Gratuitous Cuteness

A comforter, haphazardly tossed over a chair, becomes a nest for Topher.

Dorie Greenspan's Chewy, Chunky Blondies

My friends and I get together at least once a month to play board games, and when we do, the rules are pretty simple: You bring your own booze, and games and a snack to share. Most people pick up a bag of chips or some hummus and once, famously, a box of Twinkies.

As you can imagine, that's not good enough for me - not when I have a whole captive audience on which to try out new baking recipes.

In preparation for the last get-together, I was flipping through Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours and came upon these "Chewy, Chunky Blondies." (By the way, if you don't have this book and you're into baking, you need to buy it - right now.) I just happened to have all the ingredients in my pantry, and so it made the cut for Game Day.

The thing I love about Dorie's cookie recipes is that they usually are chock full of add-ins, which is how I think cookies and bars should be. In the case of these bars, we're talking a full cup each of coconut, chopped nuts (I used walnuts), butterscotch chips and hand-chopped bittersweet chocolate.

There were almost more add-ins than cookie, and that was just fine by me. But the cookie itself is nice and moist, full of rich, brown-sugary, buttery flavor. They went over a storm, and are definitely something I'd make again.

As a bonus, Game Day was held at the home of a couple; I'd played with the husband before (that sounds weird), but had never met the wife. When I walked in, she looked at the container and said, "If those are what I think they are, you're my new best friend." I asked her if she thought they were blondies and voila...I had a new best friend.

Chewy, Chunky Blondies

a Dorie Greenspan recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups (packed) light brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, cut into chunks, or 1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup butterscotch chips or Heath Toffee Bits

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 325 degrees. Butter a 9x13 inch baking pan and put it on a baking sheet.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Working with a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add both sugars and beat for another 3 minutes, until well-incorporated. Add the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing until they just disappear into the batter. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate, butterscotch chips, nuts and coconut. Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and even the top as much as possible.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center of the blondies comes out clean. (Note: Careful here; a couple of times I got "false readings" because I hit a chunk of butterscotch or chocolate.) The blondies should pull away from the sides of the pan a little and the top should be a nice honey brown. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for about 15 minutes before turning the blondies out onto another rack. Invert onto a rack and cool to room temperature right side up.

Cut into 32 bars, each roughly 2 1/4 by 1 1/2 inches.

David Lebovitz' Potato Leek Soup

I know it seems like I only bake sweets, and I'll admit, I do that a lot. It's not that I'm averse to cooking. It's just that I'm usually just feeding myself, and when I am, I'm perfectly content to eat peanut butter sandwiches or stir fry some rice and tofu. Or just pop a batch of popcorn to eat while playing Mass Effect.

When I do cook, I like to do something that can be stretched out for informal meals throughout the week - beans and rice in the Crock Pot, for instance, or a pot of soup.

Key this week's recipe from David Lebovitz. I love Lebovitz, because he's funny, he's from San Francisco (even if he now lives in Paris), and he makes some seriously good grub. (Plus, he's written the world's best ice cream book.)

I came across this recipe on his site a few days' back, and since we're currently smack dab in the middle of the Bay Area's monsoon season (didn't realize we had those, did you?), I figured it was as good a time as any to pull it out.

The thing I loved about this recipe is the balance. In other potato-leek soup recipes I've tried, the flavors weren't balanced enough for my taste. They were too, well, leeky.

Which reminds me of a funny story about leeks: I was shopping once with my friend Jennie, who is totally punilicious. I love puns, which annoyed everyone else, because it meant I was always encouraging Jennie's terrible puns. Anyway, we were shopping, and our friend suggested we buy leeks for the stew we were making. Cue Jennie:

"Well, if they're LEEKS, we need a double bag!"

Get it?? See what she did th... Oh, never mind.

Anyway, David's soup was none too leeky, and had the perfect blend of potato and leek. I used a rich homemade veggie stock I had on hand instead of water, and I can't help but think that boosted the flavor a bit, too. Best of all, since I'm currently eating strict vegetarian, it could be made completely vegan (subbing olive oil for butter).

And it made the house smell all warm and homey.

So, if you're looking for a nice warm soup for your own monsoon season, I'd highly recommend David Lebovitz' Potato Leek Soup.

TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread

I actually made this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Cocoa-Nana Bread, over the New Year's break, in anticipation of today. It certainly is an interesting hybrid: Is it chocolate or banana? Is it a bread or a cake?

On the former, it's definitely more chocolate than banana, in my opinion. I know the combo sounds kind of odd, but the banana is almost an afterthought - what with the full cup of cocoa powder and chunks of bittersweet chocolate. It's almost as if the banana is there to give the bread a nice, moist texture, but the banana flavor really only hits you at the end of the taste.

And while it's called Cocoa-Nana BREAD, I'd beg to differ. Texture-wise, this is much closer to pound cake than to, say, banana bread. Part of that is the mixing method; quick breads like banana bread mix the dry and wet ingredients together separately, then stir them together. This bread is made more like a cake, by creaming the butter and sugar, then mixing in the other ingredients.

The result is a dense, thick loaf that really should be called Cocoa-Nana CAKE.

This was delicious served on its own, but it really came to life when I spread it with cherry preserves. Nigella Lawson has a chocolate-cherry trifle recipe that calls for sandwiching chocolate cake like this with cherry preserves, and I really think this would be the perfect base for such a trifle. I didn't have enough leftovers to try it, but I will.

In the meantime, if you want the recipe, head over to Obsessed with Baking.

Sunday Brunch: Sears Fine Foods

Welcome to Sunday Brunch here at the Cinema! Sunday brunch is kind of an institution here in the San Francisco Bay Area (at least in the crowd I run with), and there are a lot of places that do it really well. I thought I'd take you through some of them, thus allowing me an excuse to go to brunch this morning to get pictures. See how this works?

Let's start with the granddaddy of all of them:

Yes, it's called Sears. I love saying "I had brunch at Sears", which conjures up images of me hanging out on a washing machine, eating eggs benedict. However, the two Sears are not associated, and there are no washing machines in sight. Sadly.

What Sears Fine Food is is one of the most famous places for breakfast in all of San Francisco. It's located right on Union Square, and is a major tourist draw. It's got a very old-fashioned SF vibe inside, filled with dark wood, white and black tile flooring, brass fixtures and neatly dressed waitstaff.

Miss Cassy, perusing the menu at Sears.

A couple of my girlfriends and I "discovered" this place a few months ago, because it's very close to the movie theater we like to go to downtown. I say discovered because it falls into that old adage where you never really experience the city you live in the way tourists do. (I, for instance, have never been to Alcatraz.) Lots of natives don't come here for that reason, and they're missing out, I say.

There's always a line outside Sears, especially on weekend mornings. This is actually one reason a lot of people don't experience it; they look at that line, which can stretch down the sidewalk, and freak out that they'll starve to death before they make it in the door. And they leave.

Here's an insider's secret: do not be intimidated by the line. I have never once been in it where I waited more than 10 minutes before I got seated. The truth is that a.) Sears is a cavernous place, and they move people in and out pretty briskly and b.) there's no place inside to wait. So, people wait on the sidewalk, but that's really not an indication of how long it will take to get seated. What would look like an hour wait in the rain at another restaurant is just a few minutes there.

So be brave and stay in line. Your reward will be...

The most awesome French toast you've ever had. This is what Cassy gets almost every time. One thing I love about Sears Fine Food is that they bring out their maple syrup warm.

Asking for extra powdered sugar gets you a whole ceramic bowl filled with the stuff. Cassy sprinkles it all over her French toast.

This is their most famous breakfast item: the Swedish pancakes. They're dollar-sized pancakes with a bit of buckwheat in the batter. They serve them with a little lingonberry sauce on the side, and I must say they are darn tasty.

This bad boy, however, is what I love the most. It's their "Crisp Pecan Waffle" and it makes me want to cry, it's so good. (You pronounce it PEA-can, by the way, not puh-CAHN. Don't let my mom tell you different.)

Actually, pretty much everything we've tried at Sears is delicious - even their hash browns are crispy on the outside and creamy and smooth inside.

We haven't done lunch or dinner there, but my friend Terry had a club sandwich on our last trip together, and she said it was just as good as their breakfast food.

Happy Terry, full of sandwich.

The waitstaff is always attentive, and when you're done, they give you a little token. You can keep it as a souvenir, or drop it in a slot machine at the front for a chance to win a free meal. We never win, but we keep trying, because at the very least, we still get to eat yummy waffles and french toast.

If you're in San Francisco, brave the line and try Sears Fine Food for brunch. Then you can be like me!

Next Sunday: Nona's Kitchen, in my hometown.

My First Pie

I made a pie.

Doesn't sound all that exciting, does it?

After all, pretty much every post on this blog is about me making something or other. So, why should a pie be all that different?

Because - and here I have to make a confession: I was scared of pies. Absolutely terrified. Well, more specifically, I was scared of pie crusts. I just couldn't get them right. They always tore into pieces when I tried to roll them out, or shrunk into the filling when I baked them. But they usually didn't get far enough to be called pies; they were more like balls of slimy chunks of unrollable dough.

Yum.

I have never - not once - made a final pie that I would want to serve anyone, and since I am not one to resort to ready-made crusts, I just gave up on them.

Stupid pies.

The problem is, I am seriously considering going to pastry school. If not full-time, at least taking some more in-depth pastry and baking classes. And how could I hold my head up in pastry school if I couldn't even make a simple pie crust?

So, a few days ago, I got it into my head that I was going to make a pie. I happened to have a jar of leftover pumpkin-pecan butter from Thanksgiving that I needed to use, and a little cream and an egg would turn that into a pie filling. So, I had only to tackle to the crust.

I turned to Cooks Illustrated, and they had at least one nice recipe that didn't require a food processor. (I don't like them, but it seems like every pie crust recipe requires one nowadays.) It included both shortening and butter, but here's something interesting - they have you freeze the butter, and then grate it into the flour (mixed with a little salt and sugar) after you've smashed in the chilled shortening. Then you cut that with a pastry cutter, and add some iced water until it forms a dough.

I pressed that dough into a circle until it held together and waited while it chilled. I was able to roll it out and into the pie plate, then added the filling. Less than an hour later, I had a real, honest-to-goodness, delicious pie.

It even looked okay. Sorta.

On the plus side, the crust was delicious - the butter gave it really good flavor, while the shortening made it nice and flaky. It stayed crisp, even on the bottom and even the next day. Cooks Illustrated isn't big on people reprinting their recipes, but it's in all their magazines and websites - I think it's called the traditional single-crust pie dough.

There were obviously a couple of negatives that I will need to iron out with practice. For starters, I got a little nervous rolling it out, and stopped too soon. That not only meant that my crimping looked kind of bad, but there was not quite enough dough on a couple of sides of the crust, and it crumpled in on itself. It also got a little brown; the filling recipe directed you to start out at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, and at the end of that, the edges were already brown. I protected them with foil the rest of the way, but they were still too dark. Next time, I'd wrap them in foil from the start.

But all in all, I was pleased. I had made a real-live pie, and I know what to do to get even better at it in the future.

Heck, maybe next Thanksgiving I will make my own pies. We'll see.

The point is: I did it. I made a pie.

Go me.

TWD: Chocolate-Oatmeal "Almost Candy" Bars

Again with the not posting my Tuesdays with Dorie recipe on Tuesday. Sorry about that. It's purely a reflection of my own laziness, and not a reflection on these Chocolate-Oatmeal "Almost Candy" Bars. Because they rock.

Hard.

The recipe is really straightforward; it's just a bar cookie with an oatmeal cookie base, covered in a layer of chocolate. You hold back some of the oatmeal base to make a crumbled topping, and then bake.

There's lots of little interesting bits. The oatmeal cookie base is studded with pieces of salted peanuts, and there's salted peanuts in the chocolate topping too. The chocolate layer is actually made by melting chocolate chips with condensed milk.

Dorie calls for adding raisins to the chocolate, but that just didn't sound appealing to me. It apparently didn't sound appealing to a lot of other bakers, either, because I read about a lot of substitutions on the forums. I settled on butterscotch chips, which melted nicely into the chocolate and gave an extra hit of sweetness to the bars.

There's really nothing I didn't like about these cookies, and they were super popular when I brought them to work the next day. I recommend you cut them thin (especially because they were really thick). It also makes a really big batch - I had plenty, and only made a half recipe in an 8x8 pan (instead of the 9x13 called for).

They were really sweet, especially with the butterscotch. I can even see making these MORE over the top, by adding coconut to the cookie base, or trying a caramel or dulce de leche layer between the two layers. But honestly, they're delicious and plenty sweet as is.

Overall, I thought these were great, and will probably make them again soon. To get the recipe, go to Confectiona's Realm.