Cuckoo for Couscous

I have another baking post in the works, but felt like maybe I should throw in some real food too.  Despite what it may look like on this blog, I do make and eat things that don't come from recipes where the first step is creaming the butter and sugar.

This meal was made up using various things I had on hand; I even made up the dressing, with great success if I may say so myself.  I started a pot of Israeli Couscous on the stove, carefully following the package instructions for light and fluffy results.

                           

I gathered the rest of the ingredients I wanted to use;

sliced the tomatoes, chopped up the spinach and crumbled the feta (see white block above) into a large bowl.

I mixed olive oil, apple cider vinegar, some brown sugar, lemon juice and thyme in a measuring cup and set it aside.  When the couscous was finished, I added it to the veggies and tossed everything with my homemade dressing.  The final result:

a delicious dinner and packed well for lunch the next day.  I like the larger size and chew of Israeli couscous compared to the tiny grains of regular couscous.  Heartier, easier to eat and quick to prepare, I am sure I will be using it in salads all summer long!

Biscotti

Finals, which seemed to last most of April and into May, can be all consuming.  Long gone are the days of elementary and middle school where homework was a couple of worksheets that once completed, were just that--complete.  In college, but particularly grad school, nothing is done until it's physically (or electronically) handed in.  There are always edits and improvements that can be made; thinking about them and then actually implementing them take up a lot of hours.  I find it important to step away from all that once in a while, and do something different.  In this case, it was baking for various family members I would be seeing for my dad's birthday/surprise reunion/long weekend in NoVA.

Following this recipe from Joy the Baker, I made biscotti for the first time.  It was a two step, spread out over three day process for me, which worked well given all of the school work on my plate.

First step was to candy the pecans.  Appetizing, no?

Even Keizo thought they looked a bit gross; odd coming from someone who likes and eats a lot of natto.  I think it looks pretty much the same, and the pecans smothered with cinnamon and nutmeg smelled a whole lot better.

For the biscotti part, I experimented with gluten-free flour for my cousin's sake.  It worked out pretty well, considering I didn't read all of the fine print about adding xanthan something or other until the dough was already in the oven.

Simple, straightforward ingredients.

Creaming the butter and sugar, then adding the egg and vanilla.

Folding in the pecans from two days before.  Some of the chunks had to be trimmed down with my handy dandy scissors.

The dough was then shaped into logs on parchment paper, baked, slightly cooled, sliced and "baked" again. For their second round in the oven, I turned off the oven and left the biscotti in there until it cooled down.  Seemed to do the trick, I got nice crunchy biscotti without running the oven for multiple hours.

I got out my best wrapping paper (ha ha) and some dollar ribbon to do up bundles to give away.

A few crumbs were all that was left over at the end.  I am happy to report, the biscotti was well received, and I look forward to experimenting with other (more chocolate-y) varieties!

Super Strawberries

This post is long overdue, as even the muffins I froze have been eaten.

If I recall correctly, strawberries were on sale at the grocery store and I bought two containers.  They were on sale because they were on the far side of ripe, and I knew I needed to use them up.

I made "Strawberry Cinnamon Muffins," a recipe that has been languishing in my collection since my days in Japan when I inherited it from Allison when she left to come back to the States. 

Ingredients.

Ingredients get combined in a bowl.

Stirring in the strawb's.

Baking.

Modeling for the camera.

Not pictured: the quick cream cheese frosting I made for the top, which made these muffins more like cupcakes, but certainly didn't stop me from eating them for breakfast.