Mess of Greens

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dessert

Oatmeal Lace Cookies

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Oh y’all, what do you do when you need to take a gift and the hostess doesn’t like chocolate?

Boone’s mama makes the most amazing chocolate covered peanut butter balls (read: an amazing homemade version of a Reece’s cup) every Christmas and this year we had like a zillion extra. We were going to a friend’s house for dinner and I thought we should take them a few (I mean, we could definitely eat ALL of the leftovers, but we probably shouldn’t, right?) but then Boone reminded me that our hostess hates chocolate. Seriously, hates chocolate.

I knew I needed to make something non-chocolatey, festive, and pretty, but was tired from all the holiday cooking. Thankfully I was lucky enough to run across what seemed like an easy recipe my mom used to make for dinner parties and ladies’ luncheons a few days earlier in The Memphis Cookbook from the Memphis Junior League. This little cookie crisp is sweet, and dainty, with a browned butter or caramel flavor, plus it looks pretty fancy although the ingredient list is super easy. Perfect.

FYI, The ingredient list was simple, but it took a little more baking finesse than i’d imagined. in fact, I made 2.5 batches to get the ratio of cookie to cookie sheet right (they spread out A LOT and my first batch ended up as one huge cookie stuck to parchment paper) and get them to look much like lace, and since I was giving them to a friend, they had to look “just so”. Read on for the recipe and my hints!

Oatmeal Lace Cookies (or butter snowflakes)
Yields: approximately 15-20

What You Need:
1/2 C Flour
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 C rolled oats
2 Tablespoon heavy cream
1/2 C melted butter
2 Tablespoons light corn syrup
1 Tablespoon vanilla

What To Do:
Preheat the oven to 375, and get started by sifting the flour, the sugar, and the baking powder together into a medium bowl. Add in the butter, oats, cream, vanilla, and corn syrup (so far so good, right?)

Once it’s all mixed together, drop small spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. When I say “small” I mean a teeny tiny amount, y’all. Definitely less than a quarter sized spoonful but more than a nickel. Also, stay away from wax or parchment paper… A plain old cookie sheet will do.

 

You get the best spreading results if you smush the dough down flat a little. Also, make sure to leave plenty of room for the cookies to spread out (because they will spread, and spread a lot). I got best results when I put only 3 rows across on my sheet, and then about 4 cookies down which ended up being about 2 1/2″ to 3″ between the cookies.

Bake the cookies at 375 for 6-8 minutes or until they’re golden brown and have bubbly holes showing through. (Hence the “lace”). Once you’ve taken the out, let them cool for about 2 minutes and then lift them carefully from the cookie sheet with a thin spatula. Place them on a paper towel until they are crisp. It turns out that I broke about 1/4 of the cookies because I wasn’t careful enough, and just so you know, the ones lighter in color need a little longer to cool before you can pull them up with the spatula… If you try to pick them up too soon they get smushed together and look nothing like lace.

 

But if you get them just right you have THE PERFECT thin, crisp cookie to dress up a bowl of ice cream or serve at a ladies’ tea. Since I was taking these to a friend, i only wanted to give her the pretty ones, so whenever one got broken or had less than perfect edges I just had to keep it for us. (I know, right? so terrible. 😉 They were gone in a day since they’re so thin…I mean, you can have more than one when they’re small right?

 

Blueberry & Peach Crumble

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ina garten is my cooking hero. no…scratch that. outside of my own immediate family, ina garten is my cooking hero. now, don’t get me wrong, i think that the fantastic bloggers over at smitten kitchen and bake or break are pretty fantastic, and i’m a big ole fan of Lynne Rossetto Kasper at the Splendid Table on APM, but something about Ina Garten’s recipes and style really resonate with me. For her, food is a way of showing her love, her care, her respect for other people.the Barefoot Contessa has this great way of balancing simplicity with detail. to me, this, and creating something that gives joy, tastes good, and brings people together, is what food is all about.

this summer crumble recipe from the barefoot contessa blends freshness, simplicity, love, and togetherness in just the right way. i’d decided to make the crumble in the first place because boone and i were both going out of town and i had a huge pile of peaches that were all on the over ripe side of ripe, a huge bag of fresh blueberries from my aunt’s farm in south mississipi, plus we were heading to a dinner party for some friends who’d just moved into a big old farmhouse. i was running a little behind schedule and decided i’d wait to bake it until i got there…it was so easy that i pulled it together and we were only a few minutes late. as far as the baking goes, it was too bad they’ve got an antique stove and oven combo. it turns out the stove works perfectly but the oven…not so much. anyway, that just meant that i saved the crumble, baked it at my house, and served it to boone as a going-away brunch before he left for a week long trip to NC, then took the rest over to a pal and new neighbor. it was a hit.
the next time you’re looking for an easy-peasy dessert, try this one on for size.
Blueberry & Peach Crumble
Serves 6 to 8-ish (depending on how hungry you are)
What you need: 
For the Fruit:
4 to 6 ripe peaches
1 cup fresh blueberries (mine were fresh but I’d frozen them the day before)
2 tsp grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup stevia (or 1/2 cup sugar)
1/4 cup flour
For the Crumble: 
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 cup stevia
1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 pound (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced

What to do:

Preheat the Oven to 350, and then get your stockpot out and boil some water. cut an “x” in the bottom of each peach and then drop the peaches into the boiling water for 30 seconds or so, and pull them out with tongs and drop them into ice water or cold, cold water..Let them cool briefly. The immersion will help you easily peel the skin off, which helps with texture and flavor. They’l start slipping and sliding everywhere, so be careful as you cut them into smaller wedges. (I sliced from top to bottom and the pit came out pretty easily.)

 

grate the lemon zest, and then mix the peach slices, blueberries, stevia, flour, lemon zest and lemon juice together and pour into your baking dish. my hero suggests using ramekins, an idea i LOVE but one that just didn’t work since i needed to transport them.
 

after you’ve prepped the fruit, it’s time to make the crumble. y’all, this was so crazy easy.. i’m a dough moron (meaning that rarely does pie dough or pizza dough or bread dough EVER turn out like i want it to, but this was too simple to mess up)
basically, you cut the butter into little pieces then mix it with the flour, brown sugar, stevia, and salt using your paddle attachment on your mixer. i smushed it around with my hands a little bit for good measure, but once everything was combined and rolling around in little pea-sized balls, i knew it was ready to go. i took the dough-peas out of the mixer and smushed them again into flat little pieces, then laid them on top of the fruit until in covered most of it. (of COURSE you could do something fancy with cookie cutters if you felt so inclined, but remember, i was pressed for time and not really into that sort of thing, anyway.)

 

Bake the crumble for 40 to 45 minutes at 350 until it’s bubbly and brown, and serve. Honestly, i’m of the school that pie NEEDS vanilla ice cream to “cut the sweet” but this was just the right amount of sweet and fruit, so it didn’t even need it.besides, my weight watchers commitment is totally on a backside with leading a teacher retreat, moving to a new town and house, going to a 4th of July BBQ, and attending a week long conference in LA so i couldn’t in good conscience have this crumble AND ice cream for breakfast.
but you could. 😉

 

 

Warm Homemade Banana Pudding (light!)

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Warm Homemade Banana Pudding
Weight Watcher’s Points: 5 per serving
One batch: 8 servings

Warm banana pudding… truly, there’s no dessert so sweet, and creamy, and velvety. some people think that homemade banana pudding should be cold, and made with vanilla or banana flavored jello pudding…but once you’ve tasted this, you’ll never go back. It’s not that I won’t eat the cold, jello-based, slightly crunchy kind from buffets or pot lucks, (i mean, it’s BANANA PUDDING. I’ll eat any kind any where…) but the jello version just isn’t as silky, comforting, and refined as the warm homemade kind that my grandmother used to make.

In fact, she taught me that real banana pudding involves bananas, actual nabisco ‘nilla wafers, and baked custard. Not everyone is aware of just how amazing this custardy-kind truly is (which means more for me!)

To celebrate losing 7 pounds, I decided that I could splurge a little with my favorite dessert, BUT I didn’t want to entirely blow it out points-wise, so I made a few substitutions for a heavy-on-taste but lighter- on-fat-and-calories version and took it on over to our friends Ashley and Will. You can ask them if they could tell it was “light” and whether they ate more right out of the serving bowl… (our secret) 😉

What you need:
4 ripe bananas
1 box of reduced fat nabisco ‘nilla wafers (or the regular kind, but that adds more points)
2 cups skim milk (or whole milk..whatever floats your boat)
6 egg whites (tradionally 3 whole eggs)
1 tsp vanilla (oops. i forgot this, but it turned out just fine)
1/6 cup stevia + 1/6 cup sugar (or you can use 1/3 cup sugar if you aren’t worried about calories)
1/8 teaspoon salt

What to do:
getting started is easy-peasy. preheat your oven to 315 (unless you’re using only sugar. then preheat it to 325) thinly slice a banana and layer it with your ‘nilla wafers.

 

in this bowl it took me about 18-20 wafers and banana slices per layer, but i’m not a stickler for perfect layers, so that’s up to you.
once  you’ve got the bananas and wafers taken care of, tackle the custard. separate your eggs, then combine your sugars/stevia mixture, salt, and egg whites into a bowl and whisk together vigorously (you want them frothy)

take the milk and pour it into a small saucepan on low heat. warm it until it steams (under no circumstances should you let it boil..seriously, you’ll get up with chunky milk. so. gross.) then pour it slowly stirring it into the egg mixture.

 

pour the mixture over the wafers and bananas and bake, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes. let it cool for 20 minutes then cover it until you’re ready to serve it!

 

this stuff is bananas. 😉

 

 

Bourbon Chocolate Cupcakes

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with chocolate coconut milk ganache.
One of the first times i realized how completely and totally smitten i was with boone was a sunday in atlanta after church. afterwards we ended up at brunch at the flying biscuit, a quirky, crunchy brunch-lunch spot in decatur where everything is made from whole grains and is a little bit vegetarian and a little bit paula deen. i have absolutely no recollection of what we ate that day, but i remember sitting on the closed patio under an enormous heater when it was just a little too cold to be on any sort of patio and i remember laughing so hard. I remember lingering over my food so we could keep talking, and then slowly getting up from the table so some truly patient soul could finally eat.
all that is to say, the flying biscuit played a role in our courtship, and in several other friendships we built in the atl (right betty? craig? jen?) so i was glad to end up with boone’s mom’s copy of the flying biscuit cafe cookbook after a visit to north carolina.
i had an urge to bake last sunday after church and pulled out this cookbook to try the bourbon chocolate cake recipe i’d seen a few days before. bourbon has a special place in southern culture, so it seems fitting that a southern cake involve a little of the stuff. since it wasn’t anyone’s birthday, and since just the image of TWO people eating ONE cake gives me double chins, i went with cupcakes…much easier to share, to store, to eat without guilt. 😉
a note about these little fellas: they are delicious and stay moist for days. also, if you eat one and go to a business meeting, people might just smell the alcohol on your breath and ask if you had a toddy. if you don’t want to share the cupcakes, don’t deny it. 😉
What you need:
For the cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups hot (not boiled) bourbon
1/4 cup hot coffee
5 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
1.2 cup unsalted, softened butter
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs at room temp.
For the ganache:
6 oz semisweet chocolate, cut into pieces
6 oz unsweetened coconut milk
you can also make the kind the flying biscuit tells you to make that involves  12 oz semisweet chocolate and 1 cup heavy cream, but this tasted AMAZING and involved significantly fewer calories.
What you do:
preheat that over to 275 and flour, line or spray your cake pan or muffin tins. (two 9″ cake pans or 24 cupcake tins) sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
after you cut up the chocolate and butter, combine it with the hot bourbon and coffee. Cover it and let is stand until the chocolate and butter are entirely melted.

this is what the bourbon looks like… can you smell it yet?

apparently my bourbon and my coffee weren’t hot enough (although they were steaming like crazy) so I had to pop it all in the microwave for a few seconds (don’t worry, i didn’t use the metal bowl.) once everything is melted, stir in the sugar and let it stand and cool. using a wire whisk, add the flour a little bit at a time , then add in the eggs and the vanilla. pour the batter into the cake pans, bake about 35-45 minutes, (or until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake bounces back after you push gently on it).

while you wait on the little fellas to bake (or cool, whatever) it’s time to make the ganache!this is so easy that you may think you’re doing it wrong…but no.
so, cut up your chocolate and heat up the coconut milk (or heavy cream) until it’s scalded but not boiling. pour it over your chocolate and stir until it’s completely melted. stir or whisk it to give it some body, and then let it cool. note: it WILL be runny at first, but as it cools it will become shiny and thick, and be completely spreadable. if you use heavy cream (but why bother?) you can use a mixer to beat the ganache until it’s fluffy, but seriously, why bother when people can’t even taste the coconut and think it’s the real thing? (true story).

spread the ganche over the cupcakes or cake, and voila’. a bourbon chocolate cupcake.

Murphy’s Tollhouse Pie

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I turned twenty nine on Saturday (yikes!), and when my mama asked my what kind of birthday cake I wanted, I told her that I’d rather have a Tollhouse Pie like the one from one of my favorite Atlanta restaurants, Murphy’s. sure, there are “traditionally” southern establishments in ATL, but it IS in atlanta, and has been around for an unusually long time (I ate there with my debate team in high school, on my first Atlanta apartment hunting trip with my mom, and then again on an early date with boone), plus, it’s just delicious. Murphy’s is in my fave ATL neighborhood, the highlands, and is super close to the teeny basement apartment where boone proposed…and their tollhouse pie is. the. bomb. dot. com.
i know it was my own birthday dessert, but mama let me help with the baking since I love doing it but always feel like i need a really good reason to put so much labor and love into something so unhealthy. regardless, we had a great time baking–and then eating– that pie. read on for the recipe.
What you need: 
For the Oreo Crust:
7/8 Cup (7 oz) fine Oreo crumbs
1/4 Cup chopped walnuts
1/4 Cup Salted (or unsalted, but salted works fine) Butter

For the Filling:
1 Cup Light brown sugar (had dark brown, and it works just fine)
6 tablespoons (3 oz) Granulated sugar
3/4 Cup  (6 oz) Bread flour
4 eggs (the recipe doesn’t say, but I figure this is 4 med or 3 large)

5/8 Cup (5 oz) butter
5/8 Cup (5 oz)Chocolate chips
5/8 Cup (5 oz)White chips
5/8 Cup (5 oz) chopped Walnut pieces
we added 1/4 tsp of vanilla

What to do:
To make the crust, crush the oreo cookies without the cream into a fine powder using a food processor, (or better yet, use the pre-crushed oreo crumbs) Melt the butter and with the crumbs and nuts. Press into a 10” pie tin. Cool until hard.

 
Blend together with the paddle part of your mixer the brown and granulated sugar and the flour.
  
Add in the eggs, and then melt the butter for the filling and cool to room temperature and pour it into the mixture. (this keeps the butter from scrambling the eggs, I figure). Mix the chips and walnuts into the batter slowly until blended.

so, so, so delicious.

Pour the batter into the prepared crust; bake at 250 degrees for 90 – 110 minutes until the crust is light brown. Let it cool completely before serving if you want it to be firm and cut cleanly. I honestly couldn’t wait because i wanted warm pie so badly…I ended up with un-perfect slices. oh well. it didn’t taste un-perfect.

 

note on my photos: although my mama was 100% against my help on my own cake, my really good reason was the NEW camera boone gave me….it had to charge for most of the baking, but the last few photos were taken with it. i’m smitten with how sexy the photos turned out and with my wonderful honey who knew EXACTLY what I wanted. 😉 it’s A-mazing what the right tools can do.

the king of cakes…

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IMG_3816

so tomorrow is ash wednesday, marking the beginning of Lent. i’m not sure what’s gotten into me, but i’ve decided to give up sweets for all forty days. God help me.

in my own “last hurrah” to all things delicious (and as a tip of my hat to one of my favorite southern cities, new orleans), i decided to make two giant king cakes this weekend for our church’s mardi gras celebration. this way, i could use up my excess butter/sugar/eggs AND store up as many calories as possible. good idea? i think so. anyway, this is absolutely the most authentic recipe i’ve found (and growing up so close to new orleans, i know my king cake) so it’s totally worth the time and caloric intake. it’s just perfect.


well, it’s perfect if you think that using nearly a pound of butter and enough sugar to give anyone diabetes is ok…


i wish you could taste this over the interweb…


if you like what you see, leave a comment and i’ll email you my new recipe plus a few tweaks I added from other king cake versions i’ve tried. It’s sooo good..the dough has a lovely depth of flavor and stays moist for a relatively long time.

can you read this? I think if you click on it and open it in another window it should get bigger…
if not, leave me your email address below and I’ll send a bigger file to you! it’s so long and involved that it would take days to type out.
also, make a note to add lemon zest to the dough (1 1/2 tablespoons) and use brown sugar instead of white sugar in the filling to make it extra delicious. In case you’re wondering where i got it, I think this came from USA Today or something like it…enjoy friends!