really great. It was sweet but not too sweet, you could taste the rose but were not overwhelmed by it. It was my favorite thing at the tea party I served it at and I will definitely be making it again.

Notes:

• The original recipe calls for an 8-inch round pan. I made it in an 8-inch square pan and cut it into 16 2x2 inch squares for a tea party. The cake squares surprisingly did not dry out much at all despite being cut and uncovered for ~6 hours before serving.
• I couldn't find the rose water brand that was recommended, but I did find Ziyad brand rose water at the Asian grocery store and it worked well. Amazon reviews suggest it is low quality though so if you can find better you should probably use that instead.
• The glaze hardens quickly so you want to work fast if you want it to be smooth, and you may need to push the rose petals and pistachios in a little bit to get them to stick.
• You might like to make additional glaze if you're cutting the cake into small pieces like I did, especially if you want to cover the entire top of each piece. It didn't look like enough to me but it tasted like just enough. It thickened pretty quickly while I was pouring it so you may need to microwave it a few times.
• I omitted the candied ginger because I'm not a big fan of it, and I didn't miss it.
• I got the dried edible rose petals from a health food/alternative medicine type store that sells dried herbs by weight.

RECIPE: Persian Love Cake

Tea Parties Vol. 4: The Prosecco Party

It had been nearly 2 years since my last tea party and I sorely needed to change that. For this party I went for an English high tea structure to the meal but with some fancy twists. Cucumber sandwiches, but Korean inspired. Chickpea salad instead of chicken or egg (bonus: vegetarians can eat it). Smoked salmon with lots of fresh vegetables. Plain scones, something of a rarity in America. Tiny desserts that taste as great as they look.

This was my first time having the party on Saturday instead of Sunday, and I normally work weekdays, so that meant preparing most of the food Friday evening after a full day of work plus Saturday morning. I am hashtag blessed to have awesome friends who came to help at both times. I significantly underestimated the amount of work this would involve, and I could not have gotten all this food made in time alone. Previously I asked people to arrive at noon but I quickly discovered I'm never actually ready to start then. Starting the party an hour later made a LOT of difference.

The schedule stars finally aligned for my sister to make it to one of these parties, and she let me dress her up! I have the same dress in two different colors and I put together matching outfits for us that didn't require a ton of hair/makeup preparation. It made me extra happy and I think she had fun.

We had 9 people this time, our largest group ever. Despite my best intentions, no actual tea was served (!) We started with sparkling wine and just never switched. Therefore, it was a prosecco party and not a tea party. We went through wayyy more than I thought we would but all the people I asked to bring sparkling wine did, and even some that I didn't ask! ha.

My husband threw on a city pop livestream neither of us had heard before, and it ended up being an incredible gem! It's good background music for frantic cooking working and we decided to just keep it on for the party too. Have a listen if you're into jazz, funk, disco, pop, and reggae from the 70s and 80s! He also took some fun photos to remember the afternoon.

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RECIPES

• SAVORIES
• Focaccia Sandwiches for a Crowd (Smitten Kitchen) -- I used this as the bread for all the sandwiches because I really, really wanted to try it ever since I found it several months ago. It was pretty easy to make and tasted quite good too! I did the quickest rising option, and it took a little more than 25 minutes to bake in my oven. I'd definitely consider making it again if I need to make a large amount of sandwiches where I also want to make my own bread and have enough advance time to make it.
• Korean Style Cucumber Sandwiches with Gochujang Mayo (Gather and Dine) -- we made a chicken version and vegetarian version with dry fried tofu (marinated after dry frying), and I think I like the tofu one a little better since it stayed together better and was a little more salty. The gochujang mayo was really tasty but some found it a little too spicy, so maybe I will dial it back next time. They fall apart easily so maybe keeping the chicken in larger pieces would work better if I made them again.
• Smoked Salmon Sandwiches -- Sarah made these completely differently from how I would have but they did taste pretty good. She blended the cream cheese and salmon and dill with some lemon juice, spread it on a big piece of the focaccia, cut it into squares and then we garnished each with a slice of radish and cucumber.
• Curried Chickpea Salad (She Likes Food) -- Paula made this so I don't have any notes other than that I might have chopped the celery and apple a little smaller than she did, but it significantly exceeded my expectations and I am looking forward to making it again! It's a good balance of curry flavor, creaminess, and sweetness, and it stays together nicely if you mash some of the beans really thoroughly but keep others in large pieces. A keeper for sure.
• Smoky Eggy Deviled Eggs -- for something without bread. This is my personal recipe, so of course I love it. Andrea and Paula prepared the eggs and filling the night before. Caroline stuffed the eggs in the morning and arranged them beautifully with some butter lettuce and sweet peppers from my work colleague's farm share.
• SCONES
• English Style Scones -- Sarah made these the morning of the tea party while I was asleep. She was not impressed with the recipe, and she makes a lot of scones, but I personally liked them. I served them with clotted cream (the Whole Foods in my city sells it), homemade strawberry freezer jam (pick yourself some strawberries and follow the recipe in the Sure-Jell Reduced Sugar Pectin box), and homemade lemon curd (from a frozen batch I made a couple of years ago so I don't remember which recipe I used). Oddly I feel like they tasted better (less bitter) the next day. I'd love to try making them myself.
• SWEETS
• Persian Love Cake (Broma Bakery) -- HOLY CRAP this was delicious. I have a separate entry on it since I did 95% of the preparation and have a lot of (happy) thoughts on it. I absolutely want to make this again.
• Chocolate Ganache Mini Tarts (Bon Appetit) -- I decorated them with edible gold glitter and fresh raspberries instead of the halvah and sesame salt. I will look for a different ganache recipe next time. My ganache did not fully set even after being refrigerated for many hours. The tart shells rolled out and baked nicely but tasted kind of bitter, though they did taste better the next day. I think if they were a little sweeter they'd have been perfect. It made 21 tart shells.
• Lavender Shortbread Sandwich Cookies -- a favorite of mine but with a new challenge: we rolled out the dough and cut them into large (2.5-3 inch) hearts, and were sparing with the filling so they wouldn't slide apart. It made about 4.5 dozen (54) hearts, enough for 27 sandwiches, with extra filling left over. I put about 1 cup more powdered sugar in the filling than the recipe called for and I think between that and the small amount of filling inside the cookies it actually set somewhat after being chilled in the refrigerator. I like these better as small, thick cookies with more filling. If I do make them heart shaped again, I will get a smaller cutter. I also think a firmer filling is the way to go and will continue to work on adjusting the recipe so it is firm but still has enough bright, fresh lemon flavor.

Other things we served that were not made from scratch:

• Sparkling wine (mostly prosecco, some rose)

THE TEA PARTIES

• Vol. 3: An End of Summer Feast
• Vol. 2: Spring Up Speed Up
• Vol. 1: A Birthday Party, and Being Unapologetically Yourself