Orange biscotti mohawks
It’s rare that I post recipes here, but once upon a time while I was still figuring out what I wanted this site to be like, I actually did take tutorial-type pictures and hold onto new recipes I tried in order to share them. (Don’t panic…I won’t bore you with a full-on tutorial.)
This is an example of one of those days. It was another cold day in January 3 years ago, not long after the duck butt ordeal, and I had discovered biscotti. Now it’s not the first time I had ever had it, but it’s the first time I’d made it and known it by a real name. Apparently “those hard, crunchy things you eat with coffee” isn’t what they’re actually called.
So before the girls got home, I hunted down a decent looking recipe, zested and mixed, baked and baked, and then rebaked again, and got the hot chocolate all ready to go….
Oooo, this is from a time before I fell head over heels in love with my Kitchen Aid mixer.
Mixing in the eggs until everything is extra fluffy is always key. Well, or it’s just fun. Whatever.
I have no idea why I had a picture of a lime, by the way. This is strictly an orange biscotti recipe. I’m sure there was something significant back then, but not so much now. Maybe I was excited by it looking more like a golf ball? Or maybe it was a particularly huge one, but I didn’t think to place something next to it for size perspective? Who knows…but hey look, it’s a lime! /random
^ How not to zest an orange, by the way. You shouldn’t see nearly as much white because that means all the white pithy stuff is getting into your food, too. But guess what? I didn’t have a zester at that point and used a knife….so I sliced off thin pieces and then scraped off as much white as I could and chopped away. Go back to the zesty mix picture and you can see that it almost looks diced.
Work with what you’ve got….another life skill from my mom. Wait until I bring out the duct tape. ;)
Those? Those are fingerprints. Like…full on indents of my entire fingers across each log to press them into the right shape. I was hoping you could see them in the final product, but not so much.
^ Not done. This is the point where you cook them until solid and hard, but after you slice them, flip ‘em on their sides and bake until they’re that extra crunchy dip-worthy biscuit people seem to love.
And then coat them in sugary goodness so they taste decent. In this case, I went with chocolate. Lots of chocolate…
Obligatory funny faces!
Here’s the recipe for you guys who actually follow them to a tee. I didn’t, though, I’m sure, so don’t blame me if yours don’t pop out of the oven all smiley and fun. ;)
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 1 egg white
- 1/2 cup chopped almonds
- 2 tablespoons orange zest
- 4 (1 ounce) squares bittersweet chocolate
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a cookie sheet.
- In a medium bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat in the egg and egg white, then mix in almonds and orange zest. Knead dough by hand until mixture forms a smooth ball.
- Roll the dough into a log about 10 inches long; place on the prepared cookie sheet. Press down, or roll with a rolling pin, until log is 6 inches wide.
- Bake for 25 minutes in preheated oven. After baking, cool on a rack. With a serrated knife, cut into 1 inch slices. Place slices, cut side down, back onto the baking sheet.
- Return them to the oven for an additional 20 to 25 minutes; turning over half way through the baking. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave oven. Allow chocolate to cool but not harden before dipping one side of the biscotti into it. Place cookies on wire racks, chocolate side up, until cool and dry.
Polish White Borscht Recipe – Potatoes, pork, gravy?
This is not your typical bright red/pink Ukrainian borscht, but rather a “white” Polish alternative better known as zurek or sour rye bread.
Well. Sort of, anyway.
I don’t have an exact recipe for you either, because as I often do, I found several recipes that looked kind of good or matched most of the ingredients I had, and I combined them all into a single dish that worked for me.
The result? In my case it ended up being thicker than I expected but was full of flavor and insanely hearty. I was stuffed before I reached the bottom of my bowl. No complaints here, that’s for sure, but it did kind of remind me of a thick potato soup or bacon’/sausage and gravy.
For a cheap Polish dish, I sort of expected it to be more “one pot” style, but the recipes I used had all sorts of steps and I piled my various “completed” sections into bowls while other steps were being processed: 
This is what happens when I forget to turn off the flash first, too.
Mmmm, greasy stock. :P
Stock, which I might add, that I made fresh from cooking the sausage first, using the water/fat off that, and cooking in down with the normal carrots/celery/onions/spices that you would expect from a stock.
And because I’m not one to let any food go to waste, I used the bacon grease to fry up some croutons instead of serving in a bread bowl, too.
That was probably one of the best parts. I really enjoyed having the egg on top, too, oddly enough. It added a different texture to the gravy soup/potato/pork base.
And it was surprisingly good the next day, cold right out of the fridge, because the potatoes still held their shape nicely. A lot of the recipes called for them to be pureed completely, but I’m glad I left it sort of chunky instead.
Here’s more or less the recipe I ended up with, give or take:
The broth:
1 bay leave 1 clove of garlic Various herbs you like in your stock…salt, pepper would be sufficient even 1 medium carrot, cut how ever you feel like 1 stalk of celery , cut how ever you feel like 1 link of kielbasa/Polish sausage 1/2 package of bacon 1/2 diced onion Sautee onion, garlic, and bacon in a skillet, while bringing water with sliced sausage to a boil in another pan. Cook the first until they’re all nice and brown, while the other cooks for about 20-30 minutes tops. You can also cook the eggs directly in this pot, too, so you don’t have to boil them separate. Just remember to remove them on time.
Scoop out the sausage into a bowl. Scoop out bacon/onions into a bowl. Toss all the veggies and spices into your sausage water (add more water if necessary) and let cook for an hour or two…or until you remember it’s still on the burner.
I tossed some of my onions and bacon in there, too, to help along the flavor. When it’s done, strain out all the chunks so you have a nice brothy goodness leftover to use for your soup.
The soup:
- The makings from all of the above, including 4-6 soft-boiled eggs
- 2-3 potatoes
- Any number of things like rye bread, sour cream, horseradish, etc
Dice and cook the potatoes. I did it separate for fear of them falling apart in the broth complete, but you could do it directly in the soup pot, too. I pulled out about a single potato’s worth and pureed/mashed it, to make the soup nice and thick. You could puree all of it, if you want. If you’re leaving it chunky, don’t stir it too much at this point or they’ll all start to denigrate. Add some flour if things are too thin for your liking.
Add in the rest of your bacon, sausage, etc. Heat a few minutes until everything is nice and toasty.
I saved some of my bacon to add to the top of mine because, well, I like having extra bacon where I can see it. :P Slice an egg or two per serving and add to the top as well.
Green onions weren’t called for in any of the recipes I saw, but it sounded good, so those went on, too. What can I say? It’s not authentic, but it was DELICIOUS. And as for the croutons, rye bread is obviously preferred for authenticity and a bread bowl would work awesome, but for mine specifically, I chopped up some day old bread, fried it directly in the bacon grease pan, and voila….yumminess.
And as for the recipes I loosely (very loosely) referred to, here are some of them:
http://www.food.com/recipe/polish-white-borscht-bialy-barszcz-456809 (mostly for technique of cooking the various parts)
http://www.grouprecipes.com/104350/polish-white-borscht.html (very, very simple recipe with only 5 ingredients)
http://www.tastingpoland.com/food/recipes/white_borscht_recipe.html (sour dough recipe & stock spice suggestions)
Asian Chicken Noodle Soup – For when you want something a little different than “homestyle”
Last month I signed up for the Crazy Cooking Challenge and immediately kept an eye out for chicken noodle soup recipes. I knew I wanted something “different,” just for the sheer sake of this being your not-so-average cooking site, but really, there’s only so much you can twist and tweak a classic dish like chicken noodle soup. The requirements said it had to be soup…had to have noodles…and had to have chicken. No exceptions, so there would be no converting it into a hot pocket or casserole or anything “different.”
Or so I thought anyway.
That’s when I ran across Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures Asian version. It fits all the requirements, but isn’t exactly the standard soup you think of either. I probably wouldn’t have given it a try had it not seemed so perfect for this challenge either, so I’m glad it worked out this way. Turns out, it was delicious!
I must say, I really had my doubts about it, mostly because the ingredients are so simple and it doesn’t sit on the stove, simmering for a long period of time, which is a key step for soups in my mind. But anyway, let’s get to the food, huh?
Normally I would have homemade chicken stock in the freezer, but I’ve been looking for an excuse to use up the last of these little Knorr stock packs I received at BlogHer this year. They’re actually a lot better than I thought they would be and don’t carry the overly salted taste that most premade broths do.
And would you look at that?? I thought it’d be liquidy or maybe a dry block like bouillon cubes, but instead, they’re gel packs of sorts. Almost like strange jello shots….of chicken stock. Weird, but easily dissolved and mixed.
I think I may’ve mentioned that my can opener broke? Well I haven’t replaced it yet. Shhh. :P
If you’ve never cooked with rice noodles before, they’re quite amazing. They’re really rough and crumbly out of the package…pieces will fly everywhere, even if you’re careful. Add them to water for a few minutes, though, and they become really soft and bouncy. Yes, bouncy, as in, if you drain off the water and toss them on the table, you’ll see them bounce. Go ahead, do it!
Alright, so really, it doesn’t *look* like the most appetizing dish. It’s this sickly gray color that even with some photo editing, doesn’t really look much better.
Ew! But it smelled delicious and I was starving so at that point, I obviously carried on. Tossing on more color really helped, so I’m happy I had green onions.
Overall impression? It was better than I expected. It was really easy and fast to make, which made it even better. A little lemon or lime juice could really go a long way in kicking it up a notch in the flavor department, too.
Oh, and I had never used coconut milk before because well, I really dislike coconut, remember? When the can was opened and the smell hit me, I started having even more doubts, but it added a creaminess that straight broth couldn’t…and it didn’t actually *taste* like coconut, so once the smell died down, I was happy with the results, hehe. I added more liquid to my bowl than what’s showing in the pictures and oh my god, I was so stuffed by the end. I had no idea it would be so filling.
For the original recipe, check out Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures. She has a version that doesn’t use the coconut milk, too, which looks more like this:
My version of the recipe ended up being for a smaller batch. Take note I didn’t just cut the original in half, and actually used almost the full amount of some of the ingredients anyway.
Asian Chicken Noodle Soup
1 sheet of rice vermicelli noodles
3 cups chicken broth
2/3 can coconut milk
A large splash of soy sauce
One inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled
1 cup cooked chicken
1 cup finely sliced cabbage/carrot slaw mix
1/2 teaspoon chili garlic sauce, tweaked to taste
Handful of diced green onions
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