Bird's Nest Bites

A Cook & Garden, Together In The Pacific Northwest

Coconut Macaroons filled with Lemon Curd

 

I have been known to experience writer’s block when it comes to developing recipes, and last week was no exception.  I knew I wanted to come up with something sweet, but for the life of me could not summon one ounce of inspiration.  The next day I was making a batch of Coconut Macaroons for my mom, Neeners, for Mother’s Day.  It’s one of her favorites, especially when I cover half the cookie with melted chocolate or butterscotch. (Neeners would probably even eat beets, which she despises, if they were coated in chocolate or butterscotch).

All of a sudden, as if mentally struck by lightning, I thought “Hey, wait a second – this whole chocolate and butterscotch thing really seems more like a winter dessert.  Is there a way to make this more like spring or summer?”  My eyes guiltily drifted to the 8 egg yolks sitting on the counter that are always left over after making macaroons, and that typically find their way to the garbage.  Eureka!!  How about using up those yolks to make a thick and rich Lemon Curd, then make little nests in the unbaked cookies and fill the whole works with lemon??  No more wasted yolks, and what have I got to lose?  If all else fails, I can just dunk the cookies in chocolate, and Neeners will never know.  So that’s what I did, and I think we’ve got a winner.  The bright and creamy lemon curd is a match made in heaven for the chewy coconut cookie.  On top of all that an added bonus is that you’ll have leftover lemon curd, and it freezes beautifully.  Haul it out of the freezer to use on muffins, scones, or ice cream.  The cookies freeze like a charm also, and I usually make a double batch to make sure I’ve got a stash on hand at any given moment.

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Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells with Marinara Sauce

 

Mother’s Day is coming up fast, and due to our current set of worldly circumstances it may not be possible to sit down with our mom around the same table this year.  This, however, may not necessarily prevent you from taking dinner to your mother, or any other special someone who you remember on Mother’s Day.  One idea for such a delivery might be these Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells.   I first made these for my husband Dick’s large family Christmas party in December, and can attest that they travel well, bake and reheat beautifully, and are usually happily greeted.

My 89-year-old mother, Neeners, ate three gigantic shells of my last batch and started looking around for more.  “This is a keeper – take it to the County Fair” was her verdict.  This is a big step up from other ratings.  I often use Neeners as a recipe tester, and she is brutally honest.  There has been more than one occasion when I’ve heard “Move on – don’t waste any more time on this” if my attempts do not meet her standards. Over the last six months, Neeners has suffered a stroke and two seizures that have set her back a step or two, but as she often says, “I’m fine from the neck down”.  She is still as strong as an ox, has the appetite of a linebacker, and has not lost one little bit of her oftentimes brutal wit.  “I hope you inherit my sense of humor” she told me recently, after cracking herself up over something she said that made her laugh so hard she snorted.  “Oh gee – me too” I replied.

The recipe makes about twenty stuffed shells, and that will serve six people with no problem.  Feel free to double it if you want, then you’ll have plenty to keep for yourself and a big dinner’s worth to give away.

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Homemade Rice-A-Roni with Feta and Chives

How are you?  I hope you are well and happy, and making some sense of this new reality of ours.  Are you creating new daily routines?  We are setting into our new schedules, bit by bit.  We live out in the woods and have traded in our daily trip to the gym ‘in town’ for long walks along country roads.  I have exchanged daily grocery shopping trips for attempting to work through the inventory of long forgotten things in my freezer (this has proven to have plusses and minuses).  Even though grocery shopping is extremely limited these days, I still cannot resist snooping in the aisles to see what seem to be the items most in demand.  One thing is for certain – you are a lucky individual if you can find any pasta or rice on the shelves.  It appears that all of our hoarding instincts have zeroed in on those comforting carbohydrates.

If you are someone who has an abundance of pasta and rice, and now can’t stand the thought of cooking either the same familiar way again, here’s a new approach.  Here we have a homemade version of Rice-A-Roni. This recipe was developed one night when I realized there wasn’t enough left-over rice for dinner, so a trip to the pantry turned up some spaghetti.  After breaking the spaghetti into about 1-inch pieces, I sautéed it in a skillet until toasty and brown, added some broth and other assorted things and cooked till tender.  In went the rice and there you have it.   Something about the creaminess of the pasta vs. the chewy bite of the rice that makes me keep going back for another bite.   Another good thing about this recipe is that it works with either left over pasta or rice, and besides that you can add anything else you like.    Oh!! And if you add some feta cheese and stir in just until it melts – let’s just say I had to go lay down after eating almost an entire pan full.

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Chopped Red Cabbage Salad with Roasted Radishes and Pumpkin Seeds

First of all, how are you doing?  I hope you are feeling well and hanging in there.  Are you trying to make sense of how your life is changing?  Me too, and some days it’s easier than others.   I’m thinking it’s pretty normal to feel like things are out of our control, and to not really be sure what we can do to be of some help.   Maybe one thing we can all do is to try and stay as healthy as we can, and that means keeping our social distance, eating right and getting plenty of fresh air and exercise.

I am attempting to balance the goal of eating right with limiting my once usual daily trips to the grocery store.  This has proven to be as challenging as not reaching for a second chocolate chip cookie right out of the oven.  However, I have become determined to grocery shop only once a week, and this has changed my strategy and approach to the grocery quest, especially when it comes to fresh fruits and vegetables.

An easy way to eat right is to make sure you can throw together a salad that is hard to stop eating.  This one is chock full of nutrients and packs a flavor punch as well.  When shopping only once a week, fresh lettuce can be a challenge, so here’s another alternative.  This salad is made with items that can stand a week or two in the refrigerator with no problem.  Let’s start with a nice head of red cabbage, which to me is sweeter and juicier than regular old green cabbage.  You usually only see cabbage in slaws, but here it takes on a whole new personality.  Red cabbage is chopped into decent sized pieces, then tossed with thawed frozen green peas and green onion.  From there on in, you can make this thing your own, but I always like to add freshly roasted radishes, beets, and a yellow or orange pepper if I happen to have one hanging around.  Strips of bright orange or purple carrots and even more color and crunch.  To round everything out and add some sweetness, toss in some dried cranberries or apricots.  To top it off and add a salty crunch, here come the roasted pumpkin seeds.  Then all that’s left is to pour on your own favorite dressing.  You’ll feel good after eating it – that’s a promise.  And after you’re finished, treat yourself to a couple of cookies.  After all, as my heroine Julia Child often said, “Everything in moderation”.  Exactly.

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Focaccia Pizza

We are living in unusual times, aren’t we?  How has your life changed?  For me, a lot of it is about missing the little, everyday things we all used to take for granted.  For example, one of my favorite activities is grocery shopping.  I know – how strange can you get?  But for me, it’s always been like a competitive sport.  I love searching the aisles for new products, the freshest produce, the best deals, and will also admit a love of snooping in other customers carts to see what they were buying.  When all the recent panic buying started, I was interested to see what people were piling into their shopping carts.  My neighborhood store did a good job of keeping most shelves stocked, but one item that was nowhere to be seen was frozen pizza.  That got me to thinking…. since everybody is spending more time at home, maybe it would be fun to share a recipe for a super easy do-it-yourself focaccia pizza that lets you top it however you want?

Here we have it:  Focaccia is a lot like pizza, but a whole lot less fussy. Focaccia dough tends to be thicker and lighter than traditional pizza dough, but the ingredients are pretty much the same. The main difference is that focaccia uses a lot more water in the mix, creating a very wet dough.  This is a plus for us, because wet doughs have enough moisture in them to replace the process of kneading (a bunch of science is behind this which we are not in the mood to learn at the moment, so let’s just go with it for now).  In this recipe, we mix the dough together and toss it in the refrigerator overnight.  This allows the dough to pick up a lot more flavor and overall personality.  The next day, you’ve got a couple of choices.  You can either spread the dough out in a 13×9 inch pan, or form two, 12-inch pizzas.  Top with what you like, pop it in the oven, and enjoy.  All the fun and flavor of pizza, with a lot less fuss.  Let’s be kind to ourselves during these crazy times, and pizza seems like a pretty good place to start.
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No Knead Artisan Bread

 

Due to the recent virus scare in our world, more and more people are choosing to stay at home rather than go out.  This is a good strategy for avoiding crowds, but the question arises as to what to do with all of that ‘at home time’.  Here’s one option: how about you learn how to make a delicious bread that requires no technical knowledge, no special ingredients,  is fun to do, and tastes delicious?

If you thought you’d never be able to make an artisan loaf of bread at home with a crisp crust, soft center with big air pockets, and an amazing flavor, I’ve got good news – yes you can and it’s easier than you could imagine.  In this recipe, you spend five minutes mixing the dough the day before and allow for a slow room temperature rise overnight. No kneading required! The next day, just form the loaf and let it rise again, then into the oven it goes. An hour later you have a delicious loaf of bread. More good news:  This recipe is very forgiving, so no worries about making a mistake.  The recipe says to let the mixed dough sit for 12-18 hours.  I’ve let it go for 24 hours with no problems.  In fact, the last time I made this, we lost power at our house during the last 15 minutes of baking.  I just let it sit in the oven for that amount of time, and it turned out beautifully.  Make it plain or add chopped olives or some cheese for fun.  Life doesn’t get much better than that.

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Vegetarian Chili with Skillet Corn Bread

There’s a lot to be said for creating chili from scratch and watching it slowly simmer over a warm stovetop for hours as it develops deep flavor.  On the other hand, on many days there is also even more to be said to opening some handy cans of good quality tomatoes and beans, adding some other odds and ends, some savory spices, and just going for it.  This is where we are with this chili.  It’s a do it yourself kind of recipe, and I am leaving it entirely up to you as to how much heat you would like to add (since I am personally a wimp in that department and don’t add any myself), and how much other stuff goes into or on top of it. This chili comes together in minutes, and will fill your house with the mouth watering scents of tomatoes, onions, chili powder and cumin.  While you’re heating up the chili, grab a cast iron skillet, melt some butter, and pour in an easy, made from scratch cornbread batter.  Cast iron skillet cooking gives you an almost crispy outer crust and a moist and creamy interior.  Serve it warm, slathered with butter and honey, and you’ll soon see what a perfect marriage it makes with the spice of the chili.  Enough said, now let’s get down to business and to this thing.

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Creme Sherry Bundt Cake with Warm Salted Butterscotch Sauce

 

I received a text from my pretend daughter Allie, asking if I had ever made a Cream Sherry Bundt Cake.  Not only had I never made one, I’d never heard of such a thing.  She went on to explain that it was one of her grandmother’s favorite holiday desserts, and she’d love to bake one.  The problem was that grandma’s recipe, as well as anything Allie could find on the internet, required a boxed cake mix and an instant pudding mix.  Allie figured a baked from scratch recipe would be even better than the one she remembered.  She described the cake as one that was super moist and when it baked, filled the house with the scent of nutmeg and warm spices.  This sounded like it might be fun so I asked if she would like me to try and create grandma’s recipe from scratch, which she thought was a fine idea.

Um…. this turned out to be quite the challenge because as far as I could see nobody had ever attempted to make a ‘pudding cake’ from scratch before, so we were in murky and uncharted territory.  In addition to all that, waving a baking magic wand and turning boxed mixes into something homemade required utilization of my often-ridiculed lack of mathematical prowess, but we were on a mission and charged forward.  Allie was assigned to taste and critique each effort, and after a few tries, I think we might finally be there.  Grandma’s recipe called either for Crème Sherry (which is wine fortified with Brandy) or Brandy.  I’ve tried it both ways and personally prefer the Brandy version, but Crème Sherry is also good for a more subdued boozy flavor).This cake is delicious on its own, but a few extra easy minutes of effort will reward you with a warm and gooey butterscotch sauce that takes this whole thing right over the top.  If you opt out of the sauce idea, your cake can be dusted with powdered sugar, vanilla sugar, or cinnamon sugar before serving.

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Mac and Cheese

Life takes an unhappy turn sometimes, and during those situations I find it helpful to find peace and joy in comfort food.  I haven’t posted anything on the Blog for a couple of months because my mom, otherwise known as Neeners, suffered a pretty big stroke the first of November.  The good news is that she is physically as strong as an ox and eats like a horse.  The more challenging part of the picture is that her vision is fairly limited now, and short-term memory is a struggle.  These issues seem to be improving, but it has resulted in my sister, brother, husband, aunt, and I to adopt an ‘all hands on deck’ approach to making sure she gets the care she needs.  I am so thankful for them all, and thankful Neeners is recovering well and has been a pretty good little trooper through the whole thing.  She retains her signature warped sense of humor about the whole thing, and relishes kicking me – hard – when we do our leg strengthening exercises together.

Back to comfort food then…..I’ve been making this mac and cheese since my college days, when my roommate shared her mother’s recipe.  I’d never hear of such a thing!!!  Mac and cheese that didn’t come out of a box??!! Holy cow!!!   I’ve been hooked ever since and hope you find this recipe helpful in times of need, or any other time you feel like a big bowl of creamy comfort.  To tell the truth, I ALWAYS double this recipe, so if you are so inclined, please feel free.  It’s a nice thing to share if you can’t polish off the whole thing yourself and is just right for whenever a crowd appears, seemingly out of nowhere.

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Grandma’s Dinner Rolls

 These yeasty rolls are my attempt at coming close to the delicious rolls my grandma Liz used to make.  As a young aspiring baker, I’d watch her assemble dozens of at a time, tossing an armload of dough around like it weighed nothing, and tearing off perfectly shaped rolls that she would let rise by her wood stove.  She never measured anything, mixing and baking by feel alone – and they were perfect.  I have fond memories of eating as many as I possibly could every Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve – or as many as I could get my hands on.  Grandma had seven children and hordes of grandchildren, and when everybody got together it was like a small city which means you had to move fast before my seemingly huge uncles with even huger appetites beat me in line. 

 Grandma did not have a recipe as you may have guessed, so I spent years trying to get as close as I could to what she did so effortlessly.  I finally got to where I think she might be proud, and I owe it all to Julia Child because this is pretty much her recipe. If you have a bread machine laying around, haul it out and use the dough cycle for this recipe – that’s how I handle it. These rolls can be made grandma’s way, with just your two hands and a sturdy wooden spoon. There isn’t much better on the planet than biting into one of these babies.  Slathered with butter, of course.  Recipe adapted from ‘Baking with Julia’. 

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