One-Sided French Braid

Pretty self-explanatory. But part the hair over to one side. For a more dramatic look, you could part more hair than I did to one side, and I'm sure it would look nice if the braid was on the side of your head instead of on top too.  Pretty simple and elegant. 

 Just the side french braid.

 Finished.

Lemon Blueberry Brown Sugar Pancakes

What a mouthful. But trust me, they are totally worth it.  I originally found this recipe on epicurious.com forever ago, and it has served me well many times. I mean, I ate almost all of these by myself... 




Lemon Blueberry Brown Sugar Pancakes

Makes about 10 pancakes


1 large egg
1 TBL lemon zest
3/4 C milk
3 TBL dark brown sugar
2 TBL butter melted
3/4 C and 2 TBL flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 C blueberries


In small bowl, whisk to ether egg, zest, milk, brown sugar, and butter.  In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and whisk together until just combined.  Stir in blueberries gently. 


Heat a medium pan to medium low heat and add butter. Let the butter melt completely before adding the batter.  Pour batter in 1/3 C measures. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

My all time favorite pie as a child. When my mom brought this pie home, I always asked her if I could have a piece (my mom ate pie for dinner, yes, it's true). It has been, at least over a decade since I've had strawberry rhubarb pie. Mostly because the bakery near our house went out of business a long time ago, and then I moved away. But I've been waiting to enjoy this pie again. I've made apple pie. And it's quite wonderful. I've made lots of tarts. And now this. If my mom were still around, she would be asking me for a slice, or in reality, the crust....


Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Crust
1 3/4 C four
1 TbL sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 C cold unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces
2 egg yolks
3 TBL cold milk


In stand mixer with paddle attachment, mix together flour, sugar, and salt. Scatter butter over top and mix on low speed for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes and the butter is in clumps about the size of butter. In a small bowl, whisk together milk and egg yolks until combined. Add it to the flour mixture and mix on low speed for about 30 seconds. The dough should just barely come together. 


Dump the dough onto an un-floured fork surface and gather it into a mound. Once in a  mound, with the palm of your hand, pull down on the dough to streak the butter as evenly as possible. You don't have to do it this way, the goal is just to streak the butter throughout the dough, while keeping it as cold as possible. The cold ingredients are what make the crust so flaky. once streaked enough, flatten into an inch thick disc, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 4 days.


Filling
1 16 oz container fresh strawberries (hulled and halved)
About 20 oz rhubarb trimmed in 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch pieces (I like my strawberry rhubarb to be heavier on the tart side)
1/2 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/4 C corntstarch
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt


Combine ingredients in a bowl, tossing together lightly to make sure everything is combined. I make my filling while my pie crust is baking. That way, it has time to absorb all the flavors.


Preheat oven to 350 degrees and have a 9 inch pie dish ready. 


Take dough out of fridge and break off 3/4 of the disc and put the remaining quarter back in the fridge. On a lightly floured work surface, use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a 12 inch in diameter circle. It should be about 1/8 of an inch thick.  Beautiful crusts is not my thing, so if I manage to get it all in one piece with nov racks, I'll take it. Wrap the dough around the rolling pin, and move it over to the pie dish.  Loosely place the dough in the pie dish, allowing about an inch of dough to hang over. Gently pat the dough into the pan.  Refrigerate the dough  for at least 30 minutes, or wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for a day. 


Remove dough from fridge and place parchment paper over it, and then put pie weights (actual pie weights or uncooked rice works) on top of the paper. Blind bake for about 30 minutes or until the crust is a nice golden brown. The edges can be a little darker. remove from oven and let cool slightly on a wire rack. Remove the other quarter of the dough from the fridge. 


Pour in filling. 


With the second piece of dough, roll it into a rectangle 10 inches long and 6 wide, about 1/4 inch thick. Using a pastry cutter or regular pizza cutter, cut the dough into 10 inch long strips. The width is really up to you.  You can arrange them however you want. This dough recipe (from Flour) says to arrange them at 45 degree angles from each other. I just work across one side and then do the other.  As I mentioned before, beautiful crusts is not my thing. As long as they taste wonderful. Anyways, once the strips are arranged, sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top.  


Bake for 1 hour up to 1 hour and 20 minutes. When it's done, the top strips should be golden brown all over. Let cool on a wire rack before enjoying! 

Cinnamon Latte

I learned this from a friend who works at Starbucks...

Ignore the cinnamon stick... it's for decoration. Because, you know, I'm so fancy!


If you just add cinnamon to the milk before you heat it or froth it or whatever you do to make your milk hot, just add ground cinnamon.  I have a Nespresso maker and the milk frother that came with mine is pretty tiny, so I did a few dashes and mixed it in before frothing. it had a very subtle cinnamon flavor, which was nice for me. I would imagine for every cup of milk maybe 1 tsp of cinnamon. No, that sounds like too much, I'd go 1/2 a teaspoon at most. Or, it's really up to your taste buds. just make sure you mix the milk and cinnamon together completely (or as completely as possible). Then just sprinkle some ground cinnamon on top and bam, flavored latte with no extra sugar. 

Graham Cracker Bread

Graham Cracker Bread


1 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 C unsalted butter at room temperature
1/4 dark brown sugar
1 C graham cracker crumbs plus 4 tsp more 
3 TBL creme fraiche
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C buttermilk
1 1/2 C raisins
Honey


Preheat oven to 350 and butter a 9 x 5 loaf pan. Dust the pan with the 4 teaspoons of graham cracker crumbs. 


In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. set aside. 
In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until the sugar is fully incorporated into the butter, about a minute. Add the creme fraiche and graham cracker crumbs and mix on medium low speed for about 2 minutes. Add the eggs on at a time, and then add the vanilla extract. Mix until all ingredients are combined. Alternate adding the buttermilk and flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture.  Mixing in between each addition on low speed until ingredients are just combined. Mix in the raisins with a spoon. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. 


Bake for 50-60 minutes. mine was done after 50, so you could even check before then. Let cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes, then pop the bread out of the pan and let it remain cooling on the wire rack for 1-2 more hours. Once the bread is cool enough, drizzle honey on the top and serve!  


I'm debating if I should add a 1/4 C of canola oil to this recipe. When I make it again, I definitely will, but if anyone decides to make it with the oil, please let me know how it comes out! 


Other than that, this bread was yummy, especially as my breakfast this morning. :)

P.S. you can store it in an airtight container at room temperature for 4 days!

Cajun Turkey Burgers

One of my weaknesses for food (yes, I actually do have favorites) are turkey burgers. More specifically blackened turkey burgers or sometimes called cajun turkey burgers. a good turkey burger, in my opinion, is harder to do than a good burger because turkey isn't as flavorful as beef.  Nor as juicy and can become dry quite easily. For these reasons, I usually stick to beef burgers and have had my fair share of terrible turkey burgers. I'm thinking frozen patties and stale turkey taste....

So, I decided to create my own turkey burger.  To enjoy and eat whenever I felt like. 

Cajun Turkey Burgers

2 lbs lean ground turkey

1 sweet onion

3 green onion stalks

2 cloves of garlic

2 egg whites

3 TBL flour

1 tsp garlic powder

salt

black pepper

cajun seasoning

cilantro

olive oil

In a large bowl, combine onions, garlic, garlic powder, the egg whites, and flour together. Mix them together using whatever pleases you: a whisk, a fork, a spoon, whatever. Just make sure to break up the eggs and evenly distribute the flour. Then add the turkey meat and mix the onion-egg mixture into the turkey thoroughly. Place a strip of wax paper on the counter and begin rolling the meat-onion mixture into patties.  They can be however big or small, fat or think, you want them to be. I made mine about 1- 1 1/2 inches thick, and about 3-4 inches across.  They were fat little burgers. Place them on the wax paper. Once all the patties are put together on the wax paper, season them with salt and pepper (to your taste) and then cover the top with cajun seasoning. If you don't have cajun seasoning, you could substitute chili powder or paprika.  I'd go easy on the chili powder though.

Over medium heat, pour about 1 TBL of olive oil into a frying pan or skillet.  Let heat for about 5 minutes. Add 2-3 patties at a time to the pan.  Cook for about 5-7 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of your burger, and also the first time will take a little longer.  When you flip the patty over, it should be a dark golden brown.  I had to flip my burgers at least twice on each side to cook them all the way through. I also seasoned the patties with cajun seasoning on both sides (I seasoned the second side after the first flip). Pour more olive oil into the pan for every new wave of patties, but 1/2 TBL will work. I put them on a plate after they were cooked through and sprinkled them with a 6 cheese blend and some fresh cilantro. Mozzarella or Swiss would be yummy here too.

I love onions and garlic, so feel free to lighten the load there too. But basically, these were delicious. Even my brother who hates turkey said theses were amazing. 

4 Side French Braids

It's four french braids starting from the side and going across. Then weaved together and put into a side bun. You could also just do three and braid them together at the side and wear it down. I think that would look nice, as well. As long as all the braids were braided in the right direction for a low ponytail. . . or high one if you're feeling very 80s. 

Makes for a classy up-do, I think.