Cooking from Scratch
This happens to be one of the fanciest-looking tarts in Tart It Up! Sweet and Savory Tarts and Pies, by Eric Lanlard, and, at first glance, it looks impossible for us to tackle. But, here at Scratchin’ Central, we tackled it with a vengeance, just so you could, too. In case the title of this post doesn’t warn you, making this tart takes two days, which sounds intimidating, but, we’re not going to be intimidated, are we? Nope! Not us. Let’s get to it.
For about a year now, we’ve thought of picking up an ice cream maker attachment for our mixer. We haven’t done it yet, mainly because we aren’t sure how often we’d use it. Would it just end up in the cupboard taking up space? Possibly. But, we do like ice cream, and the idea of scratchin’ up our own sounds like a really good one. Can you say fresh and rich?
Even though we don’t have an ice cream maker, it turns out that we can still make up a rich, creamy, cold dessert treat: semifreddo. And, it’s pretty easy!
Continue reading “Vanilla Bean Semifreddo”
Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been getting huge carrots in our CSA shares. Each carrot is often over a half pound! That’s one big carrot. You’d think that they’re woody, tough, and kind of flavorless, but, instead, even at this size, they’re sweet and tender. But, we still have the question of what do you do with lots of huge carrots? For a weekend treat, we went with carrot cake.
Continue reading “Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting”
Tax Day. For tax day, you are going to need something simple make up, yet something that looks and tastes like it’s from a high-end restaurant. We have the answer. How about individual savory tartlets that take a total of 15 minutes of work? Yep, 15 minutes of your time. Of course they do have to bake, but, while they’re in the oven, you can find that last tax deduction, or, if you’ve already filed, celebrate with an adult beverage of your choice.
Continue reading “Mushroom Pea Tartlets”
We wanted a treat to bring down to some friends, but we were getting bread dough together so we wanted something quick and easy. Quick and easy is good. Now, we’d also like it to be good. And since we knew of at least one person who was gluten intolerant, we thought if we could only find a fast, easy, tasty, gluten-free treat, we’d be all set. Well, it may not seem likely, but there is such a treat. Continue reading “Almond Macaroons”
Before we quick whipped up a batch of gnocchi, we checked on the Internet for a few tips about gnocchi. While we’ve made it before, it never hurts to see if there are some good ideas out there.
And, we found ideas that seemed break down into three categories: 1) gnocchi is really difficult; so difficult that many people are afraid even to try making it, or that they tried and it was a disaster so they won’t try again; 2) to make gnocchi, you need one of the following: grater, grinder, ricer, dicer, shredder, masher, or some other specialized device to mash the potatoes correctly; and, 3) some ritual involving the cooking method of the potatoes: baked, boiled, boiled in salted water, boiled after being halved, hopping on one foot while the potatoes cool, etc.
We’re going to address all three of these in our gnocchi. To resolve the fear of disaster, we suggest that you put on steel-toed boots, ear protection, and safety goggles. Just kidding! Remember they are nothing but small potato dumplings and try again; we’ll attempt to give you a few tips as we work through this recipe. Specialized equipment? Bah. People have been making gnocchi for hundreds of years. In all kinds of conditions and kitchens. In fact, go rent La Strada and watch the background and let us know if you think there were many ricers available when that movie was filmed. And, to show you that you can make great gnocchi without anything special, we are going to make gnocchi with a knife, fork, and bowl. Actually, the bowl is optional; you could just use your counter. And as far as cooking goes, we’ll just microwave the potatoes. Sure, Italian grandmothers wouldn’t have a microwave, but the cooking method isn’t important. Continue reading “Potato Gnocchi”
For our “fancy meal” this week, we went with
Continue reading “Goat Cheese Tartlets”
