The Roux

First Birthday

It's a special day over here. Case is one year old today! He was born at 7:29 pm this evening so throughout yesterday and today I've been playing back my memory of his birth. It all started on Mother's Day a year ago, 8 am, and by the next evening we had an 8 pound 15 ounce baby boy who we named Case James Phinney. And oh how I love him! 

Tart

Whew! It's been a long time. I'm finally getting it together over here. Something big has been in the works - we're having a baby! And soon... the due date is May 11th, although I hope he comes a little early.

We recently had a baby shower catered by Nourish Brooklyn. Look at this gorgeous chocolate raspberry tart! The food was absolutely delicious and beautifully designed. The vintage milk glass dessert stand is one of my recent Etsy purchases. I love how the lace edge mimics the tart shell.

Mixed Berry Pie

I made this mixed berry pie for Thanksgiving. It was an improvised recipe - a combination of a few different ones I found online, plus my own gluten-free twist. It was so good! I have big plans to make it regularly for snacking. Why not? 

The filling: thaw three different types of frozen berries (1 bag each), mix in a pot over medium heat, add 1 cup sugar, 3 healthy dashes of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of grated nutmeg, 2 heaping tablespoons arrowroot flour, 2 teaspoons xantham gum. Pour into your gluten-free crust (I used frozen). There will be plenty left over, which I ate straight from the bowl while waiting for the pie to bake. You can also put it over vanilla ice cream or your morning oatmeal.

Decadent oat crumble: 1 cup of whole oats, 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, 6 tablespoons arrowroot flour, 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, grated nutmeg, 1 teaspoon of salt. Mix with your hands. Sprinkle clumps evenly over the top of the pie. (I didn't use oats labeled as gluten-free, but they do exist.) 

Bake at 400 degrees F for 35-40 minutes, until top and crust is lightly browned. Let sit for 15 minutes. This pie is delicious. Creating perfect slices can be a challenge, but it's all going to the same place.

The Sweet Life

Looks like chocolate, tastes like rich dark chocolate. It's not chocolate! We've been practicing a low glycemic diet over here, or at least trying to. You can probably see Luna & Larry's Coconut Bliss in the background. One of our indulgences, but sweetened with agave instead of refined sugar, cane juice or fructose. Some still categorize agave in the "junk food" category. Gotta live a little. 

So, we have a blend of unsweetened organic coconut milk (the thick and creamy kind from a can), organic tahini, blackstrap molasses and a healthy splash of vanilla extract. This makes our faux chocolate sauce and it is soooo good! Dip strawberries into it or pour over dairy-free ice cream. And when it's not so hot out, bake up some mochi pockets and fill with this decadent sauce that won't make you whirl around on a sugar high. 

If you want to make it a little sweeter, add a teaspoon of palm sugar. This is what we're using these days to sweeten everything from iced tea to muffins. La dolce vita, no?

Pie Props

I've never really liked pumpkin pie, but no one else was making one this year, so I felt it was the festive, responsible thing to do. Good ol' Martha Stewart, and her brown sugar, extra eggs (for a more custard-like consistency) and fresh whipped cream. It was a good thing.

Poached Rhubarb

An incredibly quick cure for a sweet tooth. I picked up several stalks of rhubarb that our local farmer's market last Sunday. I found this recipe online, but altered it by swapping ground cloves for vanilla extract and adding strawberries.

3 stalks of sliced rhubarb

6 sliced strawberries

1/4 cup of organic sugar

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

3 tablespoons of water

1 healthy dash of vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients, except for the water, in a sauce pan and let them hang out for about five minutes together. Add water and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 10-15 minutes, depending on how chunky you prefer it. The rhubarb, as my mother-in-law advised me, will start to disappear if you let it simmer for too long. You can totally make this without the strawberries, or WITH blueberries and orange zest, for example. 

You can serve this as a warm compote. OR let mixture cool and refrigerate for about two hours. Pour over Alden's Organic Vanilla Bean ice cream and enjoy while watching your current favorite TV series via Netflix.

Put Down the Cupcake

So, we were at a very fun wedding reception last weekend. It was held in a hip office space in Manhattan that was transformed into a lounge space - not your average reception and one of the most fun I've been to in a long time. It was fully decked with champagne, high-end finger foods and... wait for it... Magnolia Bakery's famous cupcakes. At the end of the night, there were about 20 cupcakes left! What to do? We were coaxed (didn't take much) into taking as many as we could fit on a paper plate. We got 6 cupcakes on that plate. Later that night, in the 2 a.m. quiet of my kitchen, I took a few little bits of frosting from the sides just to taste before sealing them up in a container. All of a sudden I couldn't stop dipping my finger into that creamy frosting until almost all the sides were gone!

The next day I dug out the sneakers I bought three years ago that still look new with very high aspirations of elevating my heart beat for at least twenty minutes... in the near future.

Sleeps with the pumpkins

 

Going back to Thanksgiving, I meant to post on the pumpkin chocolate chip bread I made. This bread takes forever to bake so get comfortable. I recommend coordinating with The Godfather I, II and III. Pumpkin and chocolate not only taste great together - your house will smell wonderful while it’s baking. Invite people over.

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease your bread pan.

 

Whatcha Need

1 ½ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

½ tsp salt

½ cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup packed canned organic pumpkin puree

1 overflowing cup of Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate chips

 

Watcha Do

Mix all dry ingredients, except for the sugar and chocolate chips, in a large bowl. With electric mixer, blend butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla. Then, alternate adding parts of the dry mix with pumpkin puree until everything is in the bowl and mixed well. Fold in chocolate chips last. Pour into greased pan and bake for a really long time (an hour or so). Your best bet is to set the timer for 45 minutes and then just keep checking on it after that until you think it’s done. 

 

Whatcha Got

This is a delicious, but very dense, cake. It’s SO good and after writing this post, I think I have to make it tomorrow. A slice with a cup of coffee in the morning... bliss.

Cupcake Love

 

Ok, so, I've seen Sandra Lee's semi-homemade TV show on Food Network plenty of times and I have to say - me likey. I like that you don’t need to have a garden bounty of fruits and vegetables in the backyard of your non-existent Hampton home. Or that you don’t have to jet set to Italy to peruse the local markets. And that you don’t have to have sprigs of random herbs and spices lying around your kitchen. With shortcuts in mind, I improvised and came up with a quick cream cheese frosting recipe that is absolutely deLARcious. This frosting makes Betty Crocker's dark chocolate cake mix taste like you got cupcakes from a specialty bakery... here we go!

All You Need

8 oz package of organic cream cheese

1 ½ cups of organic powdered sugar

1 splash of organic milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Secret Weapon (I almost forgot!)

1 Large Handful of Ghirardelli’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

IMPORTANT: Before putting cupcakes in the oven, drop two or three chocolate chips into the center of each. No joke, the husband said, “There was a little surprise in that bite!”

While the cupcakes are baking, place 8 oz. package of cream cheese on stove top to soften. I bake each batch of 12 separately because I lack appropriate baking supplies so the cream cheese has plenty of time to sit on the warm stove. I don’t even use a cupcake pan. I just put those little foil baking cups on a baking tray.

Whip frosting ingredients together with electric mixer. It may not look like enough, but it will definitely cover 20 cupcakes. The other 4 are appetizers for the baker. Frost cupcakes after they've been cooled for about 15 minutes. Sprinkle your favorite sprinkle or candy on top. Color coordinate for current holiday. I chose a simple winter festive vibe for a book club meeting I hosted the other night.

Any other secret weapons out there? Please share!

Yellow and Small Make Perfection

  

I bought two of these little yellow cups on a whim from Anthropologie weeks ago. I proceeded to use them ALL the time so I had to go back and get four more. At $2.50 a piece, it’s totally worth it to have a set of six. Anthropologie carries these in white, Tiffany blue, bright orange, and various pastels. Irresistible!! Imagine chilled dark chocolate pudding topped with a dollop of whipped cream in a Tiffany blue cup served with an ice wine – dinner guests will love this! A couple photos on how they brighten a table are here.

AND I had no idea how handy these little cups would be and how great they look against our basic white dishware. Several ways we’ve used them so far – 1) dipping sauces during debate parties, 2) cherry tomato salad, the little cup holds an appropriate serving size, looks adorable on the plate and keeps your salad dressing away from your sweet potato fries, 3) a small scoop of vanilla ice cream to taste with your tawny port. I’ve also whisked up homemade salad dressing in one of these. No need to measure – it’s the perfect size mixing bowl when making dressing for two. Another idea: fill with chopped chives and other toppings for a baked potato party!